I’m bothered by the mention of cryonics here for three reasons. 1) cryonics, it seems to me, leaves death inexorable, just substantially delayed, 2) cryonics does not, as far as I can tell, actually increase my life expectancy much, as anti-aging tech and especially UFAI make most traditional causes of death irrelevant, 3) if someone finds life meaningless, how could more life help?
I also worry about the ‘unproblematic’ part of the relationship. Shouldn’t a genuinely loving relationship contribute to happiness/fulfillment/excitement even if it IS problematic? Finally, I worry about the positive effect on the world. I think that people should try to have such an effect, by which I mean that upon sufficient reflection almost all people would decide to (though most people might, upon less reflection, decide to stop reflecting), but that their lives should stay meaningful even once the world’s problems are fixed. Preserving suffering so that you can asymptotically relieve it seems like a slightly plausible and horribly insane outcome of the wrong volition extrapolation dynamics.
“Preserving suffering” sounds terrible, but if we believe in a common currency of value (utility), then I don’t think it’s necessarily insane to preserve some suffering. Is the frustration experienced learning something challenging ‘suffering’? Is it comparable to a dust speck in an eye?
Is the frustration experienced learning something challenging ‘suffering’?
I don’t know—I would say that some of what we call frustration in that situation is, yes. And, yes, it should be eliminated. (if) you can get the learning without the suffering, which I think you can, you should.
I’m bothered by the mention of cryonics here for three reasons. 1) cryonics, it seems to me, leaves death inexorable, just substantially delayed, 2) cryonics does not, as far as I can tell, actually increase my life expectancy much, as anti-aging tech and especially UFAI make most traditional causes of death irrelevant, 3) if someone finds life meaningless, how could more life help? I also worry about the ‘unproblematic’ part of the relationship. Shouldn’t a genuinely loving relationship contribute to happiness/fulfillment/excitement even if it IS problematic? Finally, I worry about the positive effect on the world. I think that people should try to have such an effect, by which I mean that upon sufficient reflection almost all people would decide to (though most people might, upon less reflection, decide to stop reflecting), but that their lives should stay meaningful even once the world’s problems are fixed. Preserving suffering so that you can asymptotically relieve it seems like a slightly plausible and horribly insane outcome of the wrong volition extrapolation dynamics.
“Preserving suffering” sounds terrible, but if we believe in a common currency of value (utility), then I don’t think it’s necessarily insane to preserve some suffering. Is the frustration experienced learning something challenging ‘suffering’? Is it comparable to a dust speck in an eye?
The superhappies say hi.
I don’t know—I would say that some of what we call frustration in that situation is, yes. And, yes, it should be eliminated. (if) you can get the learning without the suffering, which I think you can, you should.