without consulting very much with the people who have tried thinking more deeply through the consequences
I’m not sure what the standard is here, but this doesn’t feel quite right. Sometime people who have tried thinking a lot about an area are worth ignoring (e.g. the field of medical ethics).
Agree that this shouldn’t be measured in “amount of time thinking through something” or in “degree to which they look like they are supposed to have thought through something”. I think it should just be measured in the likelihood that a group of people has actually figured out the most important considerations.
I edited it a bit. Now says “without consulting very much with the people who are most likely to have properly thought through the consequences of those actions”.
Yeah, if you can find a group of people who have thought deeply about the consequences that seems great. I also think for many great actions, there may not be any such body of people. In such a case (my first thought is that) I would try to create one? Like, find some very intelligent people with enough understanding of the details to engage on the object level, and who disagree, and put in the effort to debate them, and then actually change their minds. Might be a bit more robust.
(But of course, in our civilization, there are no real adults who can make sure a decision is the right one for the whole course of the world, there are only gradations of reduction of uncertainty, and at some point you have to make decisions according to your most true-and-tried principles.)
I’m not sure what the standard is here, but this doesn’t feel quite right. Sometime people who have tried thinking a lot about an area are worth ignoring (e.g. the field of medical ethics).
Agree that this shouldn’t be measured in “amount of time thinking through something” or in “degree to which they look like they are supposed to have thought through something”. I think it should just be measured in the likelihood that a group of people has actually figured out the most important considerations.
I edited it a bit. Now says “without consulting very much with the people who are most likely to have properly thought through the consequences of those actions”.
Yeah, if you can find a group of people who have thought deeply about the consequences that seems great. I also think for many great actions, there may not be any such body of people. In such a case (my first thought is that) I would try to create one? Like, find some very intelligent people with enough understanding of the details to engage on the object level, and who disagree, and put in the effort to debate them, and then actually change their minds. Might be a bit more robust.
(But of course, in our civilization, there are no real adults who can make sure a decision is the right one for the whole course of the world, there are only gradations of reduction of uncertainty, and at some point you have to make decisions according to your most true-and-tried principles.)