How about better do good;)
Michał Zabłocki
Karma: 209
I’m glad you enjoyed teaching philosophy, and I don’t want to negate that you had an impact onto your students. However, I can’t really agree with your optimistic view on the “philosophy classroom’ environment.
I’ve spent 5 years studying philosophy at the university and there is indeed a great benefit to discussing things and disagreeing on them, but what I want to state it goes well only as long as the topic *isn’t* controversial. AI risk, I believe, actually falls in this non-controversial category. However, when the topic actually is personal to people and politically-charged, then I’ve observed that there is no more rational discussion and/or good faith—either in the philosophy classroom, or, let’s say, “philosophical spaces” in the Internet. I can have a different opinion than my colleagues on the nature of time and space and it’s all good, but when it comes to discussing e.g. abortion and there’s disagreement, it’s not so “fun” anymore. At least that’s my experience.
This link is broken for me.
I’d counter that the focus on race and gender is very US-centric rather than culturally universal. I volunteer at a local charity, gender proportions are heavily skewed towards women being the bigger group. I neither find it a problem nor think any diversity measures should be introduced. It also seems fairly intuitive to me that it is the people who are the most privileged that can focus on such problems as AGI Safety and existential risk rather than those who struggle financially to live on the week to week basis.
“SBF is an idiot because he’s bad at League of Legends” is the wildest argument I’ve seen in a while.
I’m not sure piling up on a guy for something he said 26 years ago is helpful in achieving most good.