Smuggled Infinities
Pascal's Sucker Bet, and when to ignore it.
The key point: many activists or charismatic leaders often smuggle in infinite costs or benefits into their reasoning. This leads them to think any extreme action is therefore justified and any caution or temperance is mistaken. But every exponential, in reality, is an s-surve in a trench-coat.
(I wanted a term for this, and thought it already existed. But I couldn’t find it. So I’m writing it here. I recall it coming from a good back-and-forth with James, but can’t find it.)
editor’s note: I updated this to include examples of smuggling positive infinites as well after hearing this point made in a podcast episode from the Center for Humane Technology.
A smuggled infinity is when you sneak in a huge assumption without really pointing it out. It's like saying something is so big, so massive, that it throws everything else out of whack, but you don't really say it outright. This kind of thinking can lead us down some pretty extreme paths if we're not careful.
The idea of "smuggled infinity" is not new. The classical logical fallacy of Pascal’s Wager, which predates me by a few hundred years, involves it. Pascal basically said that believing in God is a smart bet because the payoff could be endless (infinite) happiness in the afterlife. The catch? He's assuming the afterlife is this infinite, all-important thing, making everything else seem tiny in comparison. But that's a massive leap, and not everyone's buying it. Furthermore, who’s to say that specific religion is the right one? What about the other permutations that send you to infinite hell for doing certain things?
We shouldn’t be so arrogant to think we live in a less-religious age and therefore think we don’t make this logical fallacy as much. The accidental infinities are smuggled in places that should be on the other side of a separation between church and state. Consider today's big issues like climate change, AI risks, and pandemics:
Climate Change: Sure, the dangers of messing up our planet are real and serious. But if we start thinking the cost of environmental damage is infinite, we might make some rash decisions. Like, completely shutting down factories overnight. Or shutting down nuclear plants to be replaced by coal, which kills far more people per watt.
AI Booms: There are also charismatic leaders that speak of a coming AI utopia where all major problems will be solved by intelligence that’s unbounded and in abundance.
AI Risks: Talking about AI, there's this fear that it could literally be the end of us. But if we treat this risk as infinite, we might end up slamming the brakes on AI research altogether. One prominent AI-risk activists follows this logical line of thinking to recommend air strikes on data centers worldwide.
The Internet Will Connect Everyone! (and that’s good): in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was utopian thinking that connecting everyone on the planet would usher in a golden age of democracy and better-informed humans everywhere. There wouldn’t be a drawback.
The Internet Will Connect Everyone! (and that’s bad): in a perhaps overreaction to the exuberance of the early internet, many are now overreacting and saying that all social media is inherently bad and should be shut down, ignoring all the benefits.
Pandemics: With virus outbreaks, the fear of losing countless lives can lead us to go overboard with health measures. We're talking lockdowns, curfews, the works. While being safe is key, we've also got to think about the other costs – like how these measures affect people's daily lives, mental health, and the economy.
In each case, the risks and benefits are real, but when someone smuggles in an infinite cost or benefit in their argument, it can be used justify a lack of necessary caution.
How do you look for someone doing this? Look for religious-like language as a possible clue. Words like “abundance”, “paradise”, “salvation”, “redemption”, “abyss”. Religious thinking, among many other purposes, is language we use to talk about things beyond our understanding, that go off into the horizon of good or evil. And many look off into the horizon and imagine the thing getting better and better faster and faster (or worse and worse).
How do you look for someone not doing this? Look for someone trying to tease apart the good and the bad of a complex situation. Look for people trying to articulate what the limiting factors are.