This doesn’t engage with the significant downsides of such a policy that Zvi mentions.
There are definite questions about the cost/benefits to allowing euthanasia, even though we wish to allow it, especially when we as a society are young in our ability to handle it.
Glossing the only significant feature being ‘torturing people’ ignores:
the very significant costs of people dying, which is compounded by the question of what equilibrium the mental/social availability of euthanasia is like
the typical LessWrong beliefs about how good technology will get in the coming years/decades. Once we have a better understanding of humans, massively improving whatever is causing them to suffer whether through medical, social, or other means, becomes more and more actionable
what the actual distribution of suffering is, I expect most are not at the level we/I would call torture even though it is very unpleasant (there’s a meaningful difference between suicidally depressed and someone who has a disease that causes them pain every waking moment, and variations within those)
Being allowed to die is an important choice to let people make, but it does have to be a considered look at how much harm such an option being easily available causes. If it is disputed how likely society is to end up in a bad equilibrium like the post describes, then that’s notable, but it would be good to see argument for/against instead.
(Edit: I don’t entirely like my reply, but I think it is important to push back against trivial rounding off of important issues. Especially on LW.)
I agree my gloss on it is not a substantive engagement, but rather a reminder of what I consider a crucial consideration. Policies that elide horrific suffering are the norm. Part of the point is that suffering, being not available to external quantification, must be left up to the individual whenever possible. Many objections to utilitarianism involve its frequent attempts to obviate subjective effects when this isn’t appropriate.
Suffering is already on most reader’s minds, as it is the central advocating reason behind euthanasia — and for good reason.
I agree that policies which cause or ignore suffering, when they could very well avoid such with more work, are unfortunately common. However, those are often not utilitarian policies; and similarly many objections to various implementations of utilitarianism and even classic “do what seems the obviously right action” are that they ignore significant second-order effects. Policies that don’t quantify what unfortunate incentives they give are common, and often originators of much suffering.
What form society/culture is allowed/encouraged to take, shapes itself further for decades to come, and so can be a very significant cost to many people if we roll straight ahead like in the possible scenario you originally quoted.
Suffering is not directly available to external quantification, but that holds true for ~all pieces of what humans value/disvalue, like happiness, experiencing new things, etcetera. We can quantify these, even if it is nontrivial. None of what I said is obviating suffering, but rather comparing it to other costs and pieces of information that make euthanasia less valuable (like advancing medical technology).
Huge numbers of people are forced to resort to illegal methods of suicide creating legal, emotional, financial, and logistics problems for their loved ones, on top of the additional grief to the suicidee personally.
This doesn’t engage with the significant downsides of such a policy that Zvi mentions. There are definite questions about the cost/benefits to allowing euthanasia, even though we wish to allow it, especially when we as a society are young in our ability to handle it. Glossing the only significant feature being ‘torturing people’ ignores:
the very significant costs of people dying, which is compounded by the question of what equilibrium the mental/social availability of euthanasia is like
the typical LessWrong beliefs about how good technology will get in the coming years/decades. Once we have a better understanding of humans, massively improving whatever is causing them to suffer whether through medical, social, or other means, becomes more and more actionable
what the actual distribution of suffering is, I expect most are not at the level we/I would call torture even though it is very unpleasant (there’s a meaningful difference between suicidally depressed and someone who has a disease that causes them pain every waking moment, and variations within those)
Being allowed to die is an important choice to let people make, but it does have to be a considered look at how much harm such an option being easily available causes. If it is disputed how likely society is to end up in a bad equilibrium like the post describes, then that’s notable, but it would be good to see argument for/against instead.
(Edit: I don’t entirely like my reply, but I think it is important to push back against trivial rounding off of important issues. Especially on LW.)
I agree my gloss on it is not a substantive engagement, but rather a reminder of what I consider a crucial consideration. Policies that elide horrific suffering are the norm. Part of the point is that suffering, being not available to external quantification, must be left up to the individual whenever possible. Many objections to utilitarianism involve its frequent attempts to obviate subjective effects when this isn’t appropriate.
Suffering is already on most reader’s minds, as it is the central advocating reason behind euthanasia — and for good reason. I agree that policies which cause or ignore suffering, when they could very well avoid such with more work, are unfortunately common. However, those are often not utilitarian policies; and similarly many objections to various implementations of utilitarianism and even classic “do what seems the obviously right action” are that they ignore significant second-order effects. Policies that don’t quantify what unfortunate incentives they give are common, and often originators of much suffering. What form society/culture is allowed/encouraged to take, shapes itself further for decades to come, and so can be a very significant cost to many people if we roll straight ahead like in the possible scenario you originally quoted.
Suffering is not directly available to external quantification, but that holds true for ~all pieces of what humans value/disvalue, like happiness, experiencing new things, etcetera. We can quantify these, even if it is nontrivial. None of what I said is obviating suffering, but rather comparing it to other costs and pieces of information that make euthanasia less valuable (like advancing medical technology).
Huge numbers of people are forced to resort to illegal methods of suicide creating legal, emotional, financial, and logistics problems for their loved ones, on top of the additional grief to the suicidee personally.