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Comment by twelve40 | Hacker News Reader

> We (humans) should help humanity flourish. I understand that not everyone agrees. I have been called a “speciesist” for being “too human-centric”.

this is insane. the "speciesist" people aside (the best way for all other species to flourish is for humans to eradicate themselves right now, which is completely mad), i have the opposite problem: the _axiom_ seems to be: we should help ME flourish. "Me" as in people who are raking in trillions for their own very special selves right now, at the cost of everyone else's future, while none of them can be trusted to hold my cell phone for a second.

> if an industry commits to the axiom of helping humanity flourish

where does he see such industries, outside of maybe nonprofits?

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> the best way for all other species to flourish is for humans to eradicate themselves right now

That wouldn't do much for rice, pigs, chickens, or rats.

You picked three animals that will literally eat anything, I think they'll be fine.

But there will be fewer of them, because we generate their food.

That's only true for the rats. For the pigs and chickens (and rice), there will be fewer of them because they do not themselves have the capacity to exist at current population levels. The reason they're doing so well right now is purely that we want them to.

Even rats. They are supported by our food and garbage.

>> That's only true for the rats.

> Even rats.

...what do you think "even" means?

> doing so well right now

lol quantitatively well

We also actively cull them, for the rats. Recently watched an episode of survivorman where he was on this tropical island infested with rats. There's absolutely nothing on that island yet there's rats all over the place. Having no humans they may explode in population.

>> We (humans) should help humanity flourish. I understand that not everyone agrees. I have been called a “speciesist” for being “too human-centric”.

> this is insane. the "speciesist" people aside (the best way for all other species to flourish is for humans to eradicate themselves right now, which is completely mad), i have the opposite problem: the _axiom_ seems to be: we should help ME flourish. "Me" as in people who are raking in trillions for their own very special selves right now, at the cost of everyone else's future, while none of them can be trusted to hold my cell phone for a second.

I don't think there are actually any "speciesist people." I think most, if not all, are the selfish "me people," who have disingenuously created "speciesism" by mad-libbing racism and sexism in a ham-handed attempt deflect criticism/opposition to whatever they want to do. Most of them aren't even "raking in trillions," they just don't like thinking about others or being told "no."

there are a lot of people who put the lives of dogs above those of people]. I think you'd find that a lot of people will donate to save animals rather than humans

> there are a lot of people who put the lives of dogs above those of people]. I think you'd find that a lot of people will donate to save animals rather than humans

Ok, sure. But I was talking speciesist vs AI. Is there anyone who would genuinely put AI above on on part with humanity (beyond the rare nutjob weirdo)? I think the people who trot out "speciesism" to defend AI don't care about the consequences and just don't want to be told "no."

Umm… there are a lot of people out there, more than you can imagine… I'm sure there's quite a considerable community who want to upload their minds to skynet.

Every time I see something like the Panama or Epstein files I just get reminded how many people there are in the world doing weird shit.

As I understand you referred to Elon Musk. But this is Poh Shen Loh talking. If you don’t know who he is, look up or at least read his articles.

From his Wikipedia page:

> Po-Shen Loh (Chinese: 罗博深; pinyin: Luó Bóshēn; born June 18, 1982) is an American mathematician specializing in combinatorics. Loh teaches at Carnegie Mellon University, and from 2014 to 2023 served as the national coach of the United States' International Mathematical Olympiad team. He is the founder of educational websites Expii and Live, and lead developer of contact-tracing app NOVID.

weird bias by authority aside, do you really think that the daily decisions in this world today, and anytime soon, will be made based on the "let humanity flourish axiom"?

In daily decisions perhaps not, and certainly not when we were in the cave. But from time to time, we will face fundamental questions that need addressing clearly and decisively, and I believe it’s the case with AI. The more advances we make, the more frequent such questions will arise. That is also one of the main reasons why we don’t see any alien civilization. It’s getting harder and harder to keep the entropy low as we gain more knowledges and cognitive power.

How's humanity tackling that climate change question then? Lots of talk. Even lots of action I would argue. And yet, not enough. Why do you think that's going to change with discussions around AI when there are trillions of dollars at stake?

Because it will never change if you not try.

> Because it will never change if you not try.

That's why it's important to convince people to not try. It reduces the medium term risk to investor returns.

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