He’s saying that our desire for punishment is potentially a lost purpose. How is that an attempt to grab the utility function?
When, then, is it a lost purpose? Deterrence is a consequentialist mode of punishment.
Also, I’d be interested to hear why you read this as condescending; I don’t see where you’re coming from with that.
“I know what’s good for you better than you do” is condescending until proven otherwise ;-). To know my good, you must do more than point out that I suffer from cognitive biases. If you say, “The sky is not green”, you haven’t demonstrated what I would call real knowledge, and you’re not entitled to speak of others as ignorant for holding their own views (most of which will usually be, “the sky is blue”, since it is blue). You haven’t engaged with their views: you’ve merely stated a particularly obvious negative conclusion (eliminating part of the search space) as if it were a positive conclusion (identifying the portion of the search space where the truth actually lives).
(This may be part of the same underlying complex of ideas that makes me prefer constructive mathematics.)
I’m not seeing it. To me, it seems like you’re going to lengths to construe his writing in a way that you can take offense to. I don’t actually think you are doing so, but your reframing is so distant from the tone I perceive that I can’t understand what you are doing.
I read it as suggesting, in a fairly humble if flowery tone, that a number of other ancestral urges have been coopted for things that are demonstrably not in our best interest, and that desire for punishment is potentially on the same level. It’s a suggestion worth investigating, in my view.
Or do you think that discouraging someone from drinking sugary sodas is on the same level? That could explain the disconnect.
When, then, is it a lost purpose? Deterrence is a consequentialist mode of punishment.
“I know what’s good for you better than you do” is condescending until proven otherwise ;-). To know my good, you must do more than point out that I suffer from cognitive biases. If you say, “The sky is not green”, you haven’t demonstrated what I would call real knowledge, and you’re not entitled to speak of others as ignorant for holding their own views (most of which will usually be, “the sky is blue”, since it is blue). You haven’t engaged with their views: you’ve merely stated a particularly obvious negative conclusion (eliminating part of the search space) as if it were a positive conclusion (identifying the portion of the search space where the truth actually lives).
(This may be part of the same underlying complex of ideas that makes me prefer constructive mathematics.)
I’m not seeing it. To me, it seems like you’re going to lengths to construe his writing in a way that you can take offense to. I don’t actually think you are doing so, but your reframing is so distant from the tone I perceive that I can’t understand what you are doing.
I read it as suggesting, in a fairly humble if flowery tone, that a number of other ancestral urges have been coopted for things that are demonstrably not in our best interest, and that desire for punishment is potentially on the same level. It’s a suggestion worth investigating, in my view.
Or do you think that discouraging someone from drinking sugary sodas is on the same level? That could explain the disconnect.