You should check out Efilism or Gnosticism on Negative Utilitarianism. There are views that see the universe as rotten in its core. They are obviously not very popular because they are too hard psychologically for most people and, more importantly, hurt the interest of those who prefer to pretend that life is good and the world is just for their own selfish reasons.
Also, obviously, viewing the world in a positive manner has serious advantages in memetic propagation for reasons that should be left as an exercise for the reader. (Hint: There were probably Buddhist sects that didn’t believe in reincarnation back in the day...)
more importantly, hurt the interest of those who prefer to pretend that life is good and the world is just for their own selfish reasons.
Isn’t that sort of contradictory? If there are people who have selfish reasons to act like life is good in general, obviously their life at least must be good enough for them to be satisfied. That makes the whole thing subjective, unless you take a very naive total sum utility approach.
Not like any of us has a “destroy universe and end all suffering” button ready to press and just refuses to anyway.
Imagine a reverse Omelas in which there is one powerful king who is extremely happy and one billion people suffering horrific fates. The King’s happiness depends on their misery. As part of his oppression, he forbids any discussion about the poor quality of life to minimize suicides, as they harm his interests.
“That makes the whole thing subjective, unless you take a very naive total sum utility approach.”
Wouldn’t the same type of argument apply to a reverse Omelas? The sum utility approach isn’t naive; it’s the most sensible approach. Personally, when choosing between alternatives in which you have skin in the game and need to think strategically, that’s exactly the approach you would take.
I don’t like total sum utility because it’s vulnerable to lots of hacks—your “reverse Omelas” is essentially a utility monster scenario, and in fact is exactly vulnerable to this because if you make the powerful king happy enough it says that the situation is good and should not be changed.
But also, I think morals make more sense as a guide towards how should we strive to change the world we’re in—within the allowances of its own rules of self-consistency—than how to judge the world itself. We don’t know precisely why the world works the way it does. Maybe it really couldn’t work any other way. But even if there was a happier universe possible, none of us can just teleport themselves to it and exist in it, as its laws would probably be incompatible with our life. If there were no rules or limits, ethics would be easy: you could always achieve that everyone be happy all the time. It’s because there are rules and limits that asking questions like “should I do X or Y? Which is better?” make sense and are necessary. As things are, since a net positive life seems possible in this universe, we don’t really have a reason to think that such a thing can’t be simply made available to more people, and ideally to everyone.
It’s not a utility monster scenario. The king doesn’t receive more happiness than other beings per a unit of resources; he’s a normal human being, just like all the others. While utility sum allows utility monsters, which seems bad, your method of “if some of the people are happy, then it’s just subjective” allows a reverse Omelas, which seems worse. It reminds me a bit of deontologists who criticize utilitarianism while allowing much worse things if applied consistently. Regarding the second part, I’m not against rules or limits or even against suffering. I just think that a much better game is possible that respects more conscious beings. No more bullshit like kids that are born with cancer and just spend their life dying in misery, or sea turtles that come into existence only to be eaten by predators, and so on and so forth. Video games are a good example; they have rules and limitations and loss conditions, but they are engineered with the player in mind and for his benefit, while in life, conscious beings are not promised interesting or fair experiences and might be just randomly tortured.
Ok, sorry, I phrased that wrong—I know the scenario you described isn’t a utility monster one, but it can be turned into one simply by running up the knob of how much the king enjoys himself, all while being just as unfair, so it’s not really like total utility captures the thing you feel is actually wrong here, is my point. I actually did write something more on this (though in a humorous tone) in this post.
I don’t mean that “it’s subjective” fixes everything. I just mean that it’s also the reason why it’s not entirely right IMO to write off an entire universe based on total utility. Like, my intuition is that if we had a universe with net total negative utility it still wouldn’t be right to just snap our fingers with the Infinity Gauntlet and make it disappears if it wasn’t the case that every single sentient in it, individually, was genuinely miserable to the point of wanting to die but being unable to.
Regarding the second part, I’m not against rules or limits or even against suffering.
The reason why I bring up rules and limits is more to stress how much our morality—the same by which we judge the wrongness of the universe—is borne of that universe’s own internal logic. For example, if we see someone drowning, we think it’s right to help them because we know that drowning is a thing that can happen to you without your consent (and because we estimate that ultimately on expectation it’s more likely that you wish to live than to die). I don’t mean that we can’t judge the flaws of the universe, but that our moral instincts are probably a better guide to what it takes to improve this universe, from inside (since they were shaped by it) than to what it would take to create a better one from scratch.
Video games are a good example; they have rules and limitations and loss conditions, but they are engineered with the player in mind and for his benefit, while in life, conscious beings are not promised interesting or fair experiences and might be just randomly tortured.
True, but also, with the same power as a programmer over a game, you could as well engineer a game to be positively torturous to its players. Purposefully frustrating and unfair. As things are, I think our universe is just not intelligently designed—neither to make us happy nor to make us miserable. Absent intent, this is what indifference looks like; and I think the asymmetry (where even indifference seems to result more in suffering than pleasure) is just a natural statistical outcome of how enjoyable states are just rarer and more specific than neutral or painful ones.
didn’t expect these concepts to be named here, but yes, I see them as very relevant in this context. Intuitively Negative Utilitarianism in particular. It doesn’t seem much of a stretch to argue that things are already way beyond the threshold, and that it is too late to salvage the situation?
If you have more to add in this context, I would be interested to know more. To look at the issue directly feels very taxing and draining indeed, and the experience I have had with talking with a misanthrope, did convince me that they were able to look at parts of existence that I at that point really disliked getting close to.
I agree that looking at reality honestly is probably quite detrimental to happiness or mental health. That’s why many people opt out of these conversations using methods like downvoting, sneering, or denying basic facts about reality. Their aim is likely to avoid the realization that we might be living in a world that is somewhat hellish. I’ve seen this avoidance many times, even in rationalist spaces. Although rationalists are generally better at facing it than others, and some like Brian Tomasik and Nate Soares even address it directly.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about these issues – not necessarily a wise choice. I’d humbly advise you to reconsider going down this rabbit hole. I haven’t penned down my conclusions yet, which are a bit idiosyncratic (I don’t strictly identify as a negative utilitarian). But to summarize, if you believe that conscious experience is paramount and that pain and suffering are inherently bad, then our world is probably net negative. This perspective isn’t just about humans; it’s about foundational principles like the laws of physics and evolution.
It doesn’t seem much of a stretch to argue that things are already way beyond the threshold and that it is too late to salvage the situation?
Interestingly, I still harbor hope. Maybe, for consciousness to emerge from nothing, life had to endure the brutal phase of Darwinian Evolution. But the future could be so bright that all the preceding suffering might be viewed as a worthy sacrifice, not a tragedy. Think of the pain a mother experiences during childbirth as a metaphor (but this birth has lasted millions of years). Alternatively, consciousness might vanish, or the world could become truly hellish, even more than its current state. The outcome isn’t clear, but I wouldn’t exclude any of these options.
I did read the Ecclesiastes a lot growing up, as well as the Proverbs. (From the old testament in the bible) In many ways I can understand and relate to the points of Salomon. There is a lot of rest in the fact that things can be beyond our immediate control. Even when we can try to change certain things, we don’t use unnecessary amounts of force or will to MAKE IT FIT!
With regard to health, self-compassion, receiving and understanding compassion is the way I see beyond the scary depths of For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases. I mean, to the observer you are still ‘engaging’ with suffering and pain directly, and so it doesn’t seem to work aka remove the suffering—but there is an internal shift, and also a behavioral one.
I harbor a lot of hope, but we have also noted a lot of other emotions, emotions that have been very hard to understand at first. The best way we have been able to make sense of it so far, is to look at our lives as one big farewell. Farewell to living here, to life, to trying to make things work, to all the hopes and wishes we have, had and will have. (Deftly avoid to talk about the more esoteric aspects ;)
We haven’t found anywhere where we believe our energy fits. And I am not talking about What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted. It is more of the notion that wanting to have this kind of reciprocity, is unwanted/wasted here. When people talk about A.I., or returning to Source, or Jesus’s embrace, it isn’t like we can’t relate, but even if it truly, truly pains me to feel it, this doesn’t feel right to me. It is a tentative roadmap, but as of now, it is also the one that fits massively better than the alternatives. There is still a lot we do not know, and we’ll see how things pan out.
Well, many might believe that automatically means we want to die—but it is the opposite. We want to live more, but also oppose death less. We don’t seem to fit—and there is also the thing about wanting to fit. I believe it should be mutual reciprocity.
Thank you for your response, Caerulea. Many of the emotions and thoughts you mentioned resonate with me. I truly hope you find peace and a sense of belonging. For myself, I’ve found solace in understanding that my happiness isn’t really determined by external factors, and I’m not to blame or responsible for the way the world is. It’s possible to find happiness in your own bubble, provided you have the necessary resources – which can sometimes be a challenge
Some things I just let myself struggle with—like finding the right food to eat, or how to become more healthy, or how to just be a bit more content, or allow discontent without reacting too much etc. I do see those concerns as connected to the abstract. They fit together—but as of now, they aren’t really balanced of course, but yeah, I hope I find more people to share this journey with, and I wish you well too. See you around.
It doesn’t seem much of a stretch to argue that things are already way beyond the threshold, and that it is too late to salvage the situation?
I think this is a failure of imagination due to the brain’s lack of ability to envision the scale of the universe as it really is. Both on the negative side, and on the positive.
You should check out Efilism or Gnosticism on Negative Utilitarianism. There are views that see the universe as rotten in its core. They are obviously not very popular because they are too hard psychologically for most people and, more importantly, hurt the interest of those who prefer to pretend that life is good and the world is just for their own selfish reasons.
Also, obviously, viewing the world in a positive manner has serious advantages in memetic propagation for reasons that should be left as an exercise for the reader. (Hint: There were probably Buddhist sects that didn’t believe in reincarnation back in the day...)
Isn’t that sort of contradictory? If there are people who have selfish reasons to act like life is good in general, obviously their life at least must be good enough for them to be satisfied. That makes the whole thing subjective, unless you take a very naive total sum utility approach.
Not like any of us has a “destroy universe and end all suffering” button ready to press and just refuses to anyway.
I think.
Imagine a reverse Omelas in which there is one powerful king who is extremely happy and one billion people suffering horrific fates. The King’s happiness depends on their misery. As part of his oppression, he forbids any discussion about the poor quality of life to minimize suicides, as they harm his interests.
“That makes the whole thing subjective, unless you take a very naive total sum utility approach.”
Wouldn’t the same type of argument apply to a reverse Omelas? The sum utility approach isn’t naive; it’s the most sensible approach. Personally, when choosing between alternatives in which you have skin in the game and need to think strategically, that’s exactly the approach you would take.
I don’t like total sum utility because it’s vulnerable to lots of hacks—your “reverse Omelas” is essentially a utility monster scenario, and in fact is exactly vulnerable to this because if you make the powerful king happy enough it says that the situation is good and should not be changed.
But also, I think morals make more sense as a guide towards how should we strive to change the world we’re in—within the allowances of its own rules of self-consistency—than how to judge the world itself. We don’t know precisely why the world works the way it does. Maybe it really couldn’t work any other way. But even if there was a happier universe possible, none of us can just teleport themselves to it and exist in it, as its laws would probably be incompatible with our life. If there were no rules or limits, ethics would be easy: you could always achieve that everyone be happy all the time. It’s because there are rules and limits that asking questions like “should I do X or Y? Which is better?” make sense and are necessary. As things are, since a net positive life seems possible in this universe, we don’t really have a reason to think that such a thing can’t be simply made available to more people, and ideally to everyone.
It’s not a utility monster scenario. The king doesn’t receive more happiness than other beings per a unit of resources; he’s a normal human being, just like all the others. While utility sum allows utility monsters, which seems bad, your method of “if some of the people are happy, then it’s just subjective” allows a reverse Omelas, which seems worse. It reminds me a bit of deontologists who criticize utilitarianism while allowing much worse things if applied consistently.
Regarding the second part, I’m not against rules or limits or even against suffering. I just think that a much better game is possible that respects more conscious beings. No more bullshit like kids that are born with cancer and just spend their life dying in misery, or sea turtles that come into existence only to be eaten by predators, and so on and so forth.
Video games are a good example; they have rules and limitations and loss conditions, but they are engineered with the player in mind and for his benefit, while in life, conscious beings are not promised interesting or fair experiences and might be just randomly tortured.
Ok, sorry, I phrased that wrong—I know the scenario you described isn’t a utility monster one, but it can be turned into one simply by running up the knob of how much the king enjoys himself, all while being just as unfair, so it’s not really like total utility captures the thing you feel is actually wrong here, is my point. I actually did write something more on this (though in a humorous tone) in this post.
I don’t mean that “it’s subjective” fixes everything. I just mean that it’s also the reason why it’s not entirely right IMO to write off an entire universe based on total utility. Like, my intuition is that if we had a universe with net total negative utility it still wouldn’t be right to just snap our fingers with the Infinity Gauntlet and make it disappears if it wasn’t the case that every single sentient in it, individually, was genuinely miserable to the point of wanting to die but being unable to.
The reason why I bring up rules and limits is more to stress how much our morality—the same by which we judge the wrongness of the universe—is borne of that universe’s own internal logic. For example, if we see someone drowning, we think it’s right to help them because we know that drowning is a thing that can happen to you without your consent (and because we estimate that ultimately on expectation it’s more likely that you wish to live than to die). I don’t mean that we can’t judge the flaws of the universe, but that our moral instincts are probably a better guide to what it takes to improve this universe, from inside (since they were shaped by it) than to what it would take to create a better one from scratch.
True, but also, with the same power as a programmer over a game, you could as well engineer a game to be positively torturous to its players. Purposefully frustrating and unfair. As things are, I think our universe is just not intelligently designed—neither to make us happy nor to make us miserable. Absent intent, this is what indifference looks like; and I think the asymmetry (where even indifference seems to result more in suffering than pleasure) is just a natural statistical outcome of how enjoyable states are just rarer and more specific than neutral or painful ones.
Thank you Ratios,
didn’t expect these concepts to be named here, but yes, I see them as very relevant in this context. Intuitively Negative Utilitarianism in particular. It doesn’t seem much of a stretch to argue that things are already way beyond the threshold, and that it is too late to salvage the situation?
If you have more to add in this context, I would be interested to know more. To look at the issue directly feels very taxing and draining indeed, and the experience I have had with talking with a misanthrope, did convince me that they were able to look at parts of existence that I at that point really disliked getting close to.
Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence
I agree that looking at reality honestly is probably quite detrimental to happiness or mental health. That’s why many people opt out of these conversations using methods like downvoting, sneering, or denying basic facts about reality. Their aim is likely to avoid the realization that we might be living in a world that is somewhat hellish. I’ve seen this avoidance many times, even in rationalist spaces. Although rationalists are generally better at facing it than others, and some like Brian Tomasik and Nate Soares even address it directly.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about these issues – not necessarily a wise choice. I’d humbly advise you to reconsider going down this rabbit hole. I haven’t penned down my conclusions yet, which are a bit idiosyncratic (I don’t strictly identify as a negative utilitarian). But to summarize, if you believe that conscious experience is paramount and that pain and suffering are inherently bad, then our world is probably net negative. This perspective isn’t just about humans; it’s about foundational principles like the laws of physics and evolution.
Interestingly, I still harbor hope. Maybe, for consciousness to emerge from nothing, life had to endure the brutal phase of Darwinian Evolution. But the future could be so bright that all the preceding suffering might be viewed as a worthy sacrifice, not a tragedy. Think of the pain a mother experiences during childbirth as a metaphor (but this birth has lasted millions of years). Alternatively, consciousness might vanish, or the world could become truly hellish, even more than its current state. The outcome isn’t clear, but I wouldn’t exclude any of these options.
Hello Ratios,
I did read the Ecclesiastes a lot growing up, as well as the Proverbs. (From the old testament in the bible) In many ways I can understand and relate to the points of Salomon. There is a lot of rest in the fact that things can be beyond our immediate control. Even when we can try to change certain things, we don’t use unnecessary amounts of force or will to MAKE IT FIT!
With regard to health, self-compassion, receiving and understanding compassion is the way I see beyond the scary depths of For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases. I mean, to the observer you are still ‘engaging’ with suffering and pain directly, and so it doesn’t seem to work aka remove the suffering—but there is an internal shift, and also a behavioral one.
I harbor a lot of hope, but we have also noted a lot of other emotions, emotions that have been very hard to understand at first. The best way we have been able to make sense of it so far, is to look at our lives as one big farewell. Farewell to living here, to life, to trying to make things work, to all the hopes and wishes we have, had and will have. (Deftly avoid to talk about the more esoteric aspects ;)
We haven’t found anywhere where we believe our energy fits. And I am not talking about What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted. It is more of the notion that wanting to have this kind of reciprocity, is unwanted/wasted here. When people talk about A.I., or returning to Source, or Jesus’s embrace, it isn’t like we can’t relate, but even if it truly, truly pains me to feel it, this doesn’t feel right to me.
It is a tentative roadmap, but as of now, it is also the one that fits massively better than the alternatives. There is still a lot we do not know, and we’ll see how things pan out.
Well, many might believe that automatically means we want to die—but it is the opposite. We want to live more, but also oppose death less. We don’t seem to fit—and there is also the thing about wanting to fit. I believe it should be mutual reciprocity.
Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence
Thank you for your response, Caerulea. Many of the emotions and thoughts you mentioned resonate with me. I truly hope you find peace and a sense of belonging. For myself, I’ve found solace in understanding that my happiness isn’t really determined by external factors, and I’m not to blame or responsible for the way the world is. It’s possible to find happiness in your own bubble, provided you have the necessary resources – which can sometimes be a challenge
I am grateful you say that, Ratios.
Some things I just let myself struggle with—like finding the right food to eat, or how to become more healthy, or how to just be a bit more content, or allow discontent without reacting too much etc. I do see those concerns as connected to the abstract. They fit together—but as of now, they aren’t really balanced of course, but yeah, I hope I find more people to share this journey with, and I wish you well too. See you around.
Caerulea :)
I think this is a failure of imagination due to the brain’s lack of ability to envision the scale of the universe as it really is. Both on the negative side, and on the positive.