I reject the idea that human suffering is a linear function. Once you accept such an idea, it’s not too difficult too say that to avoid minor inconveniences of sufficiently large number of people we should torture one person for his whole life.
Here is a question to demonstrate:
Two people are scheduled to be tortured for no reason you know. One is to be tortured for two days, the other for three. You know that subjects are equally resistant to torture.
You have the choice:
Reduce the time one subject is tortured from 3 to 2 days. Other is tortured for 2d.
Reduce the time one subject is tortured from 2 to 1 day. Other is tortured for 3d.
Which choice would you make?
I certainly hope that most of so called utilitarians can see the importance of that choice. To grow infatuated with a small cold flame is to blind yourself to the possibility of being wrong in your estimates. Before you say that torture is preferable to dustspecks ask yourself how does human suffering scale from specks to torture.
I reject the idea that human suffering is a linear function. Once you accept such an idea, it’s not too difficult too say that to avoid minor inconveniences of sufficiently large number of people we should torture one person for his whole life.
To reject the second concept, you don’t just need to reject the idea of human suffering as a linear function, you need to reject the idea of human suffering as quantifiable at all—whether it can be expressed as a linear or exponential or any other kind of function.
Here is a question to demonstrate:
Two people are scheduled to be tortured for no reason you know. One is to be tortured for two days, the other for three. > You know that subjects are equally resistant to torture.
You have the choice: Reduce the time one subject is tortured from 3 to 2 days. Other is tortured for 2d.
Reduce the time one subject is tortured from 2 to 1 day. Other is tortured for 3d. Which choice would you make?
I don’t actually understand the purpose of this question. For me to answer it correctly I’d have to know much more about the lasting effects of torture over 1, 2 or 3 days respectively to figure out whether “1day of torture + 3 days of torture” is greater or less disutility than “2 times 2 days of torture”.
None of the utilitarians here, as far as I know, has ever argued that you can just multiply the timespan of torture to find the disutility thereof. I think your argument is not actually attacking anything we recognize as utilitarianism.
Before you say that torture is preferable to dustspecks ask yourself how does human suffering scale from specks to torture.
I attempted such a scaling in a thread of a different forum. For me It went a bit like this: 20,000 dust specks worse than a single papercut. 50 papercuts worse than a 5-minute hiccup 20 hiccups worse than a half-hour headache 50 half-hour headaches worse than a evening of diarrhea 400 diarrheas worse than a broken leg. 30 broken legs worse than a month of unjust imprisonments. 200 unjust imprisonments worse than a month of torture 100 torture-months worse than a torture year 10 torture-years worse than a torture of 5 years 10 torture-5-years worse than torture of 20 years 5 torture-20-years worse than torture of 50 years
That took me to 120,000,000,000,000,000,000 dustspecks (one speck per person) being worse than 50 years of torture. So basically specks equivalent to the population of 20 billion Earths
The number still seems a bit too small for me, and I’d currently probably revise upwards some of the steps above (e.g. the factor corresponding between diarrheas and broken legs, and perhaps a few other figures there).
Ah. But you see, I don’t think one can get away with classifying any physical part of our universe as principally unquantifiable (Evidence leads me to believe that measurements of pain or damage are possible for example, though they are not ideally accurate). And I do not argue that no judgements in favour of moderate individual damage vs. huge spread damage will be justified. Just that in specific case of dustspecks versus torture I don’t think most of us should choose torture.
I don’t actually understand the purpose of this question. For me to answer it correctly I’d have to know much more about the lasting effects of torture over 1, 2 or 3 days respectively to figure out whether “1day of torture + 3 days of torture” is greater or less disutility than “2 times 2 days of torture”.
The thing about that choice is that one does not have overwhelming evidence available. What would be your best estimate of disutility function, given the evidence you currently posses? If you personally had to make such a choice, you would be forced to consider at least some disutility function or admit that you are making a judgement without taking into account well-being of subjects. The whole idea behind that question is to point out that some kind of utility function is required and it is that function that ultimately determines your answer.
As to the correct answer, I don’t see how could anyone ever give a perfectly correct one (as there is no way to know what specific effect torture will have on each of the subjects in advance, though in future I expect we will be able to give pretty good estimates), but if I was forced to make such a choice, I would definitely try to take the option with the least total damage to subjects. And I do not currently think that 3 days of torture would be less damaging than two and that the second day would do more or equal harm compared to the third.
None of the utilitarians here, as far as I know, has ever argued that you can just multiply the timespan of torture to find the disutility thereof. I think your argument is not actually attacking anything we recognize as utilitarianism.
I sure hope so. I expect that my meaning was lost in so called part. I am just terrified that some people will be tempted to don the robes of utilitarianism and argue in favour of oppressing some small groups for the benefit of the whole society at large. We may not favour such arguments in politics right now, but are you sure that in future such a flawed call to pragmatism will not become a danger? I’m even more terrified by the fact that Eliezer posted this here without several explicit warnings about such a danger. Just as knowing about biases can be dangerous this example is potentially lethal.
So the point I wanted to make is that before considering a choice in such a dilemma one has to carefully examine his (dis)utility functions, not justshut up and multiply.
am just terrified that some people will be tempted to don the robes of utilitarianism and argue in favour of oppressing some small groups for the benefit of the whole society at large.
Oppression of minorities can happen both via consequentialistic claims (e.g. Stalin) but also via deontological claims (e.g. Islamists). But either way such societies have proved themselves tyrannical for pretty much almost everyone, not just the most oppressed minorities. So in those cases it’s not “oppressing the few for the benefit of the many”, it ends up being “oppressing the many for the benefit of the few”. Likewise with slaveholding societies, etc..
A better example of oppressing the few for the benefit of the many is how our own (modern, Western) societies lock away criminals. We oppress prisoners (and frankly we oppress them too much and too needlessly in my point of view) for the supposed benefit of the whole society. You may argue that we oppress them because they deserve it and NOT for the benefit of society—but would you consider the existence of prisons justifiable if it was just done because the prisoners deserve it, and not that society as a whole also benefitted by such locking away of prisoners? I, for one, would not.
If you argue that we only lock away the people we believe guilty—that’s not true either. We detain suspects as well, (and therefore oppress them in this manner), before their guilt is determined. And we fully expect that atleast some of them will be found not guilty. We currently accept this oppression of (relatively few) innocent, for the benefit of the society as a whole.
Indeed. But prisons can be justified from a pragmatic point of view. Certainly we detain these people for the benefit of the many, but we do not torture them and lately there is a trend to give them more opportunities to work and create. I should note here, that I absolutely abhor death penalty, so let’s not go off on that tangent.
As for Stalin, I am ashamed to admit that I can not remember him actually using appeal to pragmatism to convince someone. Perhaps it was more like giving the audience a safe route out of challenging him after he made the decision alone. As in his argument sounds vaguely convincing so I don’t have to feel guilty about avoiding being the first to dissent and going to GULag. Can you see how much more convenient it may be for a dictaor to give such a line of retreat? Usually dictators are not in position where there is a real need to convince people of something by arguing, as far as I can see.
What I have in mind is a situation sometime in not distant future, when appeals to pragmatism will become more common in politics, but general population is not yet ready to spot skewed utility functions in such a dilemma. So it will indeed become possible to convince the majority of population to willingly cooperate and oppress the few. Most people really don’t require that much convincing when it comes to certain inconvenience for me vs. distant suffering for some strangers that I will probably never see type of choice anyway. And when such a Master of rationality as Eliezer himself argued in favour of torturing some hapless chap for 50 years just so many people would be spared an inconvenience of blinking once, you can see where this will go. I’m just afraid that while Eliezer tries to instil a certainly useful principle of shut up and multiply he may well be setting some people up to prefer “the many” side of such a dilemma. Cannot be too cautious when teaching aspiring rationalists.
But prisons can be justified from a pragmatic point of view.
What’s the difference between the “pragmatic point of view” (which it seems you justify) and the “benefit of the many” (which I understand you don’t justify)? This seems to me a meaningless distinction.
Certainly we detain these people for the benefit of the many, but we do not torture them
Well, most people don’t perceive enough benefit for society to hurting prisoners more than they currently are being hurt. So that’s rather besides the point, isn’t it? The point is we detain and oppress the few for the benefit of the many.
and lately there is a trend to give them more opportunities to work and create.
Even assuming I accept such a trend exists (not sure about it), again we don’t consider such opportunities to be against the benefit of the many. So it’s besides the point.
So it will indeed become possible to convince the majority of population to willingly cooperate and oppress the few.
As I already said we already cooperate in order to oppress the few. We call those few “prisoners”, which we’re oppressing for the benefit of the many.
And when such a Master of rationality as Eliezer himself argued in favour of torturing some hapless chap for 50 years just so many people would be spared an inconvenience of blinking once, you can see where this will go.
No, I’m sorry, but I really REALLY don’t see where it’s supposed to be going. In the current world people are tortured to death for much less reason than that. Not even for the small benefit of 3^^^^3 people, but for no benefit or even for negative benefit.
I’d rather argue with someone about torture on the terms of expected utility and disutility for the whole of humanity, rather than with someone who just repeats the mantra “If you oppose torture, then you’re just a terrorist-lover who hates our freedoms” or for that matter the opposite “If you support torture for any reason whatsoever, even in extreme hypothetical scenarios, you’re just as bad as the terrorists”.
And currently it’s the latter practice that seems dominant in actual discussions (and defenses also) of torture, not any utilitarian tactic of assigning utilities to expected outcomes.
What’s the difference between the “pragmatic point of view” (which it seems you justify) and the “benefit of the many” (which I understand you don’t justify)? This seems to me a meaningless distinction.
It seems that way because it is that way. I simply failed to communicate my idea properly. In fact I mentioned that
I do not argue that no judgements in favour of moderate individual damage vs. huge spread damage will be justified. Just that in specific case of dustspecks versus torture I don’t think most of us should choose torture.
What I truly want is not to dismiss “benefit of the many”(nothing wrong with it), but to bring into focus the issue of comparing utility functions, which in this case I think Eliezer messed up.
As I already said we already cooperate in order to oppress the few. We call those few “prisoners”, which we’re oppressing for the benefit of the many.
Yes we do. And it seems that we both prefer to actually talk about such decisions in terms of utility gain or loss. But just because two of us are being reasonable does not mean that everyone else will be. What worries me is that some people learning about “the Way” form Eliezer’s post may acquire a bit of bias toward “the many” side of such dilemmas. And then when the issue will arise in the future they will chose the wrong side and perhaps convince many others to take the wrong side.
No, I’m sorry, but I really REALLY don’t see where it’s supposed to be going. In the current world people are tortured to death for much less reason than that. Not even for the small benefit of 3^^^^3 people, but for no benefit or even for negative benefit.
Now this is not certain, but I expect Eliezer to have a huge impact on the future of our species, because issues of thinking and deciding are indeed central to our daily lives. And any inadvertent mistake here or in his book will have noticeable consequences. Someone in the future will take out that book and point to how Eliezer prefers to condemn one person to torture instead of having 3^^^^3 people blink, and the audience may well be convinced that it is better in general to prefer “the many”, because Eliezer will be an authority and their brains will just dump 3^^^^3 into “many” mental bucket. Better to introduce a few cautionary lines into that post and book now, while there is time to do it.
I’d rather argue with someone about torture on the terms of expected utility and disutility for the whole of humanity, rather than with someone who just repeats the mantra “If you oppose torture, then you’re just a terrorist-lover who hates our freedoms” or for that matter the opposite “If you support torture for any reason whatsoever, even in extreme hypothetical scenarios, you’re just as bad as the terrorists”.
So would I. I am not trying to argue with you here. As far as I can see we agree on pretty much everything so far. I probably just fail to convey my ideas most of the time.
I reject the idea that human suffering is a linear function. Once you accept such an idea, it’s not too difficult too say that to avoid minor inconveniences of sufficiently large number of people we should torture one person for his whole life.
Here is a question to demonstrate:
Two people are scheduled to be tortured for no reason you know. One is to be tortured for two days, the other for three. You know that subjects are equally resistant to torture.
You have the choice:
Reduce the time one subject is tortured from 3 to 2 days. Other is tortured for 2d.
Reduce the time one subject is tortured from 2 to 1 day. Other is tortured for 3d.
Which choice would you make?
I certainly hope that most of so called utilitarians can see the importance of that choice. To grow infatuated with a small cold flame is to blind yourself to the possibility of being wrong in your estimates. Before you say that torture is preferable to dustspecks ask yourself how does human suffering scale from specks to torture.
To reject the second concept, you don’t just need to reject the idea of human suffering as a linear function, you need to reject the idea of human suffering as quantifiable at all—whether it can be expressed as a linear or exponential or any other kind of function.
I don’t actually understand the purpose of this question. For me to answer it correctly I’d have to know much more about the lasting effects of torture over 1, 2 or 3 days respectively to figure out whether “1day of torture + 3 days of torture” is greater or less disutility than “2 times 2 days of torture”.
None of the utilitarians here, as far as I know, has ever argued that you can just multiply the timespan of torture to find the disutility thereof. I think your argument is not actually attacking anything we recognize as utilitarianism.
I attempted such a scaling in a thread of a different forum. For me It went a bit like this:
20,000 dust specks worse than a single papercut.
50 papercuts worse than a 5-minute hiccup
20 hiccups worse than a half-hour headache
50 half-hour headaches worse than a evening of diarrhea
400 diarrheas worse than a broken leg.
30 broken legs worse than a month of unjust imprisonments.
200 unjust imprisonments worse than a month of torture
100 torture-months worse than a torture year
10 torture-years worse than a torture of 5 years
10 torture-5-years worse than torture of 20 years
5 torture-20-years worse than torture of 50 years
That took me to 120,000,000,000,000,000,000 dustspecks (one speck per person) being worse than 50 years of torture. So basically specks equivalent to the population of 20 billion Earths
The number still seems a bit too small for me, and I’d currently probably revise upwards some of the steps above (e.g. the factor corresponding between diarrheas and broken legs, and perhaps a few other figures there).
Ah. But you see, I don’t think one can get away with classifying any physical part of our universe as principally unquantifiable (Evidence leads me to believe that measurements of pain or damage are possible for example, though they are not ideally accurate). And I do not argue that no judgements in favour of moderate individual damage vs. huge spread damage will be justified. Just that in specific case of dustspecks versus torture I don’t think most of us should choose torture.
The thing about that choice is that one does not have overwhelming evidence available. What would be your best estimate of disutility function, given the evidence you currently posses? If you personally had to make such a choice, you would be forced to consider at least some disutility function or admit that you are making a judgement without taking into account well-being of subjects. The whole idea behind that question is to point out that some kind of utility function is required and it is that function that ultimately determines your answer.
As to the correct answer, I don’t see how could anyone ever give a perfectly correct one (as there is no way to know what specific effect torture will have on each of the subjects in advance, though in future I expect we will be able to give pretty good estimates), but if I was forced to make such a choice, I would definitely try to take the option with the least total damage to subjects. And I do not currently think that 3 days of torture would be less damaging than two and that the second day would do more or equal harm compared to the third.
I sure hope so. I expect that my meaning was lost in so called part. I am just terrified that some people will be tempted to don the robes of utilitarianism and argue in favour of oppressing some small groups for the benefit of the whole society at large. We may not favour such arguments in politics right now, but are you sure that in future such a flawed call to pragmatism will not become a danger? I’m even more terrified by the fact that Eliezer posted this here without several explicit warnings about such a danger. Just as knowing about biases can be dangerous this example is potentially lethal.
So the point I wanted to make is that before considering a choice in such a dilemma one has to carefully examine his (dis)utility functions, not just shut up and multiply.
Oppression of minorities can happen both via consequentialistic claims (e.g. Stalin) but also via deontological claims (e.g. Islamists). But either way such societies have proved themselves tyrannical for pretty much almost everyone, not just the most oppressed minorities. So in those cases it’s not “oppressing the few for the benefit of the many”, it ends up being “oppressing the many for the benefit of the few”. Likewise with slaveholding societies, etc..
A better example of oppressing the few for the benefit of the many is how our own (modern, Western) societies lock away criminals. We oppress prisoners (and frankly we oppress them too much and too needlessly in my point of view) for the supposed benefit of the whole society. You may argue that we oppress them because they deserve it and NOT for the benefit of society—but would you consider the existence of prisons justifiable if it was just done because the prisoners deserve it, and not that society as a whole also benefitted by such locking away of prisoners? I, for one, would not.
If you argue that we only lock away the people we believe guilty—that’s not true either. We detain suspects as well, (and therefore oppress them in this manner), before their guilt is determined. And we fully expect that atleast some of them will be found not guilty. We currently accept this oppression of (relatively few) innocent, for the benefit of the society as a whole.
Indeed. But prisons can be justified from a pragmatic point of view. Certainly we detain these people for the benefit of the many, but we do not torture them and lately there is a trend to give them more opportunities to work and create. I should note here, that I absolutely abhor death penalty, so let’s not go off on that tangent.
As for Stalin, I am ashamed to admit that I can not remember him actually using appeal to pragmatism to convince someone. Perhaps it was more like giving the audience a safe route out of challenging him after he made the decision alone. As in his argument sounds vaguely convincing so I don’t have to feel guilty about avoiding being the first to dissent and going to GULag. Can you see how much more convenient it may be for a dictaor to give such a line of retreat? Usually dictators are not in position where there is a real need to convince people of something by arguing, as far as I can see.
What I have in mind is a situation sometime in not distant future, when appeals to pragmatism will become more common in politics, but general population is not yet ready to spot skewed utility functions in such a dilemma. So it will indeed become possible to convince the majority of population to willingly cooperate and oppress the few. Most people really don’t require that much convincing when it comes to certain inconvenience for me vs. distant suffering for some strangers that I will probably never see type of choice anyway. And when such a Master of rationality as Eliezer himself argued in favour of torturing some hapless chap for 50 years just so many people would be spared an inconvenience of blinking once, you can see where this will go. I’m just afraid that while Eliezer tries to instil a certainly useful principle of shut up and multiply he may well be setting some people up to prefer “the many” side of such a dilemma. Cannot be too cautious when teaching aspiring rationalists.
What’s the difference between the “pragmatic point of view” (which it seems you justify) and the “benefit of the many” (which I understand you don’t justify)? This seems to me a meaningless distinction.
Well, most people don’t perceive enough benefit for society to hurting prisoners more than they currently are being hurt. So that’s rather besides the point, isn’t it? The point is we detain and oppress the few for the benefit of the many.
Even assuming I accept such a trend exists (not sure about it), again we don’t consider such opportunities to be against the benefit of the many. So it’s besides the point.
As I already said we already cooperate in order to oppress the few. We call those few “prisoners”, which we’re oppressing for the benefit of the many.
No, I’m sorry, but I really REALLY don’t see where it’s supposed to be going. In the current world people are tortured to death for much less reason than that. Not even for the small benefit of 3^^^^3 people, but for no benefit or even for negative benefit.
I’d rather argue with someone about torture on the terms of expected utility and disutility for the whole of humanity, rather than with someone who just repeats the mantra “If you oppose torture, then you’re just a terrorist-lover who hates our freedoms” or for that matter the opposite “If you support torture for any reason whatsoever, even in extreme hypothetical scenarios, you’re just as bad as the terrorists”.
And currently it’s the latter practice that seems dominant in actual discussions (and defenses also) of torture, not any utilitarian tactic of assigning utilities to expected outcomes.
It seems that way because it is that way. I simply failed to communicate my idea properly. In fact I mentioned that
What I truly want is not to dismiss “benefit of the many”(nothing wrong with it), but to bring into focus the issue of comparing utility functions, which in this case I think Eliezer messed up.
Yes we do. And it seems that we both prefer to actually talk about such decisions in terms of utility gain or loss. But just because two of us are being reasonable does not mean that everyone else will be. What worries me is that some people learning about “the Way” form Eliezer’s post may acquire a bit of bias toward “the many” side of such dilemmas. And then when the issue will arise in the future they will chose the wrong side and perhaps convince many others to take the wrong side.
Now this is not certain, but I expect Eliezer to have a huge impact on the future of our species, because issues of thinking and deciding are indeed central to our daily lives. And any inadvertent mistake here or in his book will have noticeable consequences. Someone in the future will take out that book and point to how Eliezer prefers to condemn one person to torture instead of having 3^^^^3 people blink, and the audience may well be convinced that it is better in general to prefer “the many”, because Eliezer will be an authority and their brains will just dump 3^^^^3 into “many” mental bucket. Better to introduce a few cautionary lines into that post and book now, while there is time to do it.
So would I. I am not trying to argue with you here. As far as I can see we agree on pretty much everything so far. I probably just fail to convey my ideas most of the time.