“Phrases his own wish so as to egoistically place himself at the site of the action,” is an apt summary of my problem with the phrase, “I want to save the world”.
Heh. OK, good point. Would it help if I said that shortly after publishing grandparent I considered appending words to the effect of, This is more of a gut reaction than a conclusion informed by my experiences with social reality, and I am very willing to change my mind. In other words, if I really got to know more of the people who define themselves as “world savers,” good chance I’d change my mind.
But would it really hurt your plans to use the phrase, “improve the world,” rather than, “save the world”? If the world needs saving (and I definitely believe it does need saving from irresponsible AGI researchers) then aren’t people unlikely enough to overlook the fact that improving the world entails saving the world?
Well, like I said. How’s that careful avoidance of any phrasing that potentially smacks of egotism, working out for you in terms of producing world-saving actions?
Well, like I said. How’s that careful avoidance of any phrasing that potentially smacks of egotism, working out for you in terms of producing world-saving actions?
You seem to believe that it is good to encourage a lot of actions. That is true if the effects of the actions are limited to increasing human rationality. Well, even that is not true, because if you increase the rationality of a destructive patent lawyer or politician, (note that I do not want to get into a discussion of whether patent lawyers or politician are harmful on average: I just needed to grab some likely suspects to keep my prose from getting too abstract) you simply enable him to be more effective at undeservedly harming people—and I humbly suggest that for the purposes of this discussion, “harm” can be defined as “decrease the rationality of”. But in general I will grant that what I just said is mostly probably just a quibble and that increasing the sanity waterline is a good thing.
In general, though, I am sceptical that “producing world-saving actions” is what we should be aiming for. Maybe I am biased by the fact that I am a cautious person, but I think that if only we could make everyone a lot more cautious (about the right things, namely, about effects on the global situation, not effects on one’s personal situation) we’d be in much better shape than we actually are.
In great great grandparent (GGGP) I talk of egotism, but now I am talking of caution. The reason that that is not changing the subject is that an egotist is significantly more likely to cause harm through lack of caution than a non-egotist is. Egotists tend to have higher self-esteem and status and both arguments from evolutionary psychology and observation of people lead me to believe that higher self-esteem and status make people less cautious. (Nor is it the case that low-self-esteem types are necessarily ineffectual.)
Note also that in GGGP I wasn’t asking you to eschew incautious people; I was merely asking you to avoid using language that actively repels cautious people because it might be nice to keep some around.
Also, I do not think teaching incautious people rationality skills is an effective response to human lack of caution. Some of them (particularly those with the best control over their motivational architecture) will be made more cautious that way, but some one them will simply be made more effective in pursuing their incautious ends.
I almost did not publish this because the probability that it will sway you in any significant way is so low. In fact it might be wise for you to consider this as simply a notification and a brief description of a longer conversation it might be worthwhile to have with you some day about my worries that SIAI is paying insufficient attention to an large class of potential contributors. SIAI understands altruists well because SIAI leaders are altruists. And they seem to understand egoists well. “egoist”: someone whose values and terminal goals are largely selfish—Hopefully Anonymous and Roko 2008 being salient examples. (I say “Roko 2008″ instead of “Roko” because he might become or have become much less aligned with the egoists.) But it’s not just all altruists and egoists. I’m talking about motivations here: which natural human positive reinforcer (fancy word for desire) motivates the person’s e-risks or philantropic work.
In general, though, I am sceptical that “producing world-saving actions” is what we should be aiming for. Maybe I am biased by the fact that I am a cautious person, but I think that if only we could make everyone a lot more cautious
Aaaand not to put too fine a point on it, but how much research is that caution getting done, exactly? Philanthropic donations produced by this philosophy? Anything?
I think that if only we could make everyone a lot more cautious (about the right things, namely, about effects on the global situation, not effects on one’s personal situation) we’d be in much better shape than we actually are.
AHAA! I got it, at least I hope so.
For me “I want to save the world” and ” I want the world to be saved” meant exactly the same, i.e. I didn’t realize that the sentence “I, person P, want to save the world” meant that P had to be involved in this whole save-the-world-business.
Now “I want to save the world” evokes rather egoistic and self-aggrandizing characters in my mind.
Strange world...
“Phrases his own wish so as to egoistically place himself at the site of the action,” is an apt summary of my problem with the phrase, “I want to save the world”.
How’s that philosophy working out for you in terms of producing world-saving actions?
Heh. OK, good point. Would it help if I said that shortly after publishing grandparent I considered appending words to the effect of, This is more of a gut reaction than a conclusion informed by my experiences with social reality, and I am very willing to change my mind. In other words, if I really got to know more of the people who define themselves as “world savers,” good chance I’d change my mind.
But would it really hurt your plans to use the phrase, “improve the world,” rather than, “save the world”? If the world needs saving (and I definitely believe it does need saving from irresponsible AGI researchers) then aren’t people unlikely enough to overlook the fact that improving the world entails saving the world?
Well, like I said. How’s that careful avoidance of any phrasing that potentially smacks of egotism, working out for you in terms of producing world-saving actions?
You seem to believe that it is good to encourage a lot of actions. That is true if the effects of the actions are limited to increasing human rationality. Well, even that is not true, because if you increase the rationality of a destructive patent lawyer or politician, (note that I do not want to get into a discussion of whether patent lawyers or politician are harmful on average: I just needed to grab some likely suspects to keep my prose from getting too abstract) you simply enable him to be more effective at undeservedly harming people—and I humbly suggest that for the purposes of this discussion, “harm” can be defined as “decrease the rationality of”. But in general I will grant that what I just said is mostly probably just a quibble and that increasing the sanity waterline is a good thing.
In general, though, I am sceptical that “producing world-saving actions” is what we should be aiming for. Maybe I am biased by the fact that I am a cautious person, but I think that if only we could make everyone a lot more cautious (about the right things, namely, about effects on the global situation, not effects on one’s personal situation) we’d be in much better shape than we actually are.
In great great grandparent (GGGP) I talk of egotism, but now I am talking of caution. The reason that that is not changing the subject is that an egotist is significantly more likely to cause harm through lack of caution than a non-egotist is. Egotists tend to have higher self-esteem and status and both arguments from evolutionary psychology and observation of people lead me to believe that higher self-esteem and status make people less cautious. (Nor is it the case that low-self-esteem types are necessarily ineffectual.)
Note also that in GGGP I wasn’t asking you to eschew incautious people; I was merely asking you to avoid using language that actively repels cautious people because it might be nice to keep some around.
Also, I do not think teaching incautious people rationality skills is an effective response to human lack of caution. Some of them (particularly those with the best control over their motivational architecture) will be made more cautious that way, but some one them will simply be made more effective in pursuing their incautious ends.
I almost did not publish this because the probability that it will sway you in any significant way is so low. In fact it might be wise for you to consider this as simply a notification and a brief description of a longer conversation it might be worthwhile to have with you some day about my worries that SIAI is paying insufficient attention to an large class of potential contributors. SIAI understands altruists well because SIAI leaders are altruists. And they seem to understand egoists well. “egoist”: someone whose values and terminal goals are largely selfish—Hopefully Anonymous and Roko 2008 being salient examples. (I say “Roko 2008″ instead of “Roko” because he might become or have become much less aligned with the egoists.) But it’s not just all altruists and egoists. I’m talking about motivations here: which natural human positive reinforcer (fancy word for desire) motivates the person’s e-risks or philantropic work.
Aaaand not to put too fine a point on it, but how much research is that caution getting done, exactly? Philanthropic donations produced by this philosophy? Anything?
I think the precautionary principle is useless. It’s easy to see why when reading books such as, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, which describes the 1994 Rwandan genocide. My motto is, “The only way out is through.”
AHAA! I got it, at least I hope so. For me “I want to save the world” and ” I want the world to be saved” meant exactly the same, i.e. I didn’t realize that the sentence “I, person P, want to save the world” meant that P had to be involved in this whole save-the-world-business. Now “I want to save the world” evokes rather egoistic and self-aggrandizing characters in my mind. Strange world...