Perhaps you’d prefer the traditional example of two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.
The problem itself dates from time immemorial: the powerless have no way to compel the powerful. The only solution is to ensure that the powerful are on your side.
The problem is you’ve presented a fully general counterexample to all possible policies, including (apparently intentionally) a law against rape. Possibly also a fully general counterexample to ever being part of a group with other human beings (what if they’re rapists?!?) I don’t really see your point, other than trying to live up to your name.
a fully general counterexample to all possible policies
Not to all possible policies, and not fully general. Frankly, I’m rather surprised that you don’t see any alternative solutions.
It is perfectly possible to reward ‘courtesy’, and punish ‘discourtesy’, without resorting to government regulation—or regulation of any kind.
If you have six roommates, one of whom is inconsiderate, you have a number of options. You can be inconsiderate towards the rude person in an attempt to dissuade their inconsideration. You can try to persuade the other five to exert social pressure on your behalf. You can move out.
Sometimes you can’t get what you want, period. The people who don’t acknowledge that point either never consider that they could be on the receiving end of power, or believe that they have enough power and dominance to ensure that it’ll never happen to them.
What if your roommates—and everyone who learns of your conflict—believes you’re the one being inconsiderate, and the ‘inconsiderate’ person to be behaving quite appropriately? Would you be willing to be subject to the same coercion you favor for others?
You seem to be saying that once we accept the possibility of ever coercing anyone, we have to also accept the possibility of coercion being misused. You then suggest that since we don’t want coercion to be misused, we can never coerce anyone, and we should accept a society where other people can do whatever they want.
This is a lot like saying that since science could theoretically be used to bioengineer a plague, we should avoid all scientific thought.
I don’t demand - as you seem to think I do—that everyone do whatever I want. I demand that everyone work together for a solution that maximizes the utility of everyone. I believe that a society where we all realize that no one raping anyone leaves everyone better off is better than a society where everyone can rape whoever they want. Likewise, I think a society with certain minimum noise restrictions will leave everyone, whether noisy or quiet, in general better off than one where everyone is free to extort their neighbors for however much they want.
This isn’t new—Bentham and Mill worked out the details several hundred years ago. Yes, there are costs from the existence of enforcement mechanisms and the potential for the restriction of freedom to be greater than the benefits. But in some cases—like the case of please don’t rape people—the benefits are clearly greater than the costs.
Sometimes you can’t get what you want. But most people who enjoy proclaiming that very loudly are just trying to signal how hard-headed and tough they are. If there’s an easy way in which you can get what you want, there’s no extra virtue in refusing to take it. Having restrictions about not committing violence against other people is one such easy way.
I am not trying to say that I’ve thought about it and I’m absolutely sure there’s no possible non-coercive way to solve the problem of rape. If you can think of one, you’re welcome to post it. I’m just trying to say that your particular argument here that all coercive methods are bad doesn’t hold any water.
[addendum: no, I don’t think the case of violence and annoyance are particularly different. If it helps, imagine a person releasing poison gas from the room next door. If the gas kills me, it’s violence. If it’s a little less gas, and it merely injures me to such a degree I end up in the hospital for a month, it’s still violence. If the gas sends me into a fit of coughing every time I breathe, it’s annoyance. If it just makes me itchy, it’s definitely annoyance. At what point does releasing the gas change from “injury” to “annoyance”? I would say these are artificial categories with no real-world equivalent, and that instead of looking for a clean answer with an obvious distinguishing case, you have to just accept that there’s going to be a cost-benefit analysis to going over to your neighbor’s and smashing the gas-apparatus either way, and that at some points it will return negative and at other points positive results.]
This is turning into a political discussion here, and not even one that meets this community’s high standards. I will read your next response, but otherwise not continue this thread further.
I don’t demand—as you seem to think I do—that everyone do whatever I want. I demand that everyone work together for a solution that maximizes the utility of everyone.
Just that one demand is enough to make you an enemy of me. I don’t intend to work towards any such solution, I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, and I will fight and die for the right to avoid it.
Just that one demand is enough to make you an enemy of me. I don’t intend to work towards any such solution, I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, and I will fight and die for the right to avoid it.
Somehow I don’t see “I want to make the world a worse place for everyone” as an idea that’s going to gain a lot of traction in society at large.
Somehow I don’t see “I want to make the world a worse place for everyone” as an idea that’s going to gain a lot of traction in society at large.
I don’t either.
“I want to make the world a worse place for everyone” isn’t something I was advocating
if “I want to make the world a worse place for everyone” was something I cared about, I wouldn’t be dissuaded by how much traction it would gain in society at large.
I like living in a place where people have the right to work to make the world a worse place for everyone, within reasonable limits.
The negation of “working together for a solution that maximizes the utility of everyone” isn’t equivalent to “making the world a worse place for everyone”.
“Maximizing global utility”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, is grossly unlikely to involve maximizing everyone’s individual utility.
You’re complaining that (in these hypothetical scenarios) your personal utility isn’t being maximized and then demanding that things be changed so that you, personally, are as happy as possible.
You state you want general maximization, then you demand that you want personal maximization at the expense of the general. Your words and your actions don’t agree.
Part of the problem here is that you’re not saying what constitutes an “abuse” of the rules / system, and your actual meaning is one that would be rejected by others if you stated it explicitly.
It looks like you’ve misplaced this comment—it seems like it’s a response to some comment, but not Alicorn’s. Alicorn was just pointing out a nice bit of logic.
No, but vowing to so strongly oppose other people’s attempts to maximize global utility, presumably in favor of demanding some other goal, means at minimum lost opportunity cost for effort that could be directed toward global utility, and at worst things that actively harm global utility in order to promote some orthogonal, unrelated goal. Ergo, making things worse, if only by default.
If you view “working together for a solution that maximizes the utility of everyone” as a central, overriding goal, then from a cooperative standpoint thomblake’s goals may as well be paperclip maximizing—there is no common ground.
No, but vowing to so strongly oppose other people’s attempts to maximize global utility, presumably in favor of demanding some other goal,
Ah, I believe I see the confusion now.
I was not vowing to oppose other people’s attempts to maximize global utility, except inasmuch as they would force me to do it. I’m generally against people forcing me to do things I’m morally opposed to. But I have no interest in demanding any other goal for everyone, as I think that would be at least as reprehensible.
It was “demand that everyone work together for X” that I mostly took issue with. Maximizing overall utility is really not as bad as a lot of other goals.
By that reasoning, anyone with any other goal may as well be paperclip maximizing, since it “means at a minimum lost opportunity cost for effort that could be directed towards global utility”, “making things worse, if only by default.”
Thus, by that reasoning, there is no common ground between those who view “working together for a solution that maximizes the utility of everyone” and everyone else. Luckily for the rest of us, those people are a minority.
Indifference to a goal is not the same as the stance implied by “I don’t intend to work towards any such solution, I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, and I will fight and die for the right to avoid it.” I don’t see how that statement implies anything other than “allowing people to make things worse is good”.
But, yes, I agree my initial statement was too strong. Consider it retracted.
...sigh. Okay, put it like this. We’re clearly arguing past each other. I think your points are self-evidently wrong, and your arguments bordering on trolling. I am sure this is not how the discussion appears to you, and you may feel that my points are equally bad, but we’re not making any progress here. And it’s degenerating into a Standard Political Debate—basically a libertarian “no coercive government is ever okay” position versus a utilitarian “sometimes it’s an optimal solution” position, which has been done about a billion times and about which there is very little left to be said.
That leaves us with two options. We can either continue unproductively wasting time and energy on a particularly unproductive version of a cliched topic that neither of us can realistically affect, all the while breaking the Less Wrong gentlemens’ agreement against explicit political discussions. Or one person can bow out and allow the other person to take the last word.
And it’s degenerating into a Standard Political Debate—basically a libertarian “no coercive government is ever okay” position versus a utilitarian “sometimes it’s an optimal solution” position,
That demonstrates only that you don’t understand the points that have been made.
Again, I’m not interested in conversing with people who make long lists of assertions, then remove themselves from the discussion.
If you don’t want to continue participating in it, then don’t. But don’t try to seize the last word and then declare that the conversation is now over.
If you don’t want to continue participating in it, then don’t. But don’t try to seize the last word and then declare that the conversation is now over.
That’s not what he intended. Note:
This is turning into a political discussion here, and not even one that meets this community’s high standards. I will read your next response, but otherwise not continue this thread further.
Yvain’s stated intent was to let you have the last word, and not contribute further.
Yvain’s stated intent was to let you have the last word, and not contribute further.
His actual intent, revealed by what he did, was to spout a lot of fallacious arguments and mischaracterizations and then say that he would not respond further.
If you’re giving someone the last word, the way isn’t to do bow out after making a bunch of points.
I’ve responded to you four or five times over several days. I don’t feel an obligation to continue forever, especially when you don’t seem to be understanding my points, and I definitely do not want to clog Less Wrong with it. If it is that important to you, feel free to email me any of your further thoughts at yvain314@hotmail.com .
You don’t seem to be understanding my points, judging from the nature of your responses.
But that isn’t the issue. I don’t care about what you, personally, believe. You’re making logically invalid arguments—that, I care about—and you’re doing so publically—which requires public refutation.
Contacting you personally would accomplish nothing. The point is not to convince you, but to accurately recognize and state the validity and invalidity of your arguments.
First, you are aware that there’s a difference between “You are making logically invalid arguments” and “Your arguments sound logically invalid to me, which means either that you are wrong or that I am misunderstanding them,” right?
Second, you’re contradicting yourself. If your goal is to convince me, feel free to do it by email. If your goal is to state what you think are the flaws in my argument to publically convince other people, then feel free to do it here, and be happy that I won’t be responding to muddle things up further.
The point is not to “convince” anyone. The point is to correctly and explicitly state the logical flaws in your positions. It is then the job of every rational person to convince themselves.
Refusing to ‘contribute’ further rules out acknowledging that the other’s position has been misrepresented.
True but irrelevant. Furthermore, Yvain’s failure to acknowledge anything is immaterial what you claim is the point of the conversation, to wit, to accurately recognize and state the validity and invalidity of his arguments, and not to convince him.
Really, for maximal effect that comment should be followed by an ”...OR DID I JUST BLOW YOUR MIND?!?!?!”
Perhaps you’d prefer the traditional example of two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.
The problem itself dates from time immemorial: the powerless have no way to compel the powerful. The only solution is to ensure that the powerful are on your side.
The problem is you’ve presented a fully general counterexample to all possible policies, including (apparently intentionally) a law against rape. Possibly also a fully general counterexample to ever being part of a group with other human beings (what if they’re rapists?!?) I don’t really see your point, other than trying to live up to your name.
Not to all possible policies, and not fully general. Frankly, I’m rather surprised that you don’t see any alternative solutions.
It is perfectly possible to reward ‘courtesy’, and punish ‘discourtesy’, without resorting to government regulation—or regulation of any kind.
If you have six roommates, one of whom is inconsiderate, you have a number of options. You can be inconsiderate towards the rude person in an attempt to dissuade their inconsideration. You can try to persuade the other five to exert social pressure on your behalf. You can move out.
Sometimes you can’t get what you want, period. The people who don’t acknowledge that point either never consider that they could be on the receiving end of power, or believe that they have enough power and dominance to ensure that it’ll never happen to them.
What if your roommates—and everyone who learns of your conflict—believes you’re the one being inconsiderate, and the ‘inconsiderate’ person to be behaving quite appropriately? Would you be willing to be subject to the same coercion you favor for others?
You seem to be saying that once we accept the possibility of ever coercing anyone, we have to also accept the possibility of coercion being misused. You then suggest that since we don’t want coercion to be misused, we can never coerce anyone, and we should accept a society where other people can do whatever they want.
This is a lot like saying that since science could theoretically be used to bioengineer a plague, we should avoid all scientific thought.
I don’t demand - as you seem to think I do—that everyone do whatever I want. I demand that everyone work together for a solution that maximizes the utility of everyone. I believe that a society where we all realize that no one raping anyone leaves everyone better off is better than a society where everyone can rape whoever they want. Likewise, I think a society with certain minimum noise restrictions will leave everyone, whether noisy or quiet, in general better off than one where everyone is free to extort their neighbors for however much they want.
This isn’t new—Bentham and Mill worked out the details several hundred years ago. Yes, there are costs from the existence of enforcement mechanisms and the potential for the restriction of freedom to be greater than the benefits. But in some cases—like the case of please don’t rape people—the benefits are clearly greater than the costs.
Sometimes you can’t get what you want. But most people who enjoy proclaiming that very loudly are just trying to signal how hard-headed and tough they are. If there’s an easy way in which you can get what you want, there’s no extra virtue in refusing to take it. Having restrictions about not committing violence against other people is one such easy way.
I am not trying to say that I’ve thought about it and I’m absolutely sure there’s no possible non-coercive way to solve the problem of rape. If you can think of one, you’re welcome to post it. I’m just trying to say that your particular argument here that all coercive methods are bad doesn’t hold any water.
[addendum: no, I don’t think the case of violence and annoyance are particularly different. If it helps, imagine a person releasing poison gas from the room next door. If the gas kills me, it’s violence. If it’s a little less gas, and it merely injures me to such a degree I end up in the hospital for a month, it’s still violence. If the gas sends me into a fit of coughing every time I breathe, it’s annoyance. If it just makes me itchy, it’s definitely annoyance. At what point does releasing the gas change from “injury” to “annoyance”? I would say these are artificial categories with no real-world equivalent, and that instead of looking for a clean answer with an obvious distinguishing case, you have to just accept that there’s going to be a cost-benefit analysis to going over to your neighbor’s and smashing the gas-apparatus either way, and that at some points it will return negative and at other points positive results.]
This is turning into a political discussion here, and not even one that meets this community’s high standards. I will read your next response, but otherwise not continue this thread further.
Just that one demand is enough to make you an enemy of me. I don’t intend to work towards any such solution, I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, and I will fight and die for the right to avoid it.
Somehow I don’t see “I want to make the world a worse place for everyone” as an idea that’s going to gain a lot of traction in society at large.
I don’t either.
“I want to make the world a worse place for everyone” isn’t something I was advocating
if “I want to make the world a worse place for everyone” was something I cared about, I wouldn’t be dissuaded by how much traction it would gain in society at large.
I like living in a place where people have the right to work to make the world a worse place for everyone, within reasonable limits.
You fail at logic (see Alicorn’s comment).
The negation of “working together for a solution that maximizes the utility of everyone” isn’t equivalent to “making the world a worse place for everyone”.
“Maximizing global utility”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, is grossly unlikely to involve maximizing everyone’s individual utility.
You’re complaining that (in these hypothetical scenarios) your personal utility isn’t being maximized and then demanding that things be changed so that you, personally, are as happy as possible.
You state you want general maximization, then you demand that you want personal maximization at the expense of the general. Your words and your actions don’t agree.
Part of the problem here is that you’re not saying what constitutes an “abuse” of the rules / system, and your actual meaning is one that would be rejected by others if you stated it explicitly.
It looks like you’ve misplaced this comment—it seems like it’s a response to some comment, but not Alicorn’s. Alicorn was just pointing out a nice bit of logic.
It’s in response to Alicorn’s post and things she’s said earlier in this thread.
No, but vowing to so strongly oppose other people’s attempts to maximize global utility, presumably in favor of demanding some other goal, means at minimum lost opportunity cost for effort that could be directed toward global utility, and at worst things that actively harm global utility in order to promote some orthogonal, unrelated goal. Ergo, making things worse, if only by default.
If you view “working together for a solution that maximizes the utility of everyone” as a central, overriding goal, then from a cooperative standpoint thomblake’s goals may as well be paperclip maximizing—there is no common ground.
Ah, I believe I see the confusion now.
I was not vowing to oppose other people’s attempts to maximize global utility, except inasmuch as they would force me to do it. I’m generally against people forcing me to do things I’m morally opposed to. But I have no interest in demanding any other goal for everyone, as I think that would be at least as reprehensible.
It was “demand that everyone work together for X” that I mostly took issue with. Maximizing overall utility is really not as bad as a lot of other goals.
By that reasoning, anyone with any other goal may as well be paperclip maximizing, since it “means at a minimum lost opportunity cost for effort that could be directed towards global utility”, “making things worse, if only by default.”
Thus, by that reasoning, there is no common ground between those who view “working together for a solution that maximizes the utility of everyone” and everyone else. Luckily for the rest of us, those people are a minority.
Indifference to a goal is not the same as the stance implied by “I don’t intend to work towards any such solution, I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, and I will fight and die for the right to avoid it.” I don’t see how that statement implies anything other than “allowing people to make things worse is good”.
But, yes, I agree my initial statement was too strong. Consider it retracted.
I’m not interested in conversing with people who make long lists of assertions, then remove themselves from the discussion.
...sigh. Okay, put it like this. We’re clearly arguing past each other. I think your points are self-evidently wrong, and your arguments bordering on trolling. I am sure this is not how the discussion appears to you, and you may feel that my points are equally bad, but we’re not making any progress here. And it’s degenerating into a Standard Political Debate—basically a libertarian “no coercive government is ever okay” position versus a utilitarian “sometimes it’s an optimal solution” position, which has been done about a billion times and about which there is very little left to be said.
That leaves us with two options. We can either continue unproductively wasting time and energy on a particularly unproductive version of a cliched topic that neither of us can realistically affect, all the while breaking the Less Wrong gentlemens’ agreement against explicit political discussions. Or one person can bow out and allow the other person to take the last word.
That demonstrates only that you don’t understand the points that have been made.
Again, I’m not interested in conversing with people who make long lists of assertions, then remove themselves from the discussion.
If you don’t want to continue participating in it, then don’t. But don’t try to seize the last word and then declare that the conversation is now over.
That’s not what he intended. Note:
Yvain’s stated intent was to let you have the last word, and not contribute further.
His actual intent, revealed by what he did, was to spout a lot of fallacious arguments and mischaracterizations and then say that he would not respond further.
If you’re giving someone the last word, the way isn’t to do bow out after making a bunch of points.
I’ve responded to you four or five times over several days. I don’t feel an obligation to continue forever, especially when you don’t seem to be understanding my points, and I definitely do not want to clog Less Wrong with it. If it is that important to you, feel free to email me any of your further thoughts at yvain314@hotmail.com .
You don’t seem to be understanding my points, judging from the nature of your responses.
But that isn’t the issue. I don’t care about what you, personally, believe. You’re making logically invalid arguments—that, I care about—and you’re doing so publically—which requires public refutation.
Contacting you personally would accomplish nothing. The point is not to convince you, but to accurately recognize and state the validity and invalidity of your arguments.
First, you are aware that there’s a difference between “You are making logically invalid arguments” and “Your arguments sound logically invalid to me, which means either that you are wrong or that I am misunderstanding them,” right?
Second, you’re contradicting yourself. If your goal is to convince me, feel free to do it by email. If your goal is to state what you think are the flaws in my argument to publically convince other people, then feel free to do it here, and be happy that I won’t be responding to muddle things up further.
Your first ‘question’ is merely a veiled insult.
No, I am not.
The point is not to “convince” anyone. The point is to correctly and explicitly state the logical flaws in your positions. It is then the job of every rational person to convince themselves.
Okay. You were always free to do exactly that, instead of asserting that Yvain was
when he was actually ceding the last word and declaring the conversation over just as soon as you were done replying to his last substantive comment.
Ahem:
Refusing to ‘contribute’ further rules out acknowledging that the other’s position has been misrepresented.
True but irrelevant. Furthermore, Yvain’s failure to acknowledge anything is immaterial what you claim is the point of the conversation, to wit, to accurately recognize and state the validity and invalidity of his arguments, and not to convince him.