I don't think this scenario is likely. Except for degenerate cases, an ASI would have to continue to grow and evolve well beyond the point at which a simulation would need to stop, to avoid consuming an inordinate amount of resources. And, to take an analogy, studying human psychology based on prokaryotic life forms that will someday evolve into humans seems inefficient. If I were preparing for a war with an unknown superintelligent opponent, I would probably be better off building weapons and studying (super)advanced game theory.
Which ideas seem slightly more likely to me?
If you mean the massive strikes on civilian infrastructure, then no, even the complete destruction of said Ukrainian infrastructure will not significantly improve Russia's chances in this war. This only creates hardship for the civilian population and increases the overall cost of aid to Ukraine for Western countries.
The Russian army has proven time and time again that it is incapable of attacking. Even in June, when the Russian army greatly outnumbered the Ukrainian army in artillery, and Ukraine was losing 300–500 soldiers a day, Russian troops advanced slowly and with huge losses.
One of the reasons is their complete inability to coordinate between artillery and infantry. The correct approach is to hit enemy... (read more)
You are absolutely right. I missed this point in Max's post.
If Putin is lucky and the winter in Germany turns out to be especially cold, or if some of their gas storage facilities suddenly explode for some strange reason (I really hope they guard them better than their railways), Germany might have to make serious concessions and lift some of the sanctions in order to start using NS2. Putin will announce this as a huge victory, since launching NS2 was doubtful even before the war.
That is exactly why Putin destroyed the other 3 pipelines. A simple resumption of the gas supply on NS1 would not have made it a big victory, because he himself had stopped it and it would not have been necessary to lift any sanctions to resume operation.
I don't think their bombing of civilian infrastructure can be considered a military escalation.
An official declaration of war and martial law in Russia would be an escalation (albeit not scary).
Nuclear weapons testing would be an escalation (slightly scary, but still very far from an actual attack).
Ordinary terrorism, by contrast, is just the default response, exactly the type of revenge for his favorite bridge that everyone expected from this particular dictator.
Good point, thanks. I've edited my comment.
This is correct. They will always downplay Ukraine's successes, explaining them as either terrorist attacks or "smoking accidents". And yes, as Viliam says, Russia is now officially losing territory every day and nobody cares. They prefer to have ambiguous borders.
To understand Putin, you have to imagine a petty crime boss who accidentally got big. He's just a thug. "It's not a bluff" is the telltale sign that his threat is a 1̶0̶0̶%̶ 99.999999% bluff. When he plans to do something, he and his minions always deny it first. He will go to great lengths to continue without nuclear weapons.
All of this means that the 30% chance of kaboom is way way too... (read more)
Awesome writeup!
To further explore the interplay between style and content, how about trying something not very specific that could gain specificity from the style context?
For example "Aliens are conducting experiments on human subjects":
I'm re-reading The Fun Theory Sequence and enjoying it. But my question is not about theory:
What are some concrete, practical ways to spend $100,000 to generate a non-negligible amount of fun?
Underlying assumptions:
At first, I thought that the intended reader probably wouldn't see your message because, even if its resources are unimaginably huge from our perspective, spending them on something always means not spending them on something else. But now I think it's not a bug, it's a feature. The "suspicious convenience" argument can be taken a step further.
(I'm using a less formal tone to make the message more memorable, and thus more likely to reach the intended recipient.)
... (read more)