Thanks, Torello. Like many good things, they’re really short and sweet summaries of things that Eliezer and others have been saying for years. The list is by no means exhaustive. I’m not very far into the Sequences, and this is just what I’ve pieced together, so someone else would probably be able to point you to relevant LW posts. I know far less than I appear to know.
I haven’t read it, but my guess is that Gary Drescher’s Good and Real: Demystifying Paradoxes from Physics to Ethics would be what you’re looking for. I know for a fact that it explains why no absolute morality != moral relativism or moral nihilism, and why determinism != fatalism. As for the second, from what I understand, reductionism is the key to solving most of our Old Hard Unsolved Problems, so he’ll talk about that, but I don’t know if he’ll talk about people weirdly losing all hope when they see that reductionism is the way to go. I don’t know about the fourth item, but I don’t see Drescher successfully avoiding it. The fifth item in the list probably did not merit discussion in Drescher’s book.
I don’t think it merits its own post, even in discussion. It’s not really novel here, except perhaps in presentation.
Your discussion of failure modes at the bottom of this comment is excellent.
Do you have any recommend books or articles on the topic?
Has there already been a post about these failure modes on the main page? If not, please expand this into a main post.
Too all other readers, please feel free to share books or articles on the topic.
Thanks, Torello. Like many good things, they’re really short and sweet summaries of things that Eliezer and others have been saying for years. The list is by no means exhaustive. I’m not very far into the Sequences, and this is just what I’ve pieced together, so someone else would probably be able to point you to relevant LW posts. I know far less than I appear to know.
I haven’t read it, but my guess is that Gary Drescher’s Good and Real: Demystifying Paradoxes from Physics to Ethics would be what you’re looking for. I know for a fact that it explains why no absolute morality != moral relativism or moral nihilism, and why determinism != fatalism. As for the second, from what I understand, reductionism is the key to solving most of our Old Hard Unsolved Problems, so he’ll talk about that, but I don’t know if he’ll talk about people weirdly losing all hope when they see that reductionism is the way to go. I don’t know about the fourth item, but I don’t see Drescher successfully avoiding it. The fifth item in the list probably did not merit discussion in Drescher’s book.
I don’t think it merits its own post, even in discussion. It’s not really novel here, except perhaps in presentation.