Normal Human Heroes

I had a great conversation with Justin Shovelain recently, and we happened to chat about some advantages SIAI has compared to the average non-profit; everyone involved is on the high end of intelligence, and there are good arguments that the likely impact is exceptionally large, which can appeal to donors who truly care about impact. SIAI has a number of disadvantages, like the many inferential steps required to realize the importance of the work, but we weren’t discussing those just then.

Another strength is that this is not a “niche” concern. Helping impoverished third-world farmers raise capital is a great thing, but it’s relatively easy to stop caring about something so distant. In contrast, it’s somewhat harder to look at everybody around you and know we’ll all be dead if these kinds of efforts don’t succeed, and then decide it’s not really that important.

Obviously, this kind of thing pushes me towards existential risk reduction. There’s something else though, which is my long-standing desire to “be a hero”. Watching movies, playing games, reading books; my heroes were mostly fictional people, rising to great and noble heights when everything was at stake. Like most folks, I’d love to emulate my heroes. Now that everything is at stake, I figured that now is the time.

Though I’m thankful for this desire overall, it’s caused some surprising trouble. One problem is that most of my heroes aren’t real people with real human psychologies, another is that I often wind up needlessly trying to replicate unimportant details.

A week and a half ago I had some useful thoughts about this, which have remained useful past the 3 day period in which many seemingly good ideas sputter and fade. After thinking about how best to convey them, I’ve decided that just copying from my journal is probably most effective. This was written for me – hence the numerous phrasings and points of emphasis – but I don’t think I could say it better for others. I did add a little extra spacing.

I believe that many readers don’t have a strong desire to emulate fictional heroes, but someone may, and perhaps many readers can take something from this regardless.

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While I’ve long known of the danger to our entire world from existential risk, I seem to have perceived this as “the real world is a video game world, for which video game personas are appropriate”. However, I recall thinking back to when I first read about these things, and I recall the perception being slightly different. Hmm….how to say. I believe it is that recently, I have tried to adapt myself into a video game persona. Before, it was more of a realization that we play versions of the video game characters.

That there really is the danger, and here we are in our apartments (suggesting imagery of the ‘Ton), trying to save the world. It wasn’t “Let’s try to be Paul Denton”. It was more “We ARE Paul Denton”. (By the way, Paul wouldn’t be that bad to be, as he’s rather human. He dates, etc.) A realization that the world really is in danger, and WE ARE THE ONES WHO MAY NEED TO STOP IT. Perhaps this: we don’t need to adapt ourselves to become video game characters. We don’t have to gain their style or lifestyle, because we are EQUIVALENTLY heroes, just as much as they. We are the heroes of the real world. Or perhaps, that we don’t have to change ourselves to live like they do in order to feel like our story is just as cool, in order to feel like we are finally being heroes. Rather, we are ALREADY being heroes by the fact of what we are attempting to do. We are ALREADY “them”, and our story is already and immediately as cool. Hah, I keep trying at this. A thought, which I think I may actually have voiced back then: We are not approximations of them, in which case we would never be quite as cool, or quite as heroic. Rather, all those stories were approximations of the heroes we are and will be. Hah, I think that gives it pretty well, but to lay it down with yet another angle: who makes things cool? Who is worth emulating? What is being emulated? Who are the real heroes?? Are THEY the real heroes, and we strive to be heroic by replicating their actions and lifestyle? Or are WE the real heroes, for which all those stories of fictional heroes were merely exaggerated caricatures of the heroes we would become, exciting tales which create the before-bed snack on which real heroes are raised? Specifically to me, will my life be exciting because of how close I will get to approximating Morgan Everett, or Paul Denton, or Dowd, or JC? Or will it be exciting because I live the the story of _____ ______, who may go on to perform real heroism, to make a real difference, and hence be an actual, real hero? Are these exciting fictions the things to which we aspire, or are they mere training and spark, the things which eventually inspire a real human being to step beyond the simple and assumed boundaries of a passive life? Not into a life of austerity, or loneliness, or desolation, but a life of applying the multifold abilities we have and will develop, to accomplish something big and real in the world.

Who are the real heroes? We are.

The fictional heroes are not there for us to emulate, they are there to inspire us to become ourselves.

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(A quick note: by ‘we’ I mean anyone and everyone who steps up to contribute to existential risk reduction, not just the people who have started helping already.)

December 29th, 2009
For the readers I don’t share, check out this short piece by Michael Anissimov on the Singularity Institute, their work, and a recap of why they’re a great place to donate.

November 3rd, 2009
While I’m confident that most of my readership also follows Michael Anissimov’s Accelerating Future blog, his posted video of a panel from the Singularity 2009 conference is so relevant to the topics of Normal Human Heroes that it would be criminal not to include it here. Really great discussion from some of the de facto leaders of the most critical and under appreciated fields.

Changing the World Panel — Singularity Summit 2009 — Peter Thiel, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Aubrey de Grey from Singularity Institute on Vimeo.

August 19th, 2009

If the human race ever constructs an entity far smarter than ourselves, the importance of that event in the scope of human history would be hard to overstate. The outcome might be a world we highly value, but it will be the last time human beings truly hold the reigns of our future, at least as we know ourselves today. But we do still hold the reigns of the future, including how we handle such a development. As one of the few venues for discussing it, this summit may be one of the most important things happening on Earth right now. So just in case you’re looking for something interesting to do, you can register here (link not repaired after site rebuild).
I registered just today, slipping in on the last day for early registration, though I’m not actually sure I’ll be going. The transportation and lodging bring the cost up to nearly a thousand, much more than I’m accustomed to spending on just a few days. I also don’t yet have a lot to contribute so I’d mostly just be observing, and in terms of the presentations I can do that from home. It’s the personal conversation and networking that I’d be most looking forward to. The unknown is how much my efforts and those of others will be helped by that, in comparison to doing something else with the money. With my limited experience in such things that’s still a pretty big unknown, but I expect to be discussing it in the coming days and weeks. And if I decide against attending then all I’ve done is donate a few hundred to the Friendly AI effort, and I don’t count that as much of a loss.