The whole point of an apocalypse cult is that it offers you personally a seat on the space ship out. Those of us warning about destruction via AGI have no such offer; either everyone is saved including those who mock us, or no-one is.
While I'm on the subject: has anyone ever heard of a religion in which the apocalypse might potentially be averted altogether if we can just do some difficult task?
@ciphergoth I disagree, my AI safety friends are definitely suggesting that the only seat on the space ship out is to work on AI Safety, or some other pre-supposed "cause area which matters"
The destruction of all personal meaning outside of THE APOCALYPSE is the horrifying part of Apocalypse Cults, and def applies in this case, no?
@andrew @ciphergoth Your friends say only the AI safety people will be saved or they say that only the AI safety people will be doing the saving? The question is about the former, not latter.
@ajvermillion effectively, these are actually the same.
"You have two choices: join the heroes, or die."
is not very different from:
"You have two choices: join us and we will save you, or die"
@andrew @ajvermillion They're the same if you ignore the difference I was highlighting.
@ciphergoth Sometimes the apocalypse can be averted if everyone is faithful enough
@HollyElmore Delayed, or averted altogether? Link me to any examples or give me search terms :)
@ciphergoth it depends on whether it’s a punishment or the culmination of existence. The flood in Genesis was because of people’s wickedness. It wasn’t meant to end the world and wouldn’t have happened if enough people besides Noah’s family had kept the faith.
@ciphergoth I’d call some forms of environmentalism apocalyptic bc they believe civilization will be destroyed as punishment for living out of balance with the ecosystem. But they do believe that if everyone acted right there would be no apocalypse.
@ciphergoth (As a consequence of living out of harmony with the earth, they’d say. I further asserted they view it as punishment.)
@ciphergoth My caricature of the Aztec religion is that they did human sacrifices so the sun would keep rising.