Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
This is an especially stupid prepper plan
You're totally safe on a Pacific island, it's not like sea levels are going to rise.
Genetic engineering is totally possible when the vast majority of humanity has been wiped out.
What apocalypse scenario is solvable via genetic engineering? Maybe a super pandemic, but a vaccine is way easier.
The obsession with genetic engineering all comes back to eugenics
@zogwarg Actually, that part MIGHT be feasible: Nauru's population is roughly 10,000 people, with GDP of roughly $10,000 per person. So if you had $10Bn to burn, you could offer *everyone* $1M in cash—equal to the average per capita income for a century.
Given that Nauru's going to be underwater if the Greenland ice sheet melts (in progress!) it'd be prudent of them to take the idiot's money and leave.
(On the other hand, even $1Bn would buy a LOT of Wagner Group murderers and rapists …)
@cstross @zogwarg Here’s the fun part, though - if every citizen of Nauru sold up to some dudebro and left that wouldn’t necessarily extinguish Nauru’s ongoing existence as a state with its own laws and constitution, so they could all sit in their penthouses bought with his cash and act as a legitimate government in exile, including the ability to pass a law rendering all the sales null and void so they could boot him back off the island and keep his money. And given that Australia has a strategic interest in keeping Nauru both independent and friendly to they’d almost certainly help out militarily if requested.
It seems that nauru is mostly a high plateau: topographical map here If the sea rises by more than 20m it's certainly a scenario where 1M wouldn't do you much good either way.
EDIT: If I were a Nauru citizen I still wouldn't sell, certainly not for such a low-ball offer ^^.
EDIT2: Corrected 10K to 1M, not as awake as I thought. Maybe not such a low-ball offer, but it would still be a matter of principle to refuse such an offer, more on ethical/dignity grounds than financial ones, certainly I wouldn't expect such a decision to be unanimous.
My dad, who has been to Nauru, pointed out that Nauru has basically no arable land. So the survivalists would either have to somehow have food imported from the other .5% of humanity that survived climate change, or eat seagull. It's very reminiscent of the Masque of the Red Death. I guess since they're EA heads they'll even be taking lots of recreational drugs and having sex parties.
Aren't there stories about techlords (like Thiel) grabbing real estate in NZ? That's a lot better: natural resources, common-law legal system, English language. Of course you can't buy the entirety of NZ and declare yourself king, so it's probably not EA enough.
So I've been told.
We need to incept these billionaires into thinking hermetically sealed underwater bunkers are the safest solution, and that oceangate was a good idea that didn’t go far enough. We’ve got Musk working on the prison planet already.
We should also convince them of the Most Truest Danger™ of Info-hazards, hermetically sealed is not quite sufficient ^^.
Gabe Bankman-Fried was looking at buying Nauru in the “event where 50%-99.99% of people die” to protect his philanthropic allies and create a genetically enhanced human species
you know, normal billionaire shit
@self @sneerclub Gabe Bankster-Fried clearly needs to go full Moreau—buy Madagascar and import an entire supply chain, factories and all, to keep him in adult diapers and megaphones with which to exhort his slaves to work harder to avoid the Basilisk's torment nexus.
Isle of Dr. Roko
founder
Eurgh. Not even disaster capitalism but disaster fascism. This moment of crisis and trauma is a great opportunity to impose their stupid beliefs on people
