Thanks a lot for writing this. 

These disagreements mainly concern the relative power of future AIs, the polarity of takeoff, takeoff speed, and, in general, the shape of future AIs. Do you also have detailed disagreements about the difficulty of alignment? If anything, the fact that the future unfolds differently in your view should impact future alignment efforts (but you also might have other considerations informing your view on alignment).

You partially answer this in the last point, saying: "But, equally, one could view these theses pessimistically." But what do you personally think? Are you more pessimistic, more optimistic, or equally pessimistic about humanity's chances of surviving AI progress? And why?

I think this would be on-topic for the EA Forum too!

The audio is very appreciated, I ended up listening instead of reading. 

Quote from Second Comment: "In his first TED talk in 2005 Aubrey's message was that we have 90% chance for robust mouse rejuvenation in 10 years if $100 million per year would be invested philanthropically. We're now in 2021, 16 years from his talk, funding overall is much greater than $100 million per year, although it's not just philanthropic.

"Although it's not just philanthropic". 

You can't say that Aubrey de Grey's prediction is wrong by invalidating a piece of the antecedent in the implication. Also: he meant $100M to SENS. Currently, SENS has 20 times less than that.

I'm disappointed by the downvotes and by the answers. I don't see any problem with this question, and the concept it points at is useful to think about.

This is utterly deranged and I'm not sure if it was meant as a joke or not, but fuck I enjoyed it, and holy shit that WebMD link is absolutely crazy. Thanks for posting.

In all seriousness: I suspect we should explore such crazy ideas at least intellectually, just because we never know where the mind could turn after having considered them.

pick every company in proportion to their market cap

I didn't know this, now it makes much more sense, thank you.

Yes, right, so to continue this line of thought: since more diversified means less risk, Gwern would want to buy VTSAX if he needs to spend that money in a relatively short time horizon. If this isn't the reason, though, from what I gathered from a personal finance book I read years ago, funds tracking S&P500 always outperformed funds tracking the entire U.S. equity market over long periods (is this actually true?). So I was curious about why Gwern made such a choice in case the reason I hypothesized (he is investing money he potentially needs shorter-term) was wrong and there are actually good reasons to buy funds tracking the total US equity market even when saving long term. 

Why not S&P500?

Once you have dealt with signaling, one other huge problem remains. I have met just one person IRL who actually invests (my brother). Everyone else isn't aware safe investment options exist and they just put everything in the bank account. 

Also, in my experience, middle-aged and older people tend to downplay their wealth and not brag about it (why? Not entirely sure). Younger people instead seem more braggy... but most young people aren't very wealthy. This is just my experience though. I wonder if it is actually common.