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Adam Ford & I on Great Filter

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This is a blog on why we believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, how we might do better, and what our descendants might do, if they don't all die.
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Adam Ford & I on Great Filter

Robin Hanson
Jul 29, 2014
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Adam Ford & I on Great Filter

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Adam Ford interviewed me again, this time on the Great Filter:

We have three main sources of info on existential risks (xrisks):

  1. Inside View Analysis – where we try to use our best theories to reason about particular causal processes.

  2. Earth Track Records – the empirical distribution of related events observed so far on Earth.

  3. The Great Filter – inferences from the fact that the universe looks dead everywhere but here.

These sources are roughly equally informative. #2 suggests xrisks are low, even if high enough to deserve much effort to prevent them. I’d say that most variations on #1 suggest the same. However, #3 suggests xrisks could be very high, which should encourage more xrisk-mitigation efforts.

Ironically most xrisk efforts (of which I’m aware) focus on AI-risk, which can’t explain the great filter. Most analysis efforts also focus on #1, less on #2, and almost none on #3.

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Adam Ford & I on Great Filter

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Adam Ford & I on Great Filter

www.overcomingbias.com
Dan Browne
May 15

@Robin: The following link is a good one. Jason Wright at Penn State has written a paper on detecting Kardashev Type 3 Civs and has potential candidate galaxies where they might be found with potential evidence(!). Here is the original paper http://iopscience.iop.org/0...

and here is the new scientist article http://www.newscientist.com...

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Weaver
May 15

Wouldn't it turn itself into paperclips, at the end?

If we ever find the paperclip planet...attempt no landing there.

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