Normal Human Heroes » Bad Stuff

(At Least) It’s Not The End Of The World

Normal Human Heroes — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:48:17 +0000

April 2nd, 2010
From the Super Furry Animals

“We can live it large,
cause we’re only old once.
Let’s make a difference.

Turn all the hate in the world,
into a Mockingbird.
Make it fly away…”

“Greatest Game Ever”

Normal Human Heroes — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:45:29 +0000

March 30th, 2010

I’m referring of course to Deus Ex, the combination first-person shooter, role-playing game developed in 2000 by Ion Storm. Conveniently, it’s the length of a shooter game rather than an RPG. It’s been ranked the “greatest game ever” here and there, gained 40 “Game Of The Year” awards, and frequently makes “Top 20/50/100 List”s. The game exhibits high quality all around, and has been especially noted for its gameplay and the degree of player freedom in choosing how to overcome obstacles. In terms of raw fun, it’s actually my #2 pick, being beaten out by the vast role-playing game Morrowind.
The game is a lot of fun, but here I’m discussing it for motivational purposes (surprise, surprise), speaking to any game players out there. Why might a video game motivate a person to help save the world? Deus Ex doesn’t present any factual arguments for the morality of it, nor does it highlight issues which would contribute to such arguments. Rather, Deus Ex provides an exciting and exceptionally realistic futuristic world, realistic enough that excitement elicited by the game is generally also appropriate for the real world. (Though of course, not “realistic” enough be used for actual prediction.) So to be more specific, I suggest that Deus Ex can be motivationally useful for those who don’t naturally find real life and our own story all that exciting.
By realism I mean two things: realistic and engaging characters, and unusually knowledgeable futurism. For a rough indicator of this, the primary dialogue writer for the game, Sheldon Pacotti, has two bachelor degrees: one in mathematics from MIT, and another in English Literature from Harvard. There was a overarching design goal to create an immersive simulation, and the dialogue is the opposite side of the spectrum from “oh yeah, and this is why you have to kill 100 enemies”. The game is well populated by ”normal people”, and their dialogue is often just as interesting and thought out as that of the primary characters. The plentiful notes, emails, and book pages in the game are similarly well-written, and the game’s story is continually present in your experience. While I don’t think it’s of primary importance to folks here, the story also includes an intelligent and stimulating probe into the nature and ideal of government.
The game’s primary characters are at the high end of human ability, but with few exceptions not superhuman. In those cases, superhumanity is derived from technological augmentation or the “superhuman” intelligence of those at the ultimate far end of the human spectrum. I find this valuable, as in reality it’s not just going to be people with “superpowers” who save the world, it will mostly be through the hard-working efforts of merely intelligent folks. Some of the activities most useful for existential risk reduction are well profiled, including technical implementation of various projects, study of larger world structure, group organization, and financing. (Unfortunately, public and scientific awareness efforts are not included.) The activities of the player’s character center on physical adventure, but your underlying ability and ultimate success rely critically and obviously on other people’s expertise at those tasks. Success depends on your own efforts as well, but the story is such that you would often be dead in the water without the other characters.
For tech, the game takes place in the 2050s, and centers widely around molecular nano-technology. It’s not treated entirely as phlogiston, and the game presents surprising detail on how MNT realizes the technologies. I don’t have the technical background to propose or evaluate real life designs for nano-structures, but having studied some neuroscience, biochemistry, a little nanotech and a lot of electrical engineering, most of the explanations in Deus Ex still seem plausible. In terms of AI, Deus Ex is at least partially at SL4, and includes the concept of Singletons, though necessarily not by name. The AIs are inhuman and are laudably (if not completely) lacking in anthropomorphization.
There are some necessary qualifiers to all that. Throughout, aspects of the story are affected by gameplay considerations. Generally for that reason, some of the technology is too powerful, too weak, and/or rather implausible, though less so if you hadn’t read some of Robert Freitas’s recent work. The world research atmosphere is the most unrealistic aspect, regarding where the research is distributed, the scale of significant research projects, and the likely extent of technological asymmetries. That might actually be realistic for a project involving recursive intelligence improvement, but Deus Ex is a little light on that concept. The difficulties of Friendly AI are not properly accounted for, which is the obvious norm in futurism. To some extent there’s also the common flaw of oddly talkative antagonists, as realism and storytelling don’t always make good bed mates.
There are also some elements with mixed pro and con. The story involves numerous conspiracy theories, which I don’t expect to actually be true. This does make the story more interesting, and is entertainingly similar to the Bayesian Conspiracy, which we should all probably “attempt to gain entry to”. The story has a strong dystopian and cyber-punk flavor, which as a design choice is more stylistic than realistic. If we don’t exert some control however, we may actually be nearing an apex in human living standards. I’m referring to increasing technology becoming more and more labor-saving and less and less labor-augmenting, a reverse in past trends which would drive down wages and living standards. My current best source is this. In general, there’s a very significant chance life is going to get worse, and if you can keep from getting depressed about it, I find it motivating to keep that in mind.
In summary, Deus Ex is an unusually sophisticated game, with exceptionally intelligent futurism and widely acclaimed gameplay. For myself, its motivational value lies in presenting an engaging and uncommonly plausible dramatization of our future, the general challenge and adventure that lies in store. If you enjoy video games in your free time and haven’t played Deus Ex yet, put this one on your list.

The Dangers of Dilly Dallying

Normal Human Heroes — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:31:45 +0000

March 20th, 2010

After writing my last post, I decided to spend some of my free time rewatching parts of Star Wars. Perhaps more on that later, but for now, a quick thought.
On the slim chance a reader wouldn’t know the scene, I’ll provide an introduction. In the third episode (the last movie released) Mace Windu goes to confront Chancellor Palpatine, along with a group of Jedi who are quickly killed off. After landing a solid kick on Palpatine, the Chancellor loses his lightsaber and is backed against a wall by Windu. At this point Anakin steps in, believing that the evil Sith Lord Palpatine is the only one who can save his wife from death in childbirth. Mace Windu knows of the friendship between Anakin and Palpatine and asked Anakin to stay behind, though Anakin did alert the Jedi Council to Palpatine’s danger.

There’s a lot of silliness in Star Wars, but I’m not going to go into that. While Mace Windu’s actions here may not be entirely consistent for someone of his reputation, his mistakes are common among most people – myself included – and interesting in their consequences. First he seems intent on arresting Palpatine, then seemingly changes his intent after blocking a great deal of Palpatine’s “force lightning” with his lightsaber. Perhaps this presented new information on his threat level, most likely it was more dramatic this way. Importantly however, in my experience this flip-flopping of intent is common in most people: a good reason to develop increased rationality and to think of goals before you think of solutions.
Even so, after deciding that Palpatine is too dangerous and politically powerful to let live, Windu dilly dallies. He takes the time to discuss this with Anakin, though apparently didn’t think his acceptance was necessary. He also winds up for a large strike, instead of just lowering a knee and bringing the saber down.
The consequences of this dawdling are what make this worth writing about: immediately, his arm is cut off by Anakin, he’s electrocuted and thrown out the window. Ouch. Much more significantly, Palpatine then executes his plan to kill all the Jedi everywhere, including the seemingly hundreds of young Jedi in training. He reformulates the Republic into an empire, eventually disbands the senate, builds a machine which destroys an entire planet, and brings about galaxy-wide repression and slavery which lasts roughly 20 years. Whoops.
By no means am I suggesting that people be killed without hesitation; in our world, I don’t believe any single person is remotely as dangerous as Palpatine. What I mean to provide is an exaggerated but illustrative prodding towards action. Action when you believe your model is good enough to act on under the time constraints, action when you know the course that will maximize expected utility via your metric, and action when you know you should be seeking more information. Admittedly, the chances are small that any single act of akrasia will mean the death of you and everyone you care about, but the chance is there. What’s more, the more practice you get in fighting akrasia may make it easier in the future; each choice to get yourself working is helpful for more than just doing that work itself.
Existential disasters possess the well known difficulty of not being able to learn from your mistakes in dealing with them. If we keep at it and manage to pull through, it may not be immediately obvious how close to danger we may have come. Had Windu made his strike with more promptness, the corruption in the senate would have provoked an outrage, but regular democracy would return. The clone war would have been allowed its resolution, the casualties would have been minimized to that conflict alone, and the Jedi would still have been around. I think that everyone who’s a non-contrarian would agree this is a much better outcome. All of this without anyone knowing the extent of damage Palpatine would have caused, the secret order 66 which causes the clone troopers to kill Jedi, etc. Similarly, success at existential disaster avoidance (by itself) probably wouldn’t look like much at all. The problem is, dilly dallying (by itself) also doesn’t look like much at all. You may know that you shouldn’t “really” be browsing the net right now, but it’s not like the whole world is going to end if you don’t do what you know you should be doing. At least, not immediately.

Things To Get Rid Of

Normal Human Heroes — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:27:33 +0000

March 8th, 2010
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.

Standin’ With Humanity at Destiny’s Door

Normal Human Heroes — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:15:02 +0000

February 1st, 2010
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

Don’t Just Sit There Caring

Normal Human Heroes — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:10:14 +0000

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 have a 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 have lost, 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

Most Motivating Thought

Normal Human Heroes — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:08:54 +0000

January 12th, 2010
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 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. )

Dreams vs Decay

Normal Human Heroes — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:12:39 +0000

November 27th, 2009
On Thanksgiving my family visits my Aunt and Uncle’s place just across the Wisconsin border. They’ve got this cool old house in the woods, nested by this creek one must drive over, wondering each year how strong that wooden bridge still is. My cousins and I used to spend the afternoon watching movies upstairs, and even more than that I enjoyed the walks we would take along that creek, quiet and still, sometimes blanketed by a little snow. There was one cousin that I got along with especially well, and we were close friends for many years. Both in email correspondence and in person as we walked along that creek, we would talk about all the dreams we had for the future, all the things we were going to go and see, anticipation for our next months and years hung like a piñata above us, ready to burst.
This year was the first that I didn’t hide away watching movies with my cousins and sister. I don’t really mind that; I have less access to the aunts and uncles than I do to movies, and joining the “big people table” was inevitable. This was also the first year I took the walk along the creek on my own. It’s nothing that sinister; my sister is still away on study abroad, and the cousin was having thanksgiving at his parent’s place this year. But there was something wistful about the experience.
My cousin and I have drifted apart in the past several years. We still get along and have some laughs when we meet, but our relationship is more distant and our long-running email correspondence is dead or dormant. I’m not sure how much we have in common these days, but over the years that’s often been the case and I wonder how much was based on that sharing of hopes and dreams. I’m happy to say that I still occasionally feel some wide-eyed wonder, but our relationship is more strongly tinged with memories of all those happy times of the past. Today it occurred to me that if things for me are tinged by old experiences, things may be for him as well, and perhaps that’s part of the reason for the distance. He accomplished more than I did but also had it much rougher, and in the end he lost two people very very close to him, forever. He seems to be doing well these days with a very nice career starting up, but also like a man much more aged and worn than he should be.
My uncle is the oldest of a large family and over 60; he and my aunt are aging and may soon sell this place. It’s not as clean as it used to be, every year a little more overgrown, a few more of the large trees dead and fallen, and the fallen trees a little softer and more rotted. I may love that creek more than anyone and it’s still beautiful out there, but one way or another it’s not going to last. I wish I could have logged my experiences, so that when that creek is no longer there I can at least remember clearly the times we had in it. Without such ability it will eventually fade from recollection, leaving only a deformed imprint, a memory of trees and rocks and an emotional residue of excitement and longing.
________________________________________________________
The dream of transhumanism is that we can do so much better than this. We can prevent the dreary crawl of unwanted decay and aging, we can preserve value, and we can live better lives, lives less inclined to suicide, lives less marred by suffering and grief. A good dream is a precious thing, and I’m not letting go.

Ethics 101

Normal Human Heroes — Tue, 18 May 2010 23:50:57 +0000

October 19th, 2009
I’m not sure this is something that happens to many others, but recently I’d been feeling like my ethics were getting too purely abstract.
When we talk about what we want a superintelligence to do or what we want a future world full of uploads and self-modification to look like, it’s especially important to know what you want as explicitly as possible. It often takes hard work to think intelligently about what you really want and what you really consider right. Starting off with preferences that are incoherent and contradictory seems more common than not, and to strive for coherence you may have to prune or mold a few values, ever so carefully. If you really want to apply your ethics in such a complex world as the future may be, thinking hard and abstractly is the way to go. For myself though, sometimes all that abstract thinking makes me feel a little dry. It doesn’t help that I’ve been around people for some time who haven’t been feeling/displaying much that’s extreme. I know both great anguish and joy are being experienced right now somewhere in the world, but again, that’s more of an abstract thought.
I saw the film “Where The Wild Things Are” today, it was good. I’d heard it was supposed to be like being 9, and though I don’t remember exact ages that’s pretty much exactly what it was. It wasn’t a magical childhood journey or about how difficult it is to be a kid today, so much as it was just the experience of being a kid.
Kids seem to have greater highs and lows – I think I did – and/or display them more readily. Partly it was that, partly it was just the acting of the characters (impressive considering the monsters’ faces were CGI), but it brought to the forefront the reason for all this, and the reason we construct and use abstract theories at all. It’s not because we care about some huge fictitious happiness counter in the sky, or about a display of little numbers that appear after doing an expected value calculation.
It’s because feeling good is awesome, and suffering sucks balls.

The End of America (et al)

Normal Human Heroes — Tue, 18 May 2010 23:12:21 +0000

Some time ago Slate put up a neat little application: having scoured out every idea people have had for how America will end, you get to choose your top 5. There are 144 ideas, it’s quite a selection. You can compare your predictions to the average, in terms of how many live, and if it’s humanity’s or nature’s fault; I lean towards “Everybody Dies” and “Man’s Fault”. The result I got was:
“You are a bloodthirsty misanthrope. You believe mankind is stupid and fallible and that America will destroy itself in a bloody mess. You’ll know you’re right when: The United States succumbs to a torrent of Russian nukes; we clone ourselves, get bum genes, and die.”
Actually, I think mankind is very intelligent and fallible. The two are not mutually exclusive, and we may have to be more than just very intelligent to achieve results we’ll be happy with. And I’m about as far from a misanthrope as you can get.
H/T to Dr. James Hughes for the link.