alt Hacker NewsWe are living through an ongoing mass extinction event of non-human species. There is a very well understood risk to the stability of human civilization resulting from global average temperatures reaching and sustaining 1.5deg above the historical average. The higher the temperature goes, the greater the risk of social collapse. We are already seeing it, and it is almost certainly going to get worse.
EA cult members do not take this very real, measurable, non-speculative danger seriously. Consequently, I don’t think they should be trusted or consulted on any subject of any importance.
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Global warming is unlikely to kill even a billion people. Even something as mundane as global nuclear war would be worse than that. Current AI development is on track for exactly 100% death rate (including all the non-human species). Societal collapse would be the better option, so it doesn't make sense to worry about it.
"EA cult members" do take it very seriously, and for the moment, this was actually something they became more interested in.
And then we raced ahead straight into materializing the x-risk everyone thought is still a few decades away, speedrunning through all the mistakes LW folks itemized and worried about over the past two decades.
>EA cult members do not take this very real, measurable, non-speculative danger seriously.
That's not exactly true.
"Climate change matters so much, to so many, not just because of the suffering and injustice it’s already causing, but also because it’s one of the few issues that has obvious potential to affect our world over many future generations. We think safeguarding future generations is a key moral priority, and should be a crucial consideration in prioritising problems on which to work.
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...climate change will be hugely destructive. We’ll see floods, famines, fires, and droughts — and the world’s poorest people will be affected the most.
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...climate change’s impacts will still be significant – it could destabilise society, destroy ecosystems, put millions into poverty, and worsen other existential threats such as engineered pandemics, risks from AI, or nuclear war. If you want to make climate change the focus of your career, we include some thoughts below on the most effective ways to help tackle it.
...people are right to be angry that too little is being done.
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Working on this issue seems to be among the best ways of improving the long-term future we know of..."
https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/climate-change/
A big part of the reason EA doesn't focus more on climate change as a "highest priority area" is simply that many people are already focused on it, and it is therefore not an especially "neglected" area.