The problem is that half the time you make a very strong (and obviously false) claim, e.g. that impeding reproduction is a necessity for something to be considered harmful, and the other half time you make a claim as weak (and trivially true) as “what we call harms tend to be negatively correlated with reproductive success”.
The problem is that you are reading Constant looking for Gotchas, rather than reading him for intended meaning. If you read him as if he was Darwin, his meaning is apparent.
“Apparent” isn’t a function with one parameter isApparent(meaning) but rather two: isApparent(reader, meaning) . See illusion of transparency
If “his meaning is apparent” to you, then perhaps you can attempt to answer all of the questions and hypotheticals that Constant either failed to answer or seemed to me to answer in a contradictory manner. Among other things:
is being enslaved for breeding purposes “harm”?
Is a woman denying you fertile sex doing you “harm”?
Are people using contraception harming themselves? Are they aware of this harm?
If an uFAI reduced us to the intellectual level of cattle to be bred in ranches (but didn’t kill us or reduce our reproductive potential) would it be harming us?
What about APMason’s thought experiment regarding Reproductene ?
If Constant’s meaning is apparent to you (as it is not apparent to me), and you agree with that meaning, then perhaps you can answer all of the above questions.
No one is going to enslave a male for breeding purposes, and the once common practice enslaving a female for breeding purposes is harm. In the ancestral environment, she will in the long term have fewer offspring, since obviously the offspring of freewomen did better, had more assets invested in them, and so forth.
Is a woman denying you fertile sex doing you “harm”?
No. And neither is someone who turns you down at a job interview doing you harm.
Are people using contraception harming themselves?
Sometimes.
Are they aware of this harm?
When they become cat ladies and start giving their cats birthday parties.
If an uFAI reduced us to the intellectual level of cattle to be bred in ranches (but didn’t kill us or reduce our reproductive potential) would it be harming us?
This would require it to first conquer, dominate and rule us, which certainly would harm us. If it subsequently decided to breed us like cattle, this would make its rule slightly less harmful.
What about APMason’s thought experiment regarding Reproductene ?
Thought experiments are apt to be contrary to the ancestral environment.
In the ancestral environment, she will in the long term have fewer offspring, since obviously the offspring of freewomen did better, had more assets invested in them, and so forth.
The words “ancestral environment” were nowhere in the definitions and claims about “harm” that were offered previously in the thread.
If you use the “ancestral environment” context to qualify previous claims about what constitutes harm (by arguing that harm are things that tended to reduce reproductive capacity in the ancestral enviroment), then it follows you ought also use the differences between the ancestral environment and the CURRENT environment (or hypothetical future environments) to figure out how our moral intuitions now about what constitutes harm now is different from what promotes or reduces reproductive capacity now.
I see you plan to insist on this policy of insults and attempts at knocking the other person’s status, whenever you’re asked to offer arguments instead.
You and Constant have not been able to produce a coherent functional philosophy about what constitutes “harm” to people. Repeatedly we give you counterexamples that prove your arguments false. That prove that modern human intuitions about harm coincide little with reproductive success.
To this you only repeat (time and again): “But natural selection produced us, so they necessarily need to.” Which is blatantly obvious in the first part, and blatantly false in the second part.
Natural selection produced us, but no they don’t need to. With numerous examples and thought experiments we show you how the human concept of “harm” does NOT correspond to reproductive success. That modern people do not consider contraception “harm”. That modern people do consider sexual slavery bad.
To this you, sam, only have insults to offer. Your philosophy fails both to correspond with reality, and in regards with any few falsifiable predictions it offers, it FAILS at them too.
tldr; Go away and don’t return until you learn that beliefs should seek to correspond with reality (not with Darwin), and that language should be used to communicate meaning, not insults.
The problem is that half the time you make a very strong (and obviously false) claim, e.g. that impeding reproduction is a necessity for something to be considered harmful, and the other half time you make a claim as weak (and trivially true) as “what we call harms tend to be negatively correlated with reproductive success”.
The problem is that you are reading Constant looking for Gotchas, rather than reading him for intended meaning. If you read him as if he was Darwin, his meaning is apparent.
“Apparent” isn’t a function with one parameter isApparent(meaning) but rather two: isApparent(reader, meaning) . See illusion of transparency
If “his meaning is apparent” to you, then perhaps you can attempt to answer all of the questions and hypotheticals that Constant either failed to answer or seemed to me to answer in a contradictory manner. Among other things:
is being enslaved for breeding purposes “harm”?
Is a woman denying you fertile sex doing you “harm”?
Are people using contraception harming themselves? Are they aware of this harm?
If an uFAI reduced us to the intellectual level of cattle to be bred in ranches (but didn’t kill us or reduce our reproductive potential) would it be harming us?
What about APMason’s thought experiment regarding Reproductene ?
If Constant’s meaning is apparent to you (as it is not apparent to me), and you agree with that meaning, then perhaps you can answer all of the above questions.
No one is going to enslave a male for breeding purposes, and the once common practice enslaving a female for breeding purposes is harm. In the ancestral environment, she will in the long term have fewer offspring, since obviously the offspring of freewomen did better, had more assets invested in them, and so forth.
No. And neither is someone who turns you down at a job interview doing you harm.
Sometimes.
When they become cat ladies and start giving their cats birthday parties.
This would require it to first conquer, dominate and rule us, which certainly would harm us. If it subsequently decided to breed us like cattle, this would make its rule slightly less harmful.
Thought experiments are apt to be contrary to the ancestral environment.
The words “ancestral environment” were nowhere in the definitions and claims about “harm” that were offered previously in the thread.
If you use the “ancestral environment” context to qualify previous claims about what constitutes harm (by arguing that harm are things that tended to reduce reproductive capacity in the ancestral enviroment), then it follows you ought also use the differences between the ancestral environment and the CURRENT environment (or hypothetical future environments) to figure out how our moral intuitions now about what constitutes harm now is different from what promotes or reduces reproductive capacity now.
My reply assumed I was speaking to someone at least vaguely familiar with ideas, language, and assumptions of natural selection.
I see you plan to insist on this policy of insults and attempts at knocking the other person’s status, whenever you’re asked to offer arguments instead.
You and Constant have not been able to produce a coherent functional philosophy about what constitutes “harm” to people. Repeatedly we give you counterexamples that prove your arguments false. That prove that modern human intuitions about harm coincide little with reproductive success.
To this you only repeat (time and again): “But natural selection produced us, so they necessarily need to.” Which is blatantly obvious in the first part, and blatantly false in the second part.
Natural selection produced us, but no they don’t need to. With numerous examples and thought experiments we show you how the human concept of “harm” does NOT correspond to reproductive success. That modern people do not consider contraception “harm”. That modern people do consider sexual slavery bad.
To this you, sam, only have insults to offer. Your philosophy fails both to correspond with reality, and in regards with any few falsifiable predictions it offers, it FAILS at them too.
tldr; Go away and don’t return until you learn that beliefs should seek to correspond with reality (not with Darwin), and that language should be used to communicate meaning, not insults.
I have to say, I’m not actually sure that is trivially true, but I was confused as well.