Yeah, I read that, reconsidered my impression and it seems you are right. My memories about his opinion seemed to have become muddled and simplified from several sources like his Uploads essay where he says “Most uploads should quickly come to value life even when life is hard or short, and wages should fall dramatically.” (which doesn’t seem to be a value statement) that poor folks essay, this discussion here (in which he doesn’t commentate) and this video interview in which he constantly says that life will be okay even though we’ll become more and more alienated from nature.
But I don’t think my view of his opinion was 100% incorrect. The distinction between “valuing your life” and “wanting to live” is interesting. If you want to live, does that automatically mean that you value your life? I mean, I’ve had days when maybe 95% of the time I’ve felt miserable, and 5% of the time I’ve felt okay and in the end I’ve still considered those days okay. If I want to have more of those kind of days, does that mean I value misery? How do you assess the quality of life in these kind of cases, and in cases where the ‘misery’ is even more extreme?
In your first paragraph, you agree with me that it isn’t a value judgement, but then in your second paragraph, you go back to claiming that it is the foundation of his position. I think it is mainly a response to claims that uploads will be miserable. I think his position is that we should not care about whether the uploads value their lives, but whether we, today, value their lives; but he thinks that moral rhetoric does not well match the speaker’s values. cf
Has he? I think his more typical defense is Poor Folks Do Smile.
Yeah, I read that, reconsidered my impression and it seems you are right. My memories about his opinion seemed to have become muddled and simplified from several sources like his Uploads essay where he says “Most uploads should quickly come to value life even when life is hard or short, and wages should fall dramatically.” (which doesn’t seem to be a value statement) that poor folks essay, this discussion here (in which he doesn’t commentate) and this video interview in which he constantly says that life will be okay even though we’ll become more and more alienated from nature.
But I don’t think my view of his opinion was 100% incorrect. The distinction between “valuing your life” and “wanting to live” is interesting. If you want to live, does that automatically mean that you value your life? I mean, I’ve had days when maybe 95% of the time I’ve felt miserable, and 5% of the time I’ve felt okay and in the end I’ve still considered those days okay. If I want to have more of those kind of days, does that mean I value misery? How do you assess the quality of life in these kind of cases, and in cases where the ‘misery’ is even more extreme?
In your first paragraph, you agree with me that it isn’t a value judgement, but then in your second paragraph, you go back to claiming that it is the foundation of his position. I think it is mainly a response to claims that uploads will be miserable. I think his position is that we should not care about whether the uploads value their lives, but whether we, today, value their lives; but he thinks that moral rhetoric does not well match the speaker’s values. cf