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Could be. My experience is that hysterias arise from people adjacent to the fields of deep knowledge.
Most climate scientists aren't hysterics and actually have fairly measured views, but they also don't push back on the hysteria (one can guess at the reasons). As @denlillaapan loves to point out, bitcoiners generally aren't monetary experts and monetary experts generally aren't hysterics about the system collapsing.
That makes sense. And the guy who resigned seems like a relatively junior AI researcher, so it tracks.
As @denlillaapan loves to point out, bitcoiners generally aren't monetary experts and monetary experts generally aren't hysterics about the system collapsing.
man is that an eloquent transformation of hundreds of my ranty SN posts. Undisc, ever the poetic synthesizer
There's probably something related to the ego and the need to inflate the importance of ones' own expertise
eeeeh, that's demoralizing but would explain a lot. Reality check, calm-the-fuck-down sort of. v neat.
My dad's explanation for the psychological attractiveness of doomerism is exactly that desire to feel important.
hopelessness, too. A sense of meaning and ego. If you, being infinitely wise and credentialed and educated, devote your life to fixing this big problem, then by definition it must be an important/worsening problem, right?
If I think the thing is more important than it objectively is, makes it easier for me to keep going/do a good job
I often wonder if there's a connection between deep intelligence in a particular field, and alarmism arising about it. Like climate scientists who become increasingly shrill about doomsday climate scenarios, or AI researchers becoming increasingly shrill about doomsday AI scenarios. Or, more adjacent to bitcoiners, monetary doomers who get increasingly shrill about the imminent collapse of our financial system.
There's probably something related to the ego and the need to inflate the importance of ones' own expertise