I also disagree that this post seems genuine. The author is clearly well informed and yet has left out the most glaring red flags of another Trump presidency, instead painting a picture of what a typical rational actor at the head of a democractic goverment might do. This feels misinformed at best and misleading at worst.

I think it's a mistake to try to predict Donald Trump's behavior in a second term based on any previous policy-specific statements or actions as he has clearly demonstrated his propensity to lie and say anything in order to gain power. If elected, Trump will consolidate power (as he already has to an alarming extent) and will no longer need to satisfy constituents (other than the ultra-rich). He will see AI as just another tool he can wield to gain and maintain his own power. Would you have wanted Hitler to have gotten the atomic bomb first if he had pledged to regulate nuclear power?

Thanks for your response. To be clear, you are aware of these Hitler-like facts regarding Donald Trump (just to list the ones that first come to mind):

• He is widely supported by white supremacists and has proudly supported them in return: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23484314/trump-fuentes-ye-dinner-white-nationalism-supremacy
• After the violent and deadly white supremacist-led rally in Charlotesville in 2017 which featured Nazi and Neo-Nazi rally-goers, Trump remarked that there were "very fine people on both sides". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally and https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116973/documents/HHRG-118-ED00-20240417-SD006.pdf.
• As president he issued an executive order which banned entry to the US for people from a variety of muslim countries.
• His own running mate once ruminated that he could be "America's Hitler".
• He wife said he used to keep a book of Hitler's speeches by his bedside and jokingly had an employee greet him with "Heil, Hitler". https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-kept-hitler-speeches-by-his-bed-resurfaced-ivana-interview-reveals
• He has literally quoted Hitler in his speeches, saying illegal immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of Americans, an exact parallel to Hitler saying Jewish people were poisoning the blood of Germans. https://apnews.com/article/trump-hitler-poison-blood-history-f8c3ff512edd120252596a4743324352
•  According to him, "Hitler did some good things". https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2024/03/13/trump-hitler-putin-kim-jong-un-john-kelly
• In speeches he often describes plans to do massive-scale round ups of illegal immigrants into "camps" and mass deportations if he is elected again.

I would apologize for the relatively undiplomatic nature of my writing but the time for long-winded slow-moving discourse is long passed. There are barely 3 months left until the 2024 election which may prove to be one of the singular most important moments in human history. 

If anyone is still undecided on this subject, please set aside a day this week to do your own research, come to a conclusion, and get to work. We need you.

I'm sorry but this post is absurd and absolutely misses the point. It's no longer hyperbole to say that voting for Trump is voting to end democracy and institute dictatorship in the USA with a Hitler-like character at the helm. If you are at all skeptical about that statement then you are uninformed.

Here are some bullet points of why a second Trump presidency will be completely unlike the first:

• The Supreme Court is stacked in his favor, with provably corrupt justices, who have already taken actions to strengthen executive power of the president to dictator-like levels and given the president complete immunity from the legal consequences of his/her actions. This in theory even includes the use of violence against political adversaries. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/02/trump-immunity-murder-navy-sotomayor-00166385
• Trump issued Schedule F while president giving him absolute power to fire any federal employee at will and replace them with a person of his choosing. He never got to use this power because he was not re-elected. He has vowed to re-invoke it on day 1 if elected again. https://protectdemocracy.org/work/trumps-schedule-f-plan-explained/#:~:text=In%20October%202020%2C%20the%20Trump,to%20the%20president%20when%20hiring.
• The Republican party has become extremized with more Trump-like fanatics such as Marjorie Taylor Greene supporting extreme far-right policies. There won't be a Mike Pence or other voices of reason to hold back Trump next time.
• Pro-trump election deniers have infiltrated important but overlooked political positions in swing states that give them the ability to influence election results. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-swing-state-officials-election-deniers-1235069692/
• Trump claims to have no knowledge of Project 2025 and yet many members of his staff and JD Vance have ties to it and the Heritage Foundation. The leader of Project 2025 has stated on national TV that it "will be a revolution which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

Trump's "rhetoric" is not rhetoric. When he unapologetically says he wants to be dictator on day 1 in countless interviews, even when confronted on his seriousness about it and given chances to back down, that can no longer be considered rhetoric. When he tells people they won't need to vote anymore after this election that's not rhetoric. There's a reason his own vice president said he went back and forth on wondering if Trump was "America's hitler".

When he continues to make baseless claims and builds a large cult following around the idea of election fraud in 2020 even though those claims were widely investigated and found to be completely unsubstantiated, and then talks about getting retribution against people who have rigged the system against him, that's not rhetoric. If you're rationalist and value intellectual integrity how can you support one of the greatest gas lighters in history?

When he gives glowing reviews of other authoritarians like Putin and Xi Jinping that's not rhetoric.

The idea that anyone who is remotely interested in EA and doing good in the world can even considering supporting Trump is atrocious and makes me sad.

I appreciate that this post was short and concise enough that I could read the whole thing during my 10 minute lunch break ❤️🙏

Super cool! Yes, for sure! The Southwest is under-represented in EA :)

Even if AI kills every human on Earth that doesn't mean it's an existential threat necessarily. Humans evolved naturally once so who's to say that couldn't happen again if we all died? Who's to say it hasn't already happened on another planet? If you want to really go to an extreme, maybe we're in a simulation so none of us exist anyways and even if our AI does kill us all there'd still be plenty of intelligent life forms outside of the simulation who'd be fine.

A common thing I hear is that if there are potentially trillions or more possible humans who could exist in the future then any marginal reduction of existential risk is worth doing, but that view seems to be making some big assumptions about the universe we live in and how intelligent life emerged. I haven't heard anyone mention this before in ex-risk / longterm discussion but I'm sure I'm not the first one to think it so I figured I'd post it here.

As an experiment I converted the google sheets into a Notion database and plugged a map into it if anyone's curious. (Keep in mind this isn't in sync with the gsheet anymore) Map view of Notion database:   https://app.notionmaps.com/map/ea-houses-l4re6115