Optimal by what criteria? And what right do I have to assign criteria for ‘optimal’? I have neither power nor charisma; criteria are chosen by those with the power to enforce an agenda.
Some people might value occupying a particular mental state for its own sake, but that wasn’t what I was talking about here. I was talking purely instrumentally—your interest in existential risk suggests you have goals or long term preferences about the world (although I understand that I may have got this wrong), and I was contemplating what might help you achieve those and what might stand in your way.
Just to clarify—is it my assessment of you as an aspiring utility maximizer that I’m wrong about, or am I right about that but wrong about something at the strategic level? (Or fundamentally misunderstanding your preferences)
Optimal by what criteria? And what right do I have to assign criteria for ‘optimal’? I have neither power nor charisma; criteria are chosen by those with the power to enforce an agenda.
By the same right that you assign criteria according to which primate dominance rituals or competitive zero-sum exchanges are bad.
Some people might value occupying a particular mental state for its own sake, but that wasn’t what I was talking about here. I was talking purely instrumentally—your interest in existential risk suggests you have goals or long term preferences about the world (although I understand that I may have got this wrong), and I was contemplating what might help you achieve those and what might stand in your way.
Just to clarify—is it my assessment of you as an aspiring utility maximizer that I’m wrong about, or am I right about that but wrong about something at the strategic level? (Or fundamentally misunderstanding your preferences)