Quote:
“If someone has to die, it may as well be the initiator of force, to discourage future violence and thereby minimize the total sum of death.
“If the Enemy has an average disposition, and is acting from beliefs about their situation that would make violence a typically human response, then that doesn’t mean their beliefs are factually accurate. It doesn’t mean they’re justified. It means you’ll have to shoot down someone who is the hero of their own story, and in their novel the protagonist will die on page 80. That is a tragedy, but it is better than the alternative tragedy. It is the choice that every police officer makes, every day, to keep our neat little worlds from dissolving into chaos.”
On the one hand, you believe that the initiator of force is the one who deserves to die. On the other hand, you seem to have a love affair with police officers. Which is it? Are initiators of force heroes when they wear blue clothing? Or do they deserve to die too, when they initiate force? (which is about 95% of their job lately)
The ideal point of a police system (and, by extension, a police officer) is to choose force in such a way as to “minimize the total sum of death”.
It appears that you believe that the current police system is nothing like that, while Eliezer seems to believe it is at least somewhat like that. While I don’t have sufficient information to form a realistic opinion, it seems to me highly improbable that 95% of police actions are initiations of force or that every police officer chooses every day to minimize total sum of death.
The largest issue here is that Eliezer is focusing on “force chosen to minimize death” and you’re focusing on “people in blue uniforms”. While both are related to the ideal police system, they are not sufficiently similar to each other for an argument between them to make much sense.
Quote: “If someone has to die, it may as well be the initiator of force, to discourage future violence and thereby minimize the total sum of death. “If the Enemy has an average disposition, and is acting from beliefs about their situation that would make violence a typically human response, then that doesn’t mean their beliefs are factually accurate. It doesn’t mean they’re justified. It means you’ll have to shoot down someone who is the hero of their own story, and in their novel the protagonist will die on page 80. That is a tragedy, but it is better than the alternative tragedy. It is the choice that every police officer makes, every day, to keep our neat little worlds from dissolving into chaos.”
On the one hand, you believe that the initiator of force is the one who deserves to die. On the other hand, you seem to have a love affair with police officers. Which is it? Are initiators of force heroes when they wear blue clothing? Or do they deserve to die too, when they initiate force? (which is about 95% of their job lately)
The ideal point of a police system (and, by extension, a police officer) is to choose force in such a way as to “minimize the total sum of death”.
It appears that you believe that the current police system is nothing like that, while Eliezer seems to believe it is at least somewhat like that. While I don’t have sufficient information to form a realistic opinion, it seems to me highly improbable that 95% of police actions are initiations of force or that every police officer chooses every day to minimize total sum of death.
The largest issue here is that Eliezer is focusing on “force chosen to minimize death” and you’re focusing on “people in blue uniforms”. While both are related to the ideal police system, they are not sufficiently similar to each other for an argument between them to make much sense.