Epistemic status: not very thoroughly considered. First experiment with posting rough content, mostly on a whim and some spare time, slapped together in one session.
The Hinge of History Hypothesis (HHH) suggests that the present, broadly defined, may be the most important time in the entire history of mankind for determining how well or poorly things go for us in the long term. There are a few lines of reasoning that could support a conclusion like this, primarily AGI value lock-in and the notion of an X-risk precipice.
Among folks who assign significant credence to the Hinge of History Hypothesis (like myself), I’ve noticed a certain feeling that sometimes crops up. Given the scale and difficulty of the problems currently facing humanity, and the massive stakes of the long term future, it can feel like an incredible burden to have been born at the Hinge. The pressure is on our generation to successfully navigate narrowest part of the Precipice or the crunch time before the Singularity. This feeling has nothing to do with rational beliefs about the world, it’s just a something that bubbles up from the ol’ monkey brain. It’s sometimes pretty unpleasant, and it can even be exhausting to the point of interfering with one’s ability to perform at their full capacity.
I’ve recently found a mental trick that works really well for me to deal with this – a thought I can call up at will to dismiss this feeling pretty decisively, at least for a while. I’d like to share it here, in case it’s useful to anyone else who feels this way sometimes.
Imagine humans in the distant future, living in whatever utopian paradise you think lies beyond the Hinge, looking back on the struggles of modern day. They might wish they had been born in the years when the world teetered on a knife’s edge between ruin and paradise, so that they could test their mettle against real problems with massive stakes, hand in hand with the mythic heroes of a time long gone. They might wish they’d been given the chance to contribute to the forging of humanity’s glorious future, rather than just reaping the benefits of what their ancestors sowed. They might even wish for all the chaos and madness and blind stumbling of those early days, when humanity was little more than a bunch of monkeys with nuclear toys.
If this really is the Hinge of History, then we’ve been born with a uniquely heavy burden, true. But that also means we’ve been granted an opportunity for heroism and challenge and adventure that could be unparalleled in all the of humanity’s past or future. Have you ever wished that you’d been born during the Age of Exploration, or the Space Race, or the pioneering days of 20th century science? In time, the Heroes of the Dawn Age could put them all to shame.
Now, importantly, this has nothing to do with actual beliefs about the world. I’m not arrogant enough to imagine that I can predict much of anything about what a utopian future might look like, or what the humans of the time might think. I’m not even sure this is the Hinge. But this is just a little mind trick – a story I like to tell myself because I like the useful mental effects it produces.
At the end of the day, what matters is how effectively I’m able to make the world a better place. I could view that as a solemn duty, think of myself as a grim soldier, and do my best to just grit my teeth and do what needs to be done. And sometimes that mode of thinking can be helpful. But most of the time I much prefer the Dawn Age spin on the story, just because usually I’m far more motivated by the genre of adventure than by grimdark. It’s just way more fun – some childish part of me with a cardboard helmet and wooden sword has always wanted to slay a dragon. Of course not everyone is like that. But even if you personally struggle with different feelings or prefer a different kind of story, I hope that in general, this kind of narrative-based mood-adjustment (aka telling yourself stories in your head) strategy is useful.