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Notes -
For the most part, people do these things because they feel good, agreed?
Arguably, it also feels good to have a feeling that you are RIGHT, both in the sense of being correct and also in the sense of being moral or just.
It feels good to feel (correctly or incorrectly) that you are working to save humanity (or some slice of humanity) from people who are some linear combination of stupid, ignorant, and evil. That you alone possess some important knowledge. That some day people will regret having laughed at you.
As another poster pointed out, look at Eliezer Yudkowsky. If his worldview is correct (as believed by him and the people around him) it means that he is one of the smartest and/or most important people in the world. That must be a very heady feeling.
For a lot of people that kind of feeling is very tempting compared to sunburn and a hangover.
Edit: I'm not necessarily saying that the likes of EY are wrong. I do think they overstate their case, but that's a different issue. I'm just offering a hypothesis as to why someone who sincerely believes the world is doomed would continue to preach doom rather than just kick back.
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