Not all LW discussions should be taken as assuming status/money feeds back into UFAI prevention. Where it does, I obviously agree with you, but if the question of what’s the right thing to do in the absence of existential risk considerations is something people find themselves thinking about anyway, they may as well get that question right by paying sufficient attention to positional vs nonpositional goods.
they may as well get that question right by paying sufficient attention to positional vs nonpositional goods.
True except that my intuition is that whpearson has somewhat got it wrong on that too, because he is trying to other-optimize non-nerds, who find keeping up with the latest fashion items highly enjoyable. They’re like a hound that enjoys the thrill of the chase, separate from the meat at the end of it.
Smokers love the first cigarette of the Day. People who buy lottery tickets love the feeling of potentially winning lots of money. Nerds love to ignore the world and burrow into safe controllable minutia. It doesn’t mean that any of them is good for them in the long term.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with other optimising. Every one in society other optimizes each other all the time. People try and convince me to like football and to chase pretty girls. To conform to their expectations. You’ve been other-optimizing the non-status oriented in this very thread!
I don’t normally air my views, because they are dull and tedious. My friends can buy their fancy cars as much as they want, as long as they have sufficient money to not go into unsustainable debt, and I won’t say a word.
But you asked why altruists might have a problem with making money, and I gave you a response. It might be irrational, I’m unsure at this point, but like akrasia It won’t go away in a puff of logic. If it is irrational it is due to the application of the golden rule as a computationally feasible heuristic in figuring out what people want. I don’t want a world full of advertising that tries to make me feel inadequate, so I would not want to increase the amount of advertising in others worlds.
But maybe “non-people like me” do want this. I don’t know, I don’t think so. The popularity of things like tivo and ad-block that allow you to skip or block ads. Or pay services without ads suggests that ads are not a positive force in everyone’s world.
I also see people regret spending so much money on positional goods they get into debt or bankruptcy. This I am pretty sure is bad ;) So I would not want to encourage it.
But maybe “non-people like me” do want this. I don’t know, I don’t think so. The popularity of things like tivo and ad-block that allow you to skip or block ads. Or pay services without ads suggests that ads are not a positive force in everyone’s world.
I believe you are mistaken. Having adds out there is a significant factor driving the production of content on the internet. Without adds we would not have google in its current form and we wouldn’t have gmail at all! By personally avoiding adds we derive benefits for ourselves from the presence of adds while not accepting the costs. Let people who aren’t smart enough to download AdBlock maintain the global commons!
Without adds we would not have google in its current form and we wouldn’t have gmail at all!
Without advertising, there would be far less demand for television and similar media, because its effective price, as perceived by consumers, would be much higher. Query what people would have done with their extra 20 − 30 hours a week over the last 40 years or so if they hadn’t spent all of it consuming mindless entertainment.
Also, without advertising, there would be far less demand for useless products, because their effective benefits, as perceived by consumers, would be much lower. A few corporations that completely failed to make useful products would have gone out of business, and most of the others would have learned to imitate the few corporations that already were making useful products. Query whether (a) having most companies make useful products and (b) having most workers be employed by companies that make useful products might be worth more than having Google.
If there were no free television, people would still have a lot of low-intensity timekillers available—gossip, unambitious games, drinking.
If they had to pay for television, they might have been so accustomed to paying for content that they’d have subscribed to google.
The more interesting question is how different would people need to be for advertising to not be worth doing. I think it would take people being much clearer about their motivations. I’m pretty sure that would have major implications, but I’m not sure what they’d be.
There are people who try to raise their kids to be advertising-proof, but I haven’t heard anything about the long term effects.
It seems that this comment is saying “I’d rather the world ended through unfriendly AI disaster than that I sold a positional good”
Yes?
In what sense is this not madness?
Not all LW discussions should be taken as assuming status/money feeds back into UFAI prevention. Where it does, I obviously agree with you, but if the question of what’s the right thing to do in the absence of existential risk considerations is something people find themselves thinking about anyway, they may as well get that question right by paying sufficient attention to positional vs nonpositional goods.
True except that my intuition is that whpearson has somewhat got it wrong on that too, because he is trying to other-optimize non-nerds, who find keeping up with the latest fashion items highly enjoyable. They’re like a hound that enjoys the thrill of the chase, separate from the meat at the end of it.
Smokers love the first cigarette of the Day. People who buy lottery tickets love the feeling of potentially winning lots of money. Nerds love to ignore the world and burrow into safe controllable minutia. It doesn’t mean that any of them is good for them in the long term.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with other optimising. Every one in society other optimizes each other all the time. People try and convince me to like football and to chase pretty girls. To conform to their expectations. You’ve been other-optimizing the non-status oriented in this very thread!
I don’t normally air my views, because they are dull and tedious. My friends can buy their fancy cars as much as they want, as long as they have sufficient money to not go into unsustainable debt, and I won’t say a word.
But you asked why altruists might have a problem with making money, and I gave you a response. It might be irrational, I’m unsure at this point, but like akrasia It won’t go away in a puff of logic. If it is irrational it is due to the application of the golden rule as a computationally feasible heuristic in figuring out what people want. I don’t want a world full of advertising that tries to make me feel inadequate, so I would not want to increase the amount of advertising in others worlds.
But maybe “non-people like me” do want this. I don’t know, I don’t think so. The popularity of things like tivo and ad-block that allow you to skip or block ads. Or pay services without ads suggests that ads are not a positive force in everyone’s world.
I also see people regret spending so much money on positional goods they get into debt or bankruptcy. This I am pretty sure is bad ;) So I would not want to encourage it.
I believe you are mistaken. Having adds out there is a significant factor driving the production of content on the internet. Without adds we would not have google in its current form and we wouldn’t have gmail at all! By personally avoiding adds we derive benefits for ourselves from the presence of adds while not accepting the costs. Let people who aren’t smart enough to download AdBlock maintain the global commons!
Without advertising, there would be far less demand for television and similar media, because its effective price, as perceived by consumers, would be much higher. Query what people would have done with their extra 20 − 30 hours a week over the last 40 years or so if they hadn’t spent all of it consuming mindless entertainment.
Also, without advertising, there would be far less demand for useless products, because their effective benefits, as perceived by consumers, would be much lower. A few corporations that completely failed to make useful products would have gone out of business, and most of the others would have learned to imitate the few corporations that already were making useful products. Query whether (a) having most companies make useful products and (b) having most workers be employed by companies that make useful products might be worth more than having Google.
If there were no free television, people would still have a lot of low-intensity timekillers available—gossip, unambitious games, drinking.
If they had to pay for television, they might have been so accustomed to paying for content that they’d have subscribed to google.
The more interesting question is how different would people need to be for advertising to not be worth doing. I think it would take people being much clearer about their motivations. I’m pretty sure that would have major implications, but I’m not sure what they’d be.
There are people who try to raise their kids to be advertising-proof, but I haven’t heard anything about the long term effects.
I make an effort to do this with my kids. It will be interesting to see how it effects things as they get older.