NormalHumanHeroes.com

Foreign Policy has an interesting photo essay up on their website, covering all 33 of the world’s ongoing conflicts.

This blog has a lot of focus on existential risk and FAI, but that’s a straightforward outcome of being concerned with stepping up and doing the greatest good. It would be naive to say that one person can change everything, but even just a few lives saved would be worth the effort. Happily, it looks like we can do a lot better than that, if you factor in probability to calculate the expected-lives-saved/improved. If you’re looking to actually help as many as possible and not (just) receive warm fuzzies, that’s the thing to do.

Unfortunately many efforts – such as exisential risk reduction –  result in a potentially huge payoff many years down the line, but little direct payoff until then. I find it helpful to try and spread out the expected reward: quite truthfully, each moment that’s honestly spent towards saving or improving lives moves the expected outcome to a slightly better place. Each such moment, even if it’s on a necessary amount of R&R, is a moment well spent, a moment of accomplishment and a benefit to others.

This is pretty cool, you can find out more at Matt’s website. 

For those who don’t follow LessWrong: the human mind suffers terribly from scope insensitivity. I.e. experiments in which people pay much more to save one child, than they do to save 8. The brain just doesn’t multiply well, and the world is a huge place.

It’s interesting to note that despite the dramatic appeal of high stakes, it’s very rare to run across a fiction with stakes as high as those we’re actually dealing with. Our actions, right here, right now, tonight and in the days after it, may determine the fate of a universe-spanning civilization, lasting until heat death or longer, populated by beings who’s joy and intelligence is beyond our comprehension. If we pull this off, we might even live to be part of it.

As long as the danger is there, I can’t think of anything I’d rather be spending my life on. It’s a hell of a lot of responsibility and hard work, but if you wanted adventure, you got it.

A lot of people probably know DragonForce, among other things they’re featured with the hardest song on a Guitar Hero game. Wikipedia say’s they’re power metal, but a lot of people like them and don’t seem to like other power metal, myself included. The best way I can describe them is as ridiculously over-the-top, which is intentional and tongue-in-cheek on their part. Most of their songs are fairly similar, and tend to use a limited vocabulary focused on sword, warrior, storm, soul, stand, pain, ride, dragon, etc. Personally this just means it doesn’t really matter which song I listen to,  and I can expect the same enjoyable experience.

My experiences first hearing DragonForce followed successive stages. First I thought they were just ridiculous and out of touch, though I admired their guitar skill. Then I thought they were really funny. I still think they’re funny and ridiculous, but after going through those stages they became incredibely fantastic. I have a tentative hypothesis that enjoying them intensely becomes much more likely after first laughing at them. Perhaps simultaneously laughing about the music is signalling that one doesn’t take this that seriously, and allows one to enjoy more comfortably. I have an old fondness for fantasy and related imagery, so that might contribute as well.

I’m posting about them now as I remembered how extremely motivating they can be. I find them especially helpful when facing difficulties; comparing my own personal difficulties to their ridiculous lyrics both makes me smile and lends an invigorating, epic air to my struggles. Admittedly few people are actually working right now to prevent the extinction of humanity, and chipping in on that effort is fairly epic on it’s own. I refer more to laughing and becoming enthused when listening to them and thinking of my small, day-to-day challenges.

Give them a try and see what you think. Some very well known pieces are “Fury of the Storm” and “Through the Fire and the Flames”. In their main vein, “Black Winter Night” and “Operation Ground and Pound” are some I was just listening to, and something slightly different. My personal favorites though are the two quieter pieces I have, partially just because they stand out. I’ll include ”Dawn Over a New World” here, the other is “Starfire”.

When I first conceived of this blog I thought of having recurrent post themes, one of them being “things I want to protect”. Not sure if that will materialize, but this is one of the posts that I imagined in that vein.

When I was a wee lad, I was crazy about a girl for years. Smart, beautiful, baggy clothes and always reading. That didn’t go anywhere, and in time I grew interested in other girls, though not as much. Those didn’t go anywhere either, and I decided to hold off on getting attached until something worked out. Being way too shy and nervous around girls back then, nothing worked out for a long time, and I got a little bitter. Eventually I did find my peace, realizing that I truly didn’t need romantic success – in general or with anyone in particular – to be happy and enjoy my life. Shortly thereafter I found myself in a relationship, which isn’t very surprising.

But I’d been going the hard-hearted route for a long time, and now that I had something good, it was hard to feel like I used to. The girl I was crazy about back in middle school was still a great person by my current standards, and while I didn’t feel that way anymore, I could remember what it was like. It was nice, just to have that feeling. I had this funny perception of my romantic self as some wrinkled old man. That can be taken several ways, so pick your favorite. Funny that at one point I actually had endeavored to lose the ability to feel like I used to; take this as a warning against rash (and sloppy) self-modification.

When I was studying abroad in Japan 2 years ago, I met a girl, another student from the US studying there. You know where it’s going so we’ll cut to the chase: with her it “clicked” again. Cute, funny, cheerful, awesome baggy style, and somehow when she smiled, she just shone. I wish I could better describe how cool she is, and the excitement I feel around her, but I’ll save my poetry for later and assume you know what I’m talking about, guy or girl, straight or gay. I asked her out, and though she declined it was still a great experience.  It really had sunk in deep that I could be very happy “being alone”, so I don’t suffer in situations of unrequited love. We continued to hang out and remain friends, and though I can and have cared about others, I still feel quite powerfully about her.

I’m not here to talk about how powerful love is, or say that love endures, or love makes the world go around, or love is the reason for living, or any of that silliness. But damnit it’s nice, and I care about protecting that in our future.

Posting “Shadows On The Sun” by Brother Ali. Great song, and if you can get past the theism (still a moral if not epistemic improvement over most rap), it can be very appropriate for a hard working altruist.

(We’d like to capture your minds right now)

(What you say)

(Take you a little bit higher)

(What you say) (3X)

[ VERSE 1 ]
I like the snares loud enough to make your eyes blink from it
Only male with the Holy Grail, drink from it
I keep an eye on heaven and an ear to the street
And spread a thick layer of blood, sweat and tears on the beats
My brain rest upon the hip-hop lexicon
That I acquired in the decade of work that people slept upon
I don’t rap, I recite the prayers of the inner soul
Of the slave ships’ human cargo
Seemingly meaningless rappers flood the market
With shit that make me pace in my room until I rip the carpet
I’m fit to start up this next millennium
Swingin’ the grappling hook at cackling crooks to finish ‘em
The city dweller sendin’ telegrams from Neverland
The better man kind now, kindly join the caravan
We’re like a rock band that pack contraband
And won’t hesitate to stomp a man into the rocks and sand
Brother Ali, and if you haven’t heard about me
I’m flyin’ just beneath your radar so y’all can doubt me
Stay on the sonar with crowbars to open minds
There’s a ladder you’re supposed to climb
Approach a Rhymesayer with a Buggsy Siegel sized ego
You gon’ get yourself snatched out the sky, you know the steelo
By now, where, what, why and how
We start the revolution real time, right now

[ CHORUS ]
Yes, leave it to me to create hope where there was none
The human beings shall cast shadows on the sun
Leave it to me to create hope where there was none
My inner soul shall cast shadows on the sun
Leave it to me to create hope where there was none
The human beings shall cast shadows on the sun
Leave it to me to create hope where there was none
My inner soul shall, my inner light shall..

[ VERSE 2 ]
I rhyme for cats up in the harbored lights
Prayin’ they don’t starve tonight
And stay positive in the face of a harder life
My chorus light the torch for those on whom the sun set
Verses meant to speak for the voiceless
So let us never be dismayed or afraid
The ground we’re walking on is stained
With the blood of those before us who came
Soldiers in this freedom movement are too numerous to name
Cause the human soul yearns to be free, it’s all the same
I rhyme for runaways, prayin’ that they see another day
You gotta’ make it through the winter to feel some summer days
It’s for my natives, it’s history in the way their hair is braided
Elephants never forget, that’s how they say it
Tell my man Hasim in prison keep grinnin’ because he’s innocent
And tell him that the tests we get are heaven-sent
Listen, I rap for the ones that Johnny Cash wore, the black, for
Black and white women that were turned to crackhores
And I empty everything in the bank to give for it
I empty all the days of my life to live for it
And I empty all the blood in my veins to fight for it
So I empty all the ink in this pen to write for it

[ CHORUS ]

[ VERSE 3 ]
I glance in the sky and see the same cloud configuration
That Nat Turner saw the day they hanged him
Resisted in the face of adversity with a fist and it was raised
One finger extended, meaning Allah be praised
Spent days in Heaven’s embassy
On Qu’ran pages Allah explains this legacy
Angels doubted Adam, Jacob’s brothers clapped him
And ancient Pharaohs were too brutal to fathom
If all the earth’s oceans were ink and the trees were pens
You could never write the knowledge of God, it never ends
And I know it feels like the whip wounds will never mend
But it’s the way of God makin’ the oppressed prevalent men
We standin’ with humanity at destiny’s door
Chanting the war cry, it goes, “Never no more”
So if y’all tryin’a talk about the horrors you see
Feel free to tell your stories through me

[ CHORUS ]

There’s only one God and he’s not just above
There’s only one man and there’s only one love
Till everybody gets what I instill in my seed
For that y’all, we willing to bleed
There’s only one God and he’s not just above
There’s only one woman and there’s only one love
We doin’ this till all of Adam’s children are freed
And for that y’all, we willin’ to bleed

This is a really great film, one of my favorites. It’s based loosely on the German classic, using a comic by the creator of Astroboy (after he died and couldn’t stop them), and written by the creator of Akira. The basic plotline is that of two detectives foreign to the city, investigating a rogue scientist. They meet up with his creation as political turmoil erupts in the city. It’s generally fun to watch throughout and the ending is fantastic. In particular relevance to this blog, it displays both the folly of anthropomorphizing AIs, and the existential disaster they can cause. It’s not like a lesswronger wrote it, but in comparison to most such films it’s excellent.

For my senior honor’s thesis I’m researching the implicit assumptions underlying the use of generally misguided statistics in genetic studies. Some time ago I read through the recent book ”How Doctor’s Think”. It didn’t turn out to be very useful for my project, but it was written well and interesting. There’s a few patient stories, one detailing a misdiagnosis of an adopted Vietnamese infant thought to have an immune deficiency. A section at the end of it bothered me:

“Shira received her morning feeding through the tube, and then Rachel went to the end of the hospital corridor to a pay phone. She called one of her closest friends from her congregation and told her the news.
“It’s so wonderful,” her friend exclaimed. But then there was a long silence.
Rachel wondered what was wrong.
“Turn on your TV.”
Rachel stood frozen in the room and felt as if her heart, so full of joy, were being torn. At the moment she celebrated Shira’s restored life, thousands were likely dead in the attack on the World Trade Center. How can I rejoice when God’s creatures are dying?

Forty-five days after Rachel and Shira went to the Children’s Hospital ER, mother and daughter left for home. It was Friday, just hours before the onset of the Sabbath. When Rachel turned the key and entered her apartment in Brookline, she could smell the meal left by friends. Two candles stood ready to be lit, two fresh challahs ready to be savored. Rachel held Shira after lighting the candles. The soft glow of the flames played off her daughter’s face. It was the day of rest and of peace, the day when all woes were meant to cease, the day that Rachel had not truly had for more than six weeks.
At each step, Rachel had not been sure whether she would find the strength she needed to endure, and the courage to question. Silently, she again thanked God for creating all human beings with such remarkable reservoirs of resilience. She thought how the Sabbath was the time when these reservoirs were refilled. She prayed that during this first Sabbath after 9/11 her country would find the strength and courage to defend itself and to care, with a full heart, for the families who had lost loved ones.”

As most readers know, not that many people really died in September 11th. A little under 3,000, which is the world death toll from all causes every half hour (h/t to Vladimir for the correction) .So don’t just sit there caring about some tragedy that’s already occurred, work to stop the tragedies that are occurring constantly all over our planet, and the extremely large disasters that havea very good chance of happening, in this century. An existential disaster would be equivalent to more than two million 9/11 events, in terms of human death. If you feel sorrow for those we havelost, use that to save all those we will lose.

In my research on existential disasters in general, I also read “Never Saw It Coming.” This book was one of the most foolish books I’ve ever read. Karen Cerulo takes the observation that there is a cultural asymmetry in focusing more on the good than the bad, and then applies this perspective far more widely than appropriate. She often ignores contradictory evidence and any concern for the actual objectives at hand; I get the impression she had an alright idea and just really wanted it to be a great idea. It’s a kind of comic example of confirmation bias. There are a few tidbits and points that are worthwhile, but almost nothing applicable to existential risk.

There was a good quotation in there though, which relates to the tendency of people to apply a lot more effort to mourning than to saving lives.

“People who are in decision-making positions are not mentally preconditioned to think in terms of what happened. So that’s what I mean about a failure of imagination. The evidence comes in, but your mental reactions are not geared to thinking in these kinds of terms. When a guy calls from a flight school and says they could take a 747 with fuel and plow it into a building and that’s a bomb, you hear it but you say, “Ah, that’s a wacko idea.” You don’t say, “Holy Jesus, that’s what we’ve got to worry about.”…[You] fail to imagine what the danger is. [You] fail to understand the world we live in and the nature of the enemy.”   -Journalist Hedrick Smith

I’ve built up a strong habit of daydreaming, something that I’m working to reduce. I often find myself daydreaming about extremely unlikely situations. Sometimes they’re unlikely but common on a larger scale, for example being burglarized while you’re in the house. Sometimes they are patently ridiculous, such as being caught with a loved one in a sheep stampede (do they even do that?) while holding on to an old wooden fence which is slowly falling over, or resting inside a pile of sharp metal shavings while being attacked by someone with a sledgehammer. Sometimes they’re at least common in movies, along the lines of Jason Bourne or James Bond.

In these daydreams, the general train of thought is “How could I survive that?”, often paired with the objective of protecting friends and family. Being burglarized my chances are good, if I don’t try to be a hero. In an action movie situation my chances are moderate, if I already have the skills of a hero. For the ridiculous ones, it varies wildly. Underlying all this though, are movie expectations. In a movie the hero goes along, is hit with varied obstacles, and manages to pull through by being the best and keeping their head. But is this really how the world tends to work?

I’m increasingly aware that it is not, even if you have a lot of time to plan out your response under conditions of minimal stress. For one thing, your underlying proficiencies, automatic responses and reflexes may not do what you want. Perhaps it’s a good idea to fire a gun, but how many times have you fired a gun before? You’re highly unlikely to be a good shot at first. Maybe a fancy maneuver would be nice, but have you trained as an acrobat, gymnast, or martial artist? If not, pulling it off even in a safe environment is a dubious proposition. And even if you’ve got all those skills, who’s to say that’s enough? If you’re on an open field, walking along unsuspecting while a sniper has you in the sights of a high powered rifle, there is no stunning victory, no champaign room. You just die. In war, not every one who is smart and skilled survives, luck plays a huge factor. Nobody is good at surviving a mortar. In nature, if something like a cold snap or simple misfortune has resulted in malnourishment, and some predator that’s faster than you got close enough without you detecting it, it’s over already. “Nature” would say ’sorry’ if it cared, which it doesn’t.

The real world has no proclivity to providing you only with obstacles you can survive, even in a hypothetical sense. The real world plays by no rules but the rules of physics, and those are as brutal and unforgiving as landing on the solid granite rocks they make up. If we reach the point at which we’re able to create artificial general intelligence and haven’t put in the work to understand how to make it friendly, too bad. It’s lights out, with no excuses and no second chances.

The lesson of all this is to start acting now. If you care about the survival of yourself and your loved ones, if you have any desire to see 80 or 8,000, then don’t wait until the situation has grown impossible to break out your best self! The world yet allows you free time, so use it! Do all you can to ensure that we avoid the “no-possible-win” scenarios, and give ourselves at least a moderate chance of surviving the ones we can’t avoid. If you go to take the final for a class in a new subject and you’ve never studied, you’re going to fail, no ifs, ands, or buts. The test is coming, so get studying now and change those odds!

(Note: it is possible to take this too far. From my own experience, I’ve found that I require social contact to stay productive, and I might also require some occasions to kick back and stop optimizing my time for a few hours. In addition, fun is important long term, and a highly productive presingularity life can be a fun one. But be honest with yourself, which in this sort of affair is usually a nontrivial task. If you’re anywhere close to average, it’s very unlikely that you’re already optimizing your productivity, or the density of your fun and relaxation. I’m still working at it myself. )

Steven Kaas at Black Belt Bayesian posted a great list of “sound-bite” reasons to reduce existential risk. Check it out, they’re both amusing and relevant.