Thanks for posting here for feedback. In general I think the video introduced too many ideas and didnât explain them enough.
Some point by point feedback:
It seems inappropriate to include âAnd remember that one trillion is one thousand times a billionâ much later after saying âhumanity has a potentially vast future ahead in which we might inhabit countless star systems and create trillions upon trillions of worthwhile livesâ in the first sentence. If people didnât know what the word âtrillionâ meant later, then you already lost them at the first sentence.
Additionally, since I think that essentially all the viewers you care about do already know what âtrillionâ means, including âremember that one trillion is one thousand times a billionâ will likely make some of them think that the video is created for a much less educated audience than them.
âI guess you might be skeptical that humanity has the potential to reach this level of expansion, but thatâs a topic for another video.â Isnât this super relevant to the topic of this video? The video is essentially saying that future civilization can be huge, but if youâre skeptical of that weâll address that in another video. Shouldnât you be making the case now? If not, then why not just start the video with âCivilization can be astronomically large in the future. Weâll address this claim in a future video, but in this video letâs talk about the implications of that claim if true. [Proceed to talk about the question of whether we can tractably affect the size.]
âBut there is another ethical point of view taken into consideration, which is called the âperson affecting viewâ.â I donât think you should have included this, at least not without saying more about it. I donât think someone who isnât already familiar with person affecting views would gain anything from this, but it could very plausibly just be more noise to distract them from the core message of the video.
âIf you donât care about giving life to future humans who wouldnât have existed otherwise, but you only care about present humans, and humans that will come to exist, then preventing existential risk and advancing technological progress have a similar impact.â I think I disagree with this and the reasoning you provide in support of it doesnât at all seem to justify it. For example, you write âIf we increase this chance, either by reducing existential risk or by hastening technological progress, our impact will be more or less the sameâ but donât consider the tractability or neglectedness of advancing technological progress or reducing existential risk.
For the video animation, when large numbers are written out on the screen, include the commas after every three zeros so the viewers can actually tell at a glance what number is written. Rob narrates âten to the twenty-three humansâ and we see 100000000000000000000000 appear on the screen with 0â˛s continuously being added and it gives me the impression that the numbers are just made-up (even though I know theyâre not).
â100 billion trillion livesâ is a rather precise number. Iâd like for you to use more careful language to communicate if things like this are upper or lower bounds (e.g. âat leastâ 100 billion trillion lives) or the outputs of specific numerical estimates (in which case, show us what numbers lead to that output.
Thanks for posting here for feedback. In general I think the video introduced too many ideas and didnât explain them enough.
Some point by point feedback:
It seems inappropriate to include âAnd remember that one trillion is one thousand times a billionâ much later after saying âhumanity has a potentially vast future ahead in which we might inhabit countless star systems and create trillions upon trillions of worthwhile livesâ in the first sentence. If people didnât know what the word âtrillionâ meant later, then you already lost them at the first sentence.
Additionally, since I think that essentially all the viewers you care about do already know what âtrillionâ means, including âremember that one trillion is one thousand times a billionâ will likely make some of them think that the video is created for a much less educated audience than them.
âI guess you might be skeptical that humanity has the potential to reach this level of expansion, but thatâs a topic for another video.â Isnât this super relevant to the topic of this video? The video is essentially saying that future civilization can be huge, but if youâre skeptical of that weâll address that in another video. Shouldnât you be making the case now? If not, then why not just start the video with âCivilization can be astronomically large in the future. Weâll address this claim in a future video, but in this video letâs talk about the implications of that claim if true. [Proceed to talk about the question of whether we can tractably affect the size.]
âBut there is another ethical point of view taken into consideration, which is called the âperson affecting viewâ.â I donât think you should have included this, at least not without saying more about it. I donât think someone who isnât already familiar with person affecting views would gain anything from this, but it could very plausibly just be more noise to distract them from the core message of the video.
âIf you donât care about giving life to future humans who wouldnât have existed otherwise, but you only care about present humans, and humans that will come to exist, then preventing existential risk and advancing technological progress have a similar impact.â I think I disagree with this and the reasoning you provide in support of it doesnât at all seem to justify it. For example, you write âIf we increase this chance, either by reducing existential risk or by hastening technological progress, our impact will be more or less the sameâ but donât consider the tractability or neglectedness of advancing technological progress or reducing existential risk.
For the video animation, when large numbers are written out on the screen, include the commas after every three zeros so the viewers can actually tell at a glance what number is written. Rob narrates âten to the twenty-three humansâ and we see 100000000000000000000000 appear on the screen with 0â˛s continuously being added and it gives me the impression that the numbers are just made-up (even though I know theyâre not).
â100 billion trillion livesâ is a rather precise number. Iâd like for you to use more careful language to communicate if things like this are upper or lower bounds (e.g. âat leastâ 100 billion trillion lives) or the outputs of specific numerical estimates (in which case, show us what numbers lead to that output.