It would really rock if you could show the context in which someone used the word “arbitrary” but in a way that just passed the recursive buck.
Here’s where I would use it:
[After I ask someone a series of questions about whether certain actions would be immoral]
Me: Now you’re just being arbitrary!
Eliezer Yudkowsky: Taboo “arbitrary”!
Me: Okay, he’s deciding what’s immoral based on whim.
Eliezer Yudkowsky: Taboo “whim”!
Me: Okay, his procedures for deciding what’s immoral can’t be articulated with finite words to a stranger such that he, and the stranger using his morality articulation, yield the same answers to all morality questions.
It would really rock if you could show the context in which someone used the word “arbitrary” but in a way that just passed the recursive buck.
Here’s where I would use it:
[After I ask someone a series of questions about whether certain actions would be immoral]
Me: Now you’re just being arbitrary! Eliezer Yudkowsky: Taboo “arbitrary”! Me: Okay, he’s deciding what’s immoral based on whim. Eliezer Yudkowsky: Taboo “whim”! Me: Okay, his procedures for deciding what’s immoral can’t be articulated with finite words to a stranger such that he, and the stranger using his morality articulation, yield the same answers to all morality questions.
I’ll send my salary requirements if you want. ;-)