Episode Details
Back to Episodes“The title is reasonable” by Raemon
Published 5 months, 1 week ago
Description
I'm annoyed by various people who seem to be complaining about the book title being "unreasonable" – who don't merely disagree with the title of "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies", but, think something like: "Eliezer and Nate violated a Group-Epistemic-Norm with the title and/or thesis."
I think the title is reasonable.
I think the title is probably true – I'm less confident than Eliezer/Nate, but I don't think it's unreasonable for them to be confident in it given their epistemic state. (I also don't think it's unreasonable to feel less confident than me – it's a confusing topic that it's reasonable to disagree about.).
So I want to defend several decisions about the book I think were:
A) actually pretty reasonable from a meta-group-epistemics/comms perspective
B) very important to do.
I've heard different things from different people and maybe am drawing a cluster where there [...]
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Outline:
(03:08) 1. Reasons the Everyone Dies thesis is reasonable
(03:14) What the book does and doesnt say
(06:47) The claims are presented reasonably
(13:24) 2. Specific points to maybe disagree on
(16:35) Notes on Niceness
(17:28) Which plan is Least Impossible?
(22:34) 3. Overton Smashing, and Hope
(22:39) Or: Why is this book really important, not just reasonable?
The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
September 20th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/voEAJ9nFBAqau8pNN/the-title-is-reasonable
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
I think the title is reasonable.
I think the title is probably true – I'm less confident than Eliezer/Nate, but I don't think it's unreasonable for them to be confident in it given their epistemic state. (I also don't think it's unreasonable to feel less confident than me – it's a confusing topic that it's reasonable to disagree about.).
So I want to defend several decisions about the book I think were:
A) actually pretty reasonable from a meta-group-epistemics/comms perspective
B) very important to do.
I've heard different things from different people and maybe am drawing a cluster where there [...]
---
Outline:
(03:08) 1. Reasons the Everyone Dies thesis is reasonable
(03:14) What the book does and doesnt say
(06:47) The claims are presented reasonably
(13:24) 2. Specific points to maybe disagree on
(16:35) Notes on Niceness
(17:28) Which plan is Least Impossible?
(22:34) 3. Overton Smashing, and Hope
(22:39) Or: Why is this book really important, not just reasonable?
The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
---
First published:
September 20th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/voEAJ9nFBAqau8pNN/the-title-is-reasonable
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.