Petrov Day is not about unilateral action

post by sen · 2020-09-26T13:41:02.481Z · LW · GW · 0 comments

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It's about the dangers of unrestrained escalation. It's a failure of humanity that we even got to the point where a few people's small and difficult decisions decided the fate of so much. This post is a friendly reminder to...

• Please avoid escalating socio-economic disagreements to nuclear levels.
• Please avoid escalating market competitions to Moloch levels.
• Please avoid escalating paperclippers to superintelligent levels.

Learn to recognize signs of unrestrained escalation. You may be participating in unrestrained escalation...

• If your information landscape becomes increasingly narrowed by a centralized source or by recommender algorithms.
• If you attempt to fight over-escalated issues in a way that encourages opposing parties to fight back. For example, if you try to overtly starve the object of escalation of its resources and ability to act.
• If your actions become increasingly coordinated with large and powerful groups.
• If your judgment becomes increasingly dictated by stories told from a single point of view or single optimization criterion.

When you do recognize signs of unrestrained escalation, please take actions to de-escalate. You may do this...

• By learning and teaching others to recognize unrestrained escalations.
• By refusing to participate in group actions that encourage further escalation.
• By starving the participants of their motivation (rather than of their resources and ability to act).
• By using every escalation as a teaching opportunity for how to recognize and reduce future escalations.

And, of course, when considering whether a contentious situation warrants escalation, please do not divorce your opinions from the nuances of the current situation. In high-energy, high-pressure scenarios, small-scale effects often have large-scale consequences, and dually large-scale consequences are often driven by small-scale effects.

Thank you for your attention. Escalate responsibly.

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