Here’s an interesting tweet from a thread by Ajeya Cotra:
But I’m not aware of anyone who successfully took complex deliberate *non-obvious* action many years or decades ahead of time on the basis of speculation about how some technology would change the future.
I’m curious for this particular line to get more discussion, and would be interested in takes here.
Seems wrong to me. For example, Hamilton and Jefferson on the U.S. patent system. Also debates between Tesla and Edison on DC vs. AC and various policies associated with electricity. Also people working on nuclear regulation. Also people working on the early internet. Also lots of stuff around genetic engineering, the trajectory of which seems to have been shaped by many people taking deliberate action. Also, climate change, where a bunch of people did successfully invest in solar stuff which seems like it’s now paying off quite well, and certainly didn’t seem that obvious.
I don’t know whether any of these count as “non-obvious”. I feel like the “obvious” is doing all the work here, or something.
I will personally venmo[1] anyone $10 per good link they put in to supply background reading for those examples.
Please try to put effort into your links, I reserve the right to read your link and capriciously decide that I don’t like it enough to pay out. Offer valid for one link per historical example with more available at my option.
[Only a weak recommendation.] I last looked at this >5 years ago and never read the whole thing. But FYI that Katja Grace wrote a case study on the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, which established a bunch of voluntary guidelines that have been influential in biotech. Includes analogy to AI safety. (No need to pay me.) https://intelligence.org/files/TheAsilomarConference.pdf
Here’s an interesting tweet from a thread by Ajeya Cotra:
I’m curious for this particular line to get more discussion, and would be interested in takes here.
Seems wrong to me. For example, Hamilton and Jefferson on the U.S. patent system. Also debates between Tesla and Edison on DC vs. AC and various policies associated with electricity. Also people working on nuclear regulation. Also people working on the early internet. Also lots of stuff around genetic engineering, the trajectory of which seems to have been shaped by many people taking deliberate action. Also, climate change, where a bunch of people did successfully invest in solar stuff which seems like it’s now paying off quite well, and certainly didn’t seem that obvious.
I don’t know whether any of these count as “non-obvious”. I feel like the “obvious” is doing all the work here, or something.
I agree obvious is probably doing a lot of work, and is pretty open to interpretation. I still think it’s an interesting question!
I will personally venmo[1] anyone $10 per good link they put in to supply background reading for those examples.
Please try to put effort into your links, I reserve the right to read your link and capriciously decide that I don’t like it enough to pay out. Offer valid for one link per historical example with more available at my option.
[1]: Or transferwise I guess.
[Only a weak recommendation.] I last looked at this >5 years ago and never read the whole thing. But FYI that Katja Grace wrote a case study on the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, which established a bunch of voluntary guidelines that have been influential in biotech. Includes analogy to AI safety. (No need to pay me.) https://intelligence.org/files/TheAsilomarConference.pdf
Maybe some @ https://teddit.nunosempere.com/r/AskReddit/comments/12rk46t/there_is_a_greek_proverb_a_society_grows_great/?sort=top
I feel like non-obvious is very load bearing here because my first thought is Joseph Bazalgette and the London Sewer system.