In my opinion the comparison to the climate change activism is kinda iffy in a sense that it should serve as a mostly negative example, being run by unserious people doing it for political power, clout, self-actualization, grift, etc.
Before I show some examples, here's how a serious problem being solved by serious people looks like: at some point for about a week or so a lot of pundits and politicians were calling for a No Fly Zone over Ukraine. Then the serious people noticed, quietly told the unserious people to shut up or else, and the whole thing was promptly forgotten. Any movement inevitably attracts unserious people, but in a healthy movement concerned with a serious problem they are kept on the fringe.
Now consider that Germany has switched from nuclear power to burning coal. And no, burning Russian "green gas" would not have been much better CO2-wise. And no, the conflict in Ukraine had been hot since 2014, serious people would have taken that into account. And if someone tries to excuse that as a result of the complex interplay between idiots in the Green party, anti-nuclear "experts", click-baiting journalists, and misinformed population: yep, the circus is run by the clowns, this is exactly what I'm talking about.
On a related note, consider the propensity of climate change activism to constantly produce medium-term catastrophic predictions, from Al Gore's "Manhattan will be underwater by 2015" to various "we will hit the point of no return in 12 years" claims widely repeated by people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a couple of years ago.
As you pointed yourself, we are in for a long haul, so the movement _itself_ must be _sustainable_. If every generation of young people is told that the world is burning to a crisp in 15 years, then look around in their thirties and discover that not only nothing much has changed, but also that this sort of catastrophizing has been going since before they were born, that's not _sustainable_.
And again if you admit that this is actually pretty bad but unfortunately we don't have a Climate Activism Czar that could tell Al Gore, questionable experts, and click-baiting journalists to shut up: yes, the circus is run by the clowns. You really want it to be otherwise, but that's how it is.
Or consider this: Joe Biden ran for president on a platform of strangling the US oil industry, killed the Keystone XL pipeline on the first day in the office, appointed a very anti-oil head of DOE, all that, to the cheering of journalists and voters. Then the gas price in the US doubled. Note that it was not merely predictable, but essential to the plan. You limit the supply of gas, the price rises until the demand also reduces to meet the supply because people can't afford gas, so they have to drive less and less CO2 is emitted.
In a world where all those climate activists including the President and all his advisors and experts and journalists and Democrat voters were serious (albeit not very bright) people, we would have had a shocked revelation: it turns out that gas is produced by the oil industry! Then, while fighting climate change is important, but not at this cost. Or maybe the other way around, we should tighten our belts for the greater good. Instead Biden released part of strategic oil reserves and gave out a bunch of drilling permits, while experts explained that the price surge was caused by the Covid rebound and the war in Ukraine and was not Biden's fault.
Which, look, I'm not an expert, but first of all, _not for the lack of trying_. But even more importantly, those expert explanations had the completely wrong tone! An expert serious about fighting climate change would say that unfortunately Biden's policies had a negligible contribution to the gas price surge, so if the administration wants the price to stay high after the effects of covid/war are over they must double down on strangling the oil industry. An expert who tells me not to worry, the price will go back down, is very unserious.
And to emphasize, it's not just a few journalists getting overly enthusiastic about a stupid idea, it's the whole Curtis Yarvin's Cathedral, the entire office of the POTUS plus journalists, experts, voters.
Or consider this: who thought that making an underage autistic girl from a multimillionaire family with visible symptoms of FAS the literal face of the movement was a good idea? So that some Yellow Vest truck driver upset about his livelihood being destroyed would read an article about Greta crossing the Atlantic on an electric yacht to speak before the UN, look at her face, and realize that while he might have problems this kid knows better what's good for everyone and has a better moral compass, really he should be ashamed for driving his stinky truck instead of an ecological yacht?
That's not to imply any offense to Greta Thunberg, none of that is her fault, but there's this vaguely defined swarm of people who made her the face of the movement and wrote gushing articles about her yacht, and yes that's a problem that they do this for reasons that have nothing to do with fighting the climate change and that there's nobody who could tell them to shut up.
So, why exactly is supporting a movement run by unserious people is bad? First of all, it's a waste of resources. Second, when the unserious people wield actual power, it causes real harm, like with Germany switching to coal or the gas price surge. Third, it causes unsustainable reputational damage. Finally, while the "unserious people" are unserious about the stated goal of the movement, they are very serious about obtaining and holding onto power, so you're empowering them to keep the actual serious people away from power. Observe that Elon Musk is now contending the number 1 most hated person by progressives spot, for no clear reason.
Yes, there were some impressive things achieved in the fight against global warming, but from what I can tell all of them were the result of some nameless bureaucrat signing off on a subsidy for solar panels or whatnot, then the free market doing its thing while the government keeps out. With no pomp, no demonstrations in support or politicians taking credit. While pretty much everything that involved _visible politics_ was harmful to the movement and its stated goal.
So that makes me pessimistic about your ideas about AI control that all involve _politicking_ in some form and none involve the government just throwing money at some private businesses, no strings attached. Ironically, the only thing I see that might save it somewhat is that maybe the underlying reason the climate activism had been entirely captured by unreasonable people is that climate change (unlike, say, the war in Ukraine) is not a serious problem. If the advancements in AI prove to be a serious problem, maybe we will have serious people take charge.
In my opinion the comparison to the climate change activism is kinda iffy in a sense that it should serve as a mostly negative example, being run by unserious people doing it for political power, clout, self-actualization, grift, etc.
Before I show some examples, here's how a serious problem being solved by serious people looks like: at some point for about a week or so a lot of pundits and politicians were calling for a No Fly Zone over Ukraine. Then the serious people noticed, quietly told the unserious people to shut up or else, and the whole thing was promptly forgotten. Any movement inevitably attracts unserious people, but in a healthy movement concerned with a serious problem they are kept on the fringe.
Now consider that Germany has switched from nuclear power to burning coal. And no, burning Russian "green gas" would not have been much better CO2-wise. And no, the conflict in Ukraine had been hot since 2014, serious people would have taken that into account. And if someone tries to excuse that as a result of the complex interplay between idiots in the Green party, anti-nuclear "experts", click-baiting journalists, and misinformed population: yep, the circus is run by the clowns, this is exactly what I'm talking about.
On a related note, consider the propensity of climate change activism to constantly produce medium-term catastrophic predictions, from Al Gore's "Manhattan will be underwater by 2015" to various "we will hit the point of no return in 12 years" claims widely repeated by people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a couple of years ago.
As you pointed yourself, we are in for a long haul, so the movement _itself_ must be _sustainable_. If every generation of young people is told that the world is burning to a crisp in 15 years, then look around in their thirties and discover that not only nothing much has changed, but also that this sort of catastrophizing has been going since before they were born, that's not _sustainable_.
And again if you admit that this is actually pretty bad but unfortunately we don't have a Climate Activism Czar that could tell Al Gore, questionable experts, and click-baiting journalists to shut up: yes, the circus is run by the clowns. You really want it to be otherwise, but that's how it is.
Or consider this: Joe Biden ran for president on a platform of strangling the US oil industry, killed the Keystone XL pipeline on the first day in the office, appointed a very anti-oil head of DOE, all that, to the cheering of journalists and voters. Then the gas price in the US doubled. Note that it was not merely predictable, but essential to the plan. You limit the supply of gas, the price rises until the demand also reduces to meet the supply because people can't afford gas, so they have to drive less and less CO2 is emitted.
In a world where all those climate activists including the President and all his advisors and experts and journalists and Democrat voters were serious (albeit not very bright) people, we would have had a shocked revelation: it turns out that gas is produced by the oil industry! Then, while fighting climate change is important, but not at this cost. Or maybe the other way around, we should tighten our belts for the greater good. Instead Biden released part of strategic oil reserves and gave out a bunch of drilling permits, while experts explained that the price surge was caused by the Covid rebound and the war in Ukraine and was not Biden's fault.
Which, look, I'm not an expert, but first of all, _not for the lack of trying_. But even more importantly, those expert explanations had the completely wrong tone! An expert serious about fighting climate change would say that unfortunately Biden's policies had a negligible contribution to the gas price surge, so if the administration wants the price to stay high after the effects of covid/war are over they must double down on strangling the oil industry. An expert who tells me not to worry, the price will go back down, is very unserious.
And to emphasize, it's not just a few journalists getting overly enthusiastic about a stupid idea, it's the whole Curtis Yarvin's Cathedral, the entire office of the POTUS plus journalists, experts, voters.
Or consider this: who thought that making an underage autistic girl from a multimillionaire family with visible symptoms of FAS the literal face of the movement was a good idea? So that some Yellow Vest truck driver upset about his livelihood being destroyed would read an article about Greta crossing the Atlantic on an electric yacht to speak before the UN, look at her face, and realize that while he might have problems this kid knows better what's good for everyone and has a better moral compass, really he should be ashamed for driving his stinky truck instead of an ecological yacht?
That's not to imply any offense to Greta Thunberg, none of that is her fault, but there's this vaguely defined swarm of people who made her the face of the movement and wrote gushing articles about her yacht, and yes that's a problem that they do this for reasons that have nothing to do with fighting the climate change and that there's nobody who could tell them to shut up.
So, why exactly is supporting a movement run by unserious people is bad? First of all, it's a waste of resources. Second, when the unserious people wield actual power, it causes real harm, like with Germany switching to coal or the gas price surge. Third, it causes unsustainable reputational damage. Finally, while the "unserious people" are unserious about the stated goal of the movement, they are very serious about obtaining and holding onto power, so you're empowering them to keep the actual serious people away from power. Observe that Elon Musk is now contending the number 1 most hated person by progressives spot, for no clear reason.
Yes, there were some impressive things achieved in the fight against global warming, but from what I can tell all of them were the result of some nameless bureaucrat signing off on a subsidy for solar panels or whatnot, then the free market doing its thing while the government keeps out. With no pomp, no demonstrations in support or politicians taking credit. While pretty much everything that involved _visible politics_ was harmful to the movement and its stated goal.
So that makes me pessimistic about your ideas about AI control that all involve _politicking_ in some form and none involve the government just throwing money at some private businesses, no strings attached. Ironically, the only thing I see that might save it somewhat is that maybe the underlying reason the climate activism had been entirely captured by unreasonable people is that climate change (unlike, say, the war in Ukraine) is not a serious problem. If the advancements in AI prove to be a serious problem, maybe we will have serious people take charge.