The whole “most variations from the equilibria are disasters”, only really works if you share my guy’s mania about valuing the other team’s welfare
You know , there was one other guy who wasn’t preoccupied at all about the other team’s welfare , that guy was John Von Neumann and were he able to have it his way he would have cold bloodedly killed 600 millions people between USSR and China in 1955 when US had B52s and thermonuclear bombs ironed out , while he could have used his intelligence and technical wisdom to deescalate tension with the ultimate goal of getting rid of nuclear weapons altogether . Irony of the ironies he died relatively young because of a cancer probably developed working on the bomb , exactly like his soviets counterparts...he’d have had more chances of surviving if american , soviet and chinese researchers would have been able to talk to each other and exchange informations on potential life saving treatments . Besides that I don’t even mention the damage that wiping out 600 millions people would have done to the world’s economy , the world would have been a very different place if Von Neumann succeeded in acting his personal version of the final solution
There is only one team and that’s team humanity , the prostate cancer which kills a russian citizen is the same identical disease which would take your life if you’re unlucky enough to develop one , so given that ever since we (almost) stopped killing each other over land we enjoyed a prosperity which has no precedent in the history of our specie and it is mostly correlated with the fact that there are more humans around to solve our common problems , so how about we keep it that way? Also how about we increase the number of humans around and we lift them from poverty so they’d be able to contribute to the economy and together find a solution to our common problems (energy crisis , diseases , aging , AI) ?
Also I agree with you that the “preserve every pulse” kind of thinking could lead to an impractical situation , but I also think that the correct approach for this issue is the “in medio stat virtus” approach being something like “If you create damages to society which are greater than your contribution to it for a continued period of e.g. 5 years” your life would not be worth preserving
the only danger to us is a nuclear war (meaning Russia)
Such danger only exists because Russian people are possibly even worse than americans at spotting con-artists and calling them out on their BS (europeans seems to be better than anyone else at doing this , maybe because they suffered so much in the past when they failed to do it) , so they praise and elevate Putin as a modern day czar because their life conditions sensibly improved with respect to the Yeltsin years , but they fail to see how much power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of their president who is able to casually steal 1 billion dollars from the State budget to build a private palace on the Black Sea . It is the support of Russian people which enables Putin to threaten the world with the apocalyptic scenario of a nuclear war , but as the Arab Spring proved such support is not destined to go on forever , dictators get only deposed when the people of that country collectively think that their lives would be better without him....if all the westerners who waste time every day watching Netflix or playing video games dedicated that time to talk with their Russian counterparts through the internet , provide them information which would not be otherwise available given the regime’s propaganda and yes , even send them 0.5BTC whenever they can to show support and compassion a dictator like Putin would be deposed and hanged within 6 months , much to the relief of people living in adjacent countries (whose suffering you seem to ignore and perhaps more importantly role in the world’s economy you seem to ignore) and the rest of the world
Given our invincible military
This honestly seems a phrase straight off a propaganda poster , are you even aware of the costs in terms of brainpower and capital which are wasted every year on the military? Think of what could be accomplished if such resources were redirected towards research and basic research ( AI , FAI , WBE , nuclear fusion , brain understanding , consciousness understanding..)
To spell it out: I don’t share (and I don’t think my side shares), Yudkowski’s fetish for saving every life. When he talks about malaria nets as the most effective way to save lives, I am nodding, but I am nodding along to the idea of finding the most effective way to get what you want done, done. Not at the idea that I’ve got a duty to preserve every pulse.
So are you seriously claiming that you can’t see the correlation between number of humans alive on the Earth and average quality of life and progress achieved by our specie?
Putin will thug around his neighbors
Yeah right , because Putin putting his hands on the mineral rich and fertile soils of Ukraine is a totally desirable outcome for the world’s economy
Yes, electing Hillary Clinton would have been a better way to ensure world prosperity than electing Donald Trump would. That is not what we are trying to do. We want to ensure American prosperity
And that , my friend is the line of thinking which caused the outbreak of every war in the history of our specie , also electing a guy who spent 5 millions dollars to have his bathroom completely gold plated seems the best way to ensure american prosperity /s , also you continuously mention Putin , Trump is the presidential candidate who resembles him the most , except for maybe one thing that would sure impress the donald the first time he’ll meet him , Putin speaks a fluent english with a marked BBC accent , you could almost say that between the 2 , the Russian from St. Petersburg has the better words
Trump will (probably not) build a wall between us and Mexico
Mark my words he will , and he will channel public money through his companies in order to build it , he’ll try to pull it off in the 2 years before the midterm elections...that would be something very Putinesque of him (see the similarities between the two are recurrent )
Just want to say I didn’t downvote you man. It is actually really good for my argument that no sooner do I say:
“We want different things from Yudkowsky and he is wrong that we want the same things and are stupid”, than someone shows up to say “Actually you just need me to contempt at you until you start wanting the same things as me.”
Libs, this happens literally all the time. We can’t go anywhere without the John Oliver / Ernestdezoe’s of the world appearing to sneer at us. Do the experiment if you like. Make any conservative argument, in any context, and someone will be along to tell you that you are a nazi who wants to kill 600 million people.
These disdain elementals are not on your side. They lost you this election. They have never persuaded anyone, and they never will. Contempt is absolutely anti-persuasive.
I’m not going to engage with his arguments. I’ll reiterate that this is lesswrong, and we don’t talk politics here. Examine them for a few seconds with an open mind and you’ll see how persuasive they are.
The point of my post was that Yudkowsky’s model of his difficulties was flawed. He isn’t playing Dance Dance Revolution with a drunken partner who can’t help messing up. He is playing Street Fighter vs. a skilled opponent.
The point of this response is that the ernestdezoe school of persuasion is a loser, and should be forsaken. Don’t be like this person, and you might change some minds.
Make any conservative argument, in any context, and someone will be along to tell you that you are a nazi who wants to kill 600 million people.
You didn’t make just any conservative argument , you clearly claimed that you don’t care about other people (non american) welfare! It has been proved time and time again that throughout the history of our specie more humans alive and capable of contributing to the economy meant greater progress , improved quality of life , longer average lifespan...
Also this is not about politics , this can be discussed on LW , in fact we’re discussing about x-risks , altruism , best paths for human prosperity and so forth
Also I agree with you that the “preserve every pulse” kind of thinking could lead to an impractical situation , but I also think that the correct approach for this issue is the “in medio stat virtus” approach being something like “If you create damages to society which are greater than your contribution to it for a continued period of e.g. 5 years” your life would not be worth preserving
Do you realize that under such guidelines, one could easily make the case for most of the unemployed people to be eradicated? I’m pretty sure that’s not your goal here.
So are you seriously claiming that you can’t see the correlation between number of humans alive on the Earth and average quality of life and progress achieved by our specie?
I can see the correlation, but I think you have the causation backwards. The case for progress and quality of life leading to increases in human population seems much more straightforward to me. In my simplified model, progress is increased production. Quality of life is production per capita. But when quality of life raises, so does natality and death drops, until human population has absorbed most of the additional production and people are just slightly better off than before.
You know , there was one other guy who wasn’t preoccupied at all about the other team’s welfare , that guy was John Von Neumann and were he able to have it his way he would have cold bloodedly killed 600 millions people between USSR and China in 1955 when US had B52s and thermonuclear bombs ironed out , while he could have used his intelligence and technical wisdom to deescalate tension with the ultimate goal of getting rid of nuclear weapons altogether . Irony of the ironies he died relatively young because of a cancer probably developed working on the bomb , exactly like his soviets counterparts...he’d have had more chances of surviving if american , soviet and chinese researchers would have been able to talk to each other and exchange informations on potential life saving treatments . Besides that I don’t even mention the damage that wiping out 600 millions people would have done to the world’s economy , the world would have been a very different place if Von Neumann succeeded in acting his personal version of the final solution
There is only one team and that’s team humanity , the prostate cancer which kills a russian citizen is the same identical disease which would take your life if you’re unlucky enough to develop one , so given that ever since we (almost) stopped killing each other over land we enjoyed a prosperity which has no precedent in the history of our specie and it is mostly correlated with the fact that there are more humans around to solve our common problems , so how about we keep it that way? Also how about we increase the number of humans around and we lift them from poverty so they’d be able to contribute to the economy and together find a solution to our common problems (energy crisis , diseases , aging , AI) ?
Also I agree with you that the “preserve every pulse” kind of thinking could lead to an impractical situation , but I also think that the correct approach for this issue is the “in medio stat virtus” approach being something like “If you create damages to society which are greater than your contribution to it for a continued period of e.g. 5 years” your life would not be worth preserving
Such danger only exists because Russian people are possibly even worse than americans at spotting con-artists and calling them out on their BS (europeans seems to be better than anyone else at doing this , maybe because they suffered so much in the past when they failed to do it) , so they praise and elevate Putin as a modern day czar because their life conditions sensibly improved with respect to the Yeltsin years , but they fail to see how much power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of their president who is able to casually steal 1 billion dollars from the State budget to build a private palace on the Black Sea . It is the support of Russian people which enables Putin to threaten the world with the apocalyptic scenario of a nuclear war , but as the Arab Spring proved such support is not destined to go on forever , dictators get only deposed when the people of that country collectively think that their lives would be better without him....if all the westerners who waste time every day watching Netflix or playing video games dedicated that time to talk with their Russian counterparts through the internet , provide them information which would not be otherwise available given the regime’s propaganda and yes , even send them 0.5BTC whenever they can to show support and compassion a dictator like Putin would be deposed and hanged within 6 months , much to the relief of people living in adjacent countries (whose suffering you seem to ignore and perhaps more importantly role in the world’s economy you seem to ignore) and the rest of the world
This honestly seems a phrase straight off a propaganda poster , are you even aware of the costs in terms of brainpower and capital which are wasted every year on the military? Think of what could be accomplished if such resources were redirected towards research and basic research ( AI , FAI , WBE , nuclear fusion , brain understanding , consciousness understanding..)
So are you seriously claiming that you can’t see the correlation between number of humans alive on the Earth and average quality of life and progress achieved by our specie?
Yeah right , because Putin putting his hands on the mineral rich and fertile soils of Ukraine is a totally desirable outcome for the world’s economy
And that , my friend is the line of thinking which caused the outbreak of every war in the history of our specie , also electing a guy who spent 5 millions dollars to have his bathroom completely gold plated seems the best way to ensure american prosperity /s , also you continuously mention Putin , Trump is the presidential candidate who resembles him the most , except for maybe one thing that would sure impress the donald the first time he’ll meet him , Putin speaks a fluent english with a marked BBC accent , you could almost say that between the 2 , the Russian from St. Petersburg has the better words
Mark my words he will , and he will channel public money through his companies in order to build it , he’ll try to pull it off in the 2 years before the midterm elections...that would be something very Putinesque of him (see the similarities between the two are recurrent )
Just want to say I didn’t downvote you man. It is actually really good for my argument that no sooner do I say:
“We want different things from Yudkowsky and he is wrong that we want the same things and are stupid”, than someone shows up to say “Actually you just need me to contempt at you until you start wanting the same things as me.”
Libs, this happens literally all the time. We can’t go anywhere without the John Oliver / Ernestdezoe’s of the world appearing to sneer at us. Do the experiment if you like. Make any conservative argument, in any context, and someone will be along to tell you that you are a nazi who wants to kill 600 million people.
These disdain elementals are not on your side. They lost you this election. They have never persuaded anyone, and they never will. Contempt is absolutely anti-persuasive.
I’m not going to engage with his arguments. I’ll reiterate that this is lesswrong, and we don’t talk politics here. Examine them for a few seconds with an open mind and you’ll see how persuasive they are.
The point of my post was that Yudkowsky’s model of his difficulties was flawed. He isn’t playing Dance Dance Revolution with a drunken partner who can’t help messing up. He is playing Street Fighter vs. a skilled opponent.
The point of this response is that the ernestdezoe school of persuasion is a loser, and should be forsaken. Don’t be like this person, and you might change some minds.
You didn’t make just any conservative argument , you clearly claimed that you don’t care about other people (non american) welfare! It has been proved time and time again that throughout the history of our specie more humans alive and capable of contributing to the economy meant greater progress , improved quality of life , longer average lifespan...
Also this is not about politics , this can be discussed on LW , in fact we’re discussing about x-risks , altruism , best paths for human prosperity and so forth
Do you realize that under such guidelines, one could easily make the case for most of the unemployed people to be eradicated? I’m pretty sure that’s not your goal here.
I can see the correlation, but I think you have the causation backwards. The case for progress and quality of life leading to increases in human population seems much more straightforward to me. In my simplified model, progress is increased production. Quality of life is production per capita. But when quality of life raises, so does natality and death drops, until human population has absorbed most of the additional production and people are just slightly better off than before.