(I just came back from vacation, sorry for the late reply, and happy New Year ! Also, Merry Christmas if you are so inclined :-) )
Firstly, I operate by Crocker’s Rules, so you can call me anything you want and I won’t mind.
It works for anything; you can’t just say “X is bad, fix X at all cost”. You have to be sure it’s not actually the best state of affairs first.
I agree with you completely regarding utilitarianism (although in this case we’re not talking about the moral theory, just the approach in general). All I was saying is that IMO the utility one places on believing things that are likely to be actually true should, IMO, be extremely high—and possibly higher than the utility you assign to this feature. But “extremely high” does not mean “infinite”, of course, and it’s entirely possible that, in some cases, the disutility from all the side-effects will not be worth the utility gain—especially if the side-effects are preventing you from believing true things anyway (f.ex. “mental fog”, psychosis, depression, etc.).
That said, if I personally was seeing visions or hearing voices, I would be willing (assuming I remained reasonably rational, of course) to risk a very large disutility even for a less than 50% chance of fixing the problem. If I can’t trust my senses (or, indeed, my thoughts), then my ability to correctly evaluate my utility is greatly diminished. I could be thinking that everything is just great, while in reality I was hurting myself or others, and I’d be none the wiser. Of course, I could also be just great in reality, as well; but given the way this universe works, this is unlikely.
This is the internet. Nothing anyone says on the internet is ever going away, even if some of us really wish it could.
Data on the Internet is less permanent than many people think, IMO, but this is probably beside the point; I was making an analogy to the Bible, which was written in the days before the Internet, but (sadly) after the days of giant stone steles. Besides, the way things are going, it’s not out of the question that future versions of the Internet would all be written in Chinese...
Why is communication so difficult? Why doesn’t knowing that someone’s not doing it on purpose matter?
I think this is because you possess religious faith, which I have never experienced, and thus I am unable to evaluate what you say in the same frame of reference. Or it could be because I’m just obtuse. Or a bit of both.
Besides, the way things are going, it’s not out of the question that future versions of the Internet would all be written in Chinese...
I don’t think so. The popularity of the English language has gained momentum such that even if its original causes (the economic status of the US) ceased, it would go on for quite a while. Chinese hasn’t. See http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/weber/rep-weber.htm (It was written a decade and a half ago, but I don’t think the situation is significantly qualitatively different for English and Chinese in ways which couldn’t have been predicted back then.) I think English is going to remain the main international language for at least 30 more years, unless some major catastrophe occurs (where by major I mean ‘killing at least 5% of the world human population’).
(I just came back from vacation, sorry for the late reply, and happy New Year ! Also, Merry Christmas if you are so inclined :-) )
Firstly, I operate by Crocker’s Rules, so you can call me anything you want and I won’t mind.
I agree with you completely regarding utilitarianism (although in this case we’re not talking about the moral theory, just the approach in general). All I was saying is that IMO the utility one places on believing things that are likely to be actually true should, IMO, be extremely high—and possibly higher than the utility you assign to this feature. But “extremely high” does not mean “infinite”, of course, and it’s entirely possible that, in some cases, the disutility from all the side-effects will not be worth the utility gain—especially if the side-effects are preventing you from believing true things anyway (f.ex. “mental fog”, psychosis, depression, etc.).
That said, if I personally was seeing visions or hearing voices, I would be willing (assuming I remained reasonably rational, of course) to risk a very large disutility even for a less than 50% chance of fixing the problem. If I can’t trust my senses (or, indeed, my thoughts), then my ability to correctly evaluate my utility is greatly diminished. I could be thinking that everything is just great, while in reality I was hurting myself or others, and I’d be none the wiser. Of course, I could also be just great in reality, as well; but given the way this universe works, this is unlikely.
Data on the Internet is less permanent than many people think, IMO, but this is probably beside the point; I was making an analogy to the Bible, which was written in the days before the Internet, but (sadly) after the days of giant stone steles. Besides, the way things are going, it’s not out of the question that future versions of the Internet would all be written in Chinese...
I think this is because you possess religious faith, which I have never experienced, and thus I am unable to evaluate what you say in the same frame of reference. Or it could be because I’m just obtuse. Or a bit of both.
I don’t think so. The popularity of the English language has gained momentum such that even if its original causes (the economic status of the US) ceased, it would go on for quite a while. Chinese hasn’t. See http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/weber/rep-weber.htm (It was written a decade and a half ago, but I don’t think the situation is significantly qualitatively different for English and Chinese in ways which couldn’t have been predicted back then.) I think English is going to remain the main international language for at least 30 more years, unless some major catastrophe occurs (where by major I mean ‘killing at least 5% of the world human population’).