[epistemic status: amusing (to me) exploration. not perfectly serious, but I don’t completely disavow it either. ]
The naivety in simplistic Utilitarian assumptions is quite compatible with sociopathy. The whole point is that the future is so much larger than the present, that small changes in future probabilities are worth large sacrifices in current experience. This makes it VERY easy to convince yourself that your instrumental power increase benefits trillions of future humans, justifying ’most any behavior you want.
I have wondered if that’s true, and if so, is it more like a merge, or more like a Jekyll/Hyde thing.
[epistemic status: amusing (to me) exploration. not perfectly serious, but I don’t completely disavow it either. ]
The naivety in simplistic Utilitarian assumptions is quite compatible with sociopathy. The whole point is that the future is so much larger than the present, that small changes in future probabilities are worth large sacrifices in current experience. This makes it VERY easy to convince yourself that your instrumental power increase benefits trillions of future humans, justifying ’most any behavior you want.