Re. the crying wolf problem, it would be great to see some more systematic historical analyses of social/moral movements that have warned consistently of bad possible outcomes over many years, and then either succeed or failed in being taken seriously over the long term by the public.
My casual impression is that there have been some activist movements that managed to sustain public concern about certain issues consistently for decades, despite worst-case scenarios not happening, e.g.
1) nuclear war: the anti-nuke activists who were warning about nuclear war ever since the 1960s continued to be taken seriously right up to the present, despite nuclear war not happening.
2) climate change: the eco-activists who warned about bad effects of global warming have been taken seriously by many people, including most mainstream media, ever since the 1990s, despite the worst predicted effects (e.g. mass starvation, huge sea level rises, hundreds of millions dead) not happening.
3) Antifa: the ‘anti-fascist’ movement on the political Left has been highly active since the 1990s, and has warned about a looming threat of a fascist/authoritarian takeover of Western democracies, which has never happened; yet their narrative continues to be taken seriously by many Left-leaning activists, journalists, and politicians.
4) AI itself: ever since the 1950s, science fiction authors, movie-makers, and futurists have warned about possible bad outcomes of AI, and those haven’t really happened so far, yet most of the public does not discount those warnings, since they understand that the risk keeps ramping up as AI capabilities increase.
Another example is Net Neutrality, where despite making very specific major predictions that were basically entirely falsified, I have never seen any serious negative consequences for those who argued that repealing net neutrality would be a disaster, nor anyone change their mind as a result about other related issues.
Sean—reasonable points.
Re. the crying wolf problem, it would be great to see some more systematic historical analyses of social/moral movements that have warned consistently of bad possible outcomes over many years, and then either succeed or failed in being taken seriously over the long term by the public.
My casual impression is that there have been some activist movements that managed to sustain public concern about certain issues consistently for decades, despite worst-case scenarios not happening, e.g.
1) nuclear war: the anti-nuke activists who were warning about nuclear war ever since the 1960s continued to be taken seriously right up to the present, despite nuclear war not happening.
2) climate change: the eco-activists who warned about bad effects of global warming have been taken seriously by many people, including most mainstream media, ever since the 1990s, despite the worst predicted effects (e.g. mass starvation, huge sea level rises, hundreds of millions dead) not happening.
3) Antifa: the ‘anti-fascist’ movement on the political Left has been highly active since the 1990s, and has warned about a looming threat of a fascist/authoritarian takeover of Western democracies, which has never happened; yet their narrative continues to be taken seriously by many Left-leaning activists, journalists, and politicians.
4) AI itself: ever since the 1950s, science fiction authors, movie-makers, and futurists have warned about possible bad outcomes of AI, and those haven’t really happened so far, yet most of the public does not discount those warnings, since they understand that the risk keeps ramping up as AI capabilities increase.
I’d welcome other examples or counter-examples.
Another example is Net Neutrality, where despite making very specific major predictions that were basically entirely falsified, I have never seen any serious negative consequences for those who argued that repealing net neutrality would be a disaster, nor anyone change their mind as a result about other related issues.