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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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Over the last few months, I've followed someone named Alexander Kruel on Substack. Every single day, he writes a post about 10 important things that happened that day - typically AI breakthroughs, but also other of his pet concerns including math, anti-wokeness, nuclear power, and the war in Ukraine. It's pretty amazing that he is able to unfailingly produce this content every day, and I'm in awe of his productivity.

Unfortunately, since I get this e-mail every morning, my information diet is becoming very dark.

The advances in AI in the last year have been staggering. Furthermore, it seems that there is almost no one pumping the breaks. We seemed doomed to an AI arms race, with corporations and states pursuing AI with no limits.

In today's email, Kruel quotes Elizier who says:

I've already done my crying, late at night in 2015…I think that we are hearing the last winds start to blow…I have no winning strategy

Elizier is ahead of the curve. Where Elizier was in 2015, I am now. AI will destroy the world we know. Nate Soares, director of MIRI, is similarly apocalyptic.

We've give up hope, but not the fight

What comes after Artificial General Intelligence? There are many predictions. But I expect things to develop in ways that no one expects. It truly will be a singularity, with very few trends continuing unaltered. I feel like a piece of plankton, caught in the swells of a giant sea. The choices and decisions I make today will likely have very little impact on what my life looks like in 20 years. Everything will be different then.

So, party until the lights go out? How do I deal with my AI-driven existential crisis?

Touch grass.

No, seriously. Unsubscribe from this guy. Take a step back from Eliezer-style doomscrolling and the Internet in general. You don’t have to literally go outside, but it helps.

If you have a hobby, delve into it. If not, get one. I have personally quite enjoyed learning the banjo. My girlfriend is allegedly writing the great American novel; I couldn’t say for sure, since she won’t let me read it.

Contrary to dril there is a difference between good things and bad things. Experiences matter. When yours come to an end, by Singularity or by the quiet repose that awaits us all, make sure yours have been good.

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Wait, what?

I don’t think I’ve seen any evidence, rather than speculation, that Biden hates the military. His natsec policy has been a mixed bag, but in what I see as a fairly pedestrian Democrat way: treating it as a giant bank account to trim for other programs.

How does the Afghan withdrawal make any more sense as a punishment for the military? It is literally removing a decades-long foreign entanglement. If he hadn’t pulled out, would you be arguing that letting Americans continue to die for

Afghans is a sign of his spite?

opposition to American involvement in wars has shifted…to being coded right-wing

Again…what?

You’ve got to be more specific, because the interventionist/militarist/ColdWarrior mindset is alive and well.

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My view is that War Is Hell, whether you're on the offense or the defense, and I rather wish Eurasia had learned this lesson after they propelled the world into a trench war over literally nothing. I would suggest that the costs are too high, but of course that is not a choice for me to make

You're not being serious here, I take it ? You don't truly believe the only reason for the war was the murder, and you also don't truly believe a state* supported, politically motivated assassination of the heir to the throne is 'no big deal' ?

*well, the Serbian prime minister probably didn't know what his military intelligence was up to, but doesn't really exculpate Serbia.

Okay, that makes a lot more sense. I can definitely see how the chain of events would shake out. Especially in combination with CPAR’s quote.