Sex fantasies are usually indulged when people are engaged in sex activity and not otherwise. Your example would be less disturbing, at least to me, if you qualified it with something similar—someone who enjoys fantasizing about brutalizing people while playing video games sounds less dangerous than someone who enjoys fantasizing about brutalizing people full stop.
Would it be less disturbing still if I told you that I don’t fantasize about brutalizing people—full stop? Would people here be congratulating me and asking how I did it if I said I used to have such fantasies, but had managed to hack my utility function so that I no longer find such fantasies attractive? If I did that hacking, would I not only seem less dangerous—would I not also be less dangerous?
I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland here.
Alice: What is that horrible ALL CAPS noise in this well-tended garden? If I downvote it, will there be less of it?
Humpty Dumpty: Oh, I hope you are not going to downvote that! It is the mating call of Homo lesswrongis. Think of it as the sound of people striving to become happy.
Alice: But the question is: Can you make a garden mean so many different things to so many different people?
Humpty Dumpty: The question is: who is to be the master? NEXT!
Sex fantasies are usually indulged when people are engaged in sex activity and not otherwise. Your example would be less disturbing, at least to me, if you qualified it with something similar—someone who enjoys fantasizing about brutalizing people while playing video games sounds less dangerous than someone who enjoys fantasizing about brutalizing people full stop.
Would it be less disturbing still if I told you that I don’t fantasize about brutalizing people—full stop? Would people here be congratulating me and asking how I did it if I said I used to have such fantasies, but had managed to hack my utility function so that I no longer find such fantasies attractive? If I did that hacking, would I not only seem less dangerous—would I not also be less dangerous?
I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland here.
Alice: What is that horrible ALL CAPS noise in this well-tended garden? If I downvote it, will there be less of it?
Humpty Dumpty: Oh, I hope you are not going to downvote that! It is the mating call of Homo lesswrongis. Think of it as the sound of people striving to become happy.
Alice: But the question is: Can you make a garden mean so many different things to so many different people?
Humpty Dumpty: The question is: who is to be the master? NEXT!
This is a weird way to follow up on: