The Visceral Omicide Thought Experiment

AI risk denier: Maybe it’d be a good thing if everybody dies.

Me: OK, then you’d be OK with personally killing every single man, woman, and child with your bare hands?

Starting with your own family and friends?

All the while telling them that it’s for the greater good?

Or are you just stuck in Abstract Land where your moral compass gets all out of whack and starts saying crazy things like “killing all humans is good, actually”?

AI risk denier: God you’re a vibe-killer. Who keeps inviting you to these parties?

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The Visceral Omicide Thought Experiment: people's moral compasses tend to go off kilter when unmoored from more visceral experiences. 

To rectify this, whenever you think about omnicide (killing all life), which is abstract, you can make it concrete and visceral by imagining doing it with your bare hands. 

This helps you more viscerally get what omnicide entails, leading to a more accurate moral compass.