11 ms·

What kind of girl do you think I am?

174 points by moraitakis 16y ago

derefr 16y ago
A thought: if someone offered me a trillion dollars to kill a person, I would get trillion-dollar loan, invent brain-uploading and emulation technology with it, copy the person into the machine, and then kill them. To put that more simply: past a certain point, the idea of marginal value in a cost/benefit analysis breaks down, because the benefit "changes the game." (That is, creates a discontinuity in the valuation curve.) A million dollars "changes the game" of your life. $100 doesn't.
- philwelch 16y ago
  So for a trillion dollars, you wouldn't kill someone, only restrict them to living inside a stationary computer for eternity without their consent.
  - ojbyrne 16y ago
    Given sufficient technology, what exactly is the difference?
    - btmorex 16y ago
      Well, you're making decisions about someone else's mortality. Maybe they wouldn't want to live forever with everyone else that they knew dying? Maybe they would want to have a physical existence in the form of a human body. You're denying them that. There are a ton of similar questions.
      - derefr 16y ago
        I think the parent's phrase "sufficient technology" was meant to be interpreted as more than my "brain uploading and emulation"—i.e. an infinite Matrix landscape, synchronized with a doorway in the real world, that would gradually quantum-de-/re-materialize them as they progressed further into or out of it, so that, on the outside of the door, they were real people made of real matter, but ten or fifteen feet inside they were completely virtual. Assuming a wide-enough door, you could bring in your house, your car, whatever else you'd like, and bring them out again if you wanted to live a mortal life. (But, if you got your leg blown off in reality, you could always go in and, sufficiently digitized, apply a patch from a record of your previous body and walk back out, good as new.) The problem with speculative fiction is that it needs a technological conflict. Worthwhile utopias don't do that.
    - lazugod 16y ago
      The rest of the word might hesitate to consider the person "not dead" when their body, their instantly recognizable human feature, has been taken away from them.
  - derefr 16y ago
    The important word in my analogy was "invent." Given that the technology exists, lots of other things would happen—an emulation could be plugged into arbitrary "sensory" inputs, so a simulated universe could be created for it; that simulated universe would seem like an inviting prospect for those that do not wish to continue a life that mostly consists of sitting around on the Internet anyway, so more people (first-adopters) would upload as well, even if their "real" bodies continued separately; the large number of ems would provoke discussions of em rights, which would lead to internationally-funded medical programs to create two-way bridges between our reality and the simulations... and so on. That's what I mean by "discontinuity": you can't give a cost-benefit analysis to something like a trillion dollars, because one trillion-dollar investment can completely alter the course of civilization with its knock-on effects.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      You're still seriously inconveniencing some guy, and doing something highly significant to him without his consent. But it was mostly a quibble :) I agree with your central argument.
- dkersten 16y ago
  Would that amount vary much if the person you were to kill was someone you cared about?
  - Whippet 16y ago
    That gets to the crux of the matter doesn't it. If your morals are based on principle, then no matter who the person was, your decision would remain the same. I believe/hope that I am the type of person who would not take anothers' life no matter what the circumstances because I want to be a person of principle. If there were some situation where I did take a life, then I am not the principled person I think I am. Take the example of Google and their motto,'Don't be Evil'. It was a nice bit of marketing, but when the value of doing business with a repressive government was high enough, they and other company's apparently had no problems working with said governments to continue the repression of it's citizens. Now, you may say, Google has left that country. But, it was not due to the moral repugnance they felt about repressing the citizens, but the fact they were under attack by agents/citizens of said government and felt it was no longer in their interest 'financially' to stay.
    - nicolas_t 16y ago
      A bit out of topic, I think on the question of China many people have a black and white view of the situation... In the case of google, they came to China but actually provided a less censored service than baidu (by writing in the search pages that some results were left out because of censoring thus attracting attention to it)... So in what way was their behavior evil? Additionnaly, they never started any blogging service in China that would have put them in a situation where they had to give information to the government about political activists (unlike yahoo who gave such information)... So, I don't think Google did anything evil in that case...
      - btmorex 16y ago
        They traded freedom of speech for ~1.3 billion people for a decidedly limited amount of money. To me that's a moral calculation and they chose money.
- cduan 16y ago
  It's never clear to me why people answer thought experiments like this in this manner. The point of the question "would you kill someone for a trillion dollars" is to tease out an answer to an underlying philosophical question, such as, "is the act of killing as we know it a moral absolute wrong, or is it merely an act with great negative utility that can be compensated by sufficient positive utility?" Yes, there are always creative ways to avoid really answering the question (such as doing a brain upload, as suggested), but these answers do nothing to answer the underlying question, which is what the thought experiment is really trying to get at.
  - derefr 16y ago
    And I've always ignored that sort of question—there's no such thing as morals or utility, really, only what animals are programmed to think in their animal brains. Robotic arms don't care when other robotic arms die—and neither do we. Paperclips don't care about increasing in number, even if someone is trying to make it so. What we have to ask is not "what does the universe say about right and wrong?" (because the answer is "nothing") but rather "what do our minds say about right and wrong?"—that is, "what is the human utility function?" The problem with that, of course, is that even within our species, we have many different (and mutually-exclusive!) utility functions; sociopaths, for example, calculate theirs noticeably differently. So, it still ends up turned into a problem of cultural meta-ethics. That is, it's no longer a matter of "who do we shun and revile?" but "how do we get along?" or perhaps "do we want to get along?" (Which brings me to this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/)
    - btmorex 16y ago
      For an individual you can make those proclamations, but individuals don't operate in a vacuum. There is such a thing as morals and utility in a society. There is value in participating in a society. Therefor, there is value is having individual morals and calculating the utility of actions at least on a societal level.
      - derefr 16y ago
- btmorex 16y ago
  If you're going to invent scenarios, you should invent realistic one's. For example, I'm fairly confident that you couldn't solve the problem of brain duplication for a trillion dollars. The NIH budget in 2010 was ~32 billion which isn't close to a trillion, but it's a lot closer to a trillion than we are to duplicating a brain. On a philosophical level though, a lot of people would probably disagree with your proposed actions. For me, personally, I wouldn't want to "influence" (vaguely kill, but also any of these "duplication" scenarios) someone else's mortality for any amount of money.
  - chancho 16y ago
    You could cure a lot of cancer for $1 trillion. By turning the offer down, are you sure you're not "influencing" someone else's mortality? (That's a rhetorical question, of course. I don't have an answer.)
    - btmorex 16y ago
      So, I did say "any amount of money", not any amount of lives. I do think it's morally okay to trade one life for many (definitely ambiguous in terms of amounts because I don't feel like trying to figure that one out). In fact, I don't think you could justify war without also justifying this moral decision so I don't think it's very rare even if people don't often think about it.
      - jimbokun 16y ago
        "I do think it's morally okay to trade one life for many" So you're a Spock, not a Kirk.
  - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
    CLoning would be cheaper/possible
    - MichaelSalib 16y ago
      You couldn't replicate memories and consciousness though. And cloning involves a long lead time since we only know how to clone embryos. So from your family and friends' perspective, it would be like you died, since they're not going to enjoy the company of your clone for a few decades and even then it won't have your memory or much of your personality.
- jedbrown 16y ago
  Terrible example, but the point that cost-benefit analysis is nonlinear is indeed valid. Suppose that instead of being offered money, you were threatened with losing it. This change is immaterial for small amounts, but highly relevant for large amounts (e.g. as the amount approaches your net worth/lifetime earning potential).
davidu 16y ago
In business you are rarely forced to murder or whore yourself out. You are, however, constantly faced with changing your direction, compromising your vision or similar, all for some potential upside and downside. That's the nature of business, and trying to tie it to moral questions doesn't do justice to the line of reasoning one should employ. Of course you should be moral, but most business questions aren't a question of morality, but of direction and the most appropriate path to achieve your objectives.
- axod 16y ago
  Surely the analogy for some of us would be "Would you sell your startup to microsoft for X". Logically and from a business perspective it may make sense to do so, but it's a hard pill to swallow for many I'd bet.
  - davidu 16y ago
    But if Jerry Yang had sold Yahoo in 2008 then shareholders wouldn't be left holding a company today that is worth less than half what MSFT offered, would we? But that was an emotional decision, and he made the wrong one. Still not a moral question, imho.
    - axod 16y ago
      It's only wrong for certain criteria of 'wrong'. Who can say what would be left of Yahoo if MSFT sprinkled their unique webfail all over it? I'd expect that they would have destroyed most of it.
- Confusion 16y ago
  I'm sure the managers at BP that choose to forego certain safety measures completely recognize themselves in this line of reasoning. Which immediately illustrates how dangerously false it is. Companies are amoral (not to be confused with immoral) entities that will not necessarily act in the people's best behavior. If companies act in a morally acceptable way, it is because of the individual employees that together make morally acceptable choices. Every business question is a question of morality, because you can always choose to commit fraud, cheat someone or act in an otherwise immoral fashion. Sometimes you won't do that for fear of customer or supplier retribution. Often you won't do that for fear of the law. But sometimes, you just shouldn't do it, because it has possible consequences you should never risk. No one at BP is individually responsible for the current calamity. The more responsibility is spread over multiple layers of decision making, the less responsible individuals feel and the less moral their behavior will be. Not because they are immoral, but because the pressure to act as is best for the company is strong enough to suppress moral qualms. No 'evil' individual made the immoral decision that lead to the accident. It was a large number of people that each made slightly immoral decisions, the cumulative result of which is now the largest ecological disaster in US history. This is the essence of the problem of libertarianism and complete free market capitalism. This is why we need a government to regulate capitalism.
reitzensteinm 16y ago
Is it just me or is there someone going on a downvoting spree here? I've seen at least 8 comments at 0, and I only checked the thread twice. It's kind of weird, since there's quite a high karma threshold for downvoting.
- olliesaunders 16y ago
  One angry person?
- axod 16y ago
  I'm guessing since there is no downvote for articles, some people take their dislike of an article out on all the commenters.
- Herring 16y ago
  You guys really don't see how misogynistic these articles are, do you?
  - roundsquare 16y ago
    I suspect everyone noticed it, but decided to focus on the what the author was trying to get across instead. Not saying thats the right thing to do, but thats my guess.
  - reitzensteinm 16y ago
    When I first saw the comment threads, basically everything was voted down to 0. It now feels much more like a typical contraversial thread - lots of disagreement, and a few people who've gotten strongly downvoted. I have no problem with that, it's what I expect to see. It just kind of pissed me off to see the vandalism of presumably one person downvoting everything on the page, because only people with quite a lot of karma can downvote. I suspect that's also why I got voted up to 7 and then back down to 1 - because people are looking at the votes now see no issue.
  - jules 16y ago
    Is that a good reason for downvoting all comments? The example may be misogynistic, but the idea that the example is an example of is not. Also, suppose that the genders were removed: X: “If I gave you a million dollars, would you sleep with me?” Y: “A million dollars is a lot of money, and you don’t look that bad, so I guess I would consider it” X: “Ok, since I don’t have a million dollars, would you sleep with me for $100?” Y: (outraged) “What kind of person do you think I am?” X: “We’ve already established the answer to that question. Now we’re just negotiating the price” Now who is shown in a less negative light, X or Y? I'd say Y. Of course Y is also shown in a negative light.
willz 16y ago
The guy's main point is that you should decide which girl you are: the "Consequentialist" (relativist), or the "Categoricalist" (absolutist). He said: "... I find it helpful, before I consider a dilemma, to at least debate whether I’m in that girl’s situation, and what kind of girl I’m going to be for this particular question..." This shows that he is the "Consequentialist" girl.
diN0bot 16y ago
(it's not worth noting but i'm going to do so anyway: we know what kind of guy he is before we know what kind of girl she is, but no one even points that out. we focus on her because she's indecisive?)
- dejb 16y ago
  I have a problem voting for a comment that is entirely in brackets. Feels it could cause a divide by zero problem if the bracketed part doesn't count thus rending the comment to be of infinite value per character.
tome 16y ago
Here is a collection of supposed attributions for that quotation: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/what_kind_of_woman_do_you_take_me_for_madam_weve_already_established_that_c/ http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/what... It seems rather hard to pin down the original source!
Confusion 16y ago
The million-dollar question is interesting *because it forces her to really decide* what kind of girl she is. The question actually isn't very interesting at all, because the it suggests there is still a choice to be made. In reality, most people have made that choice long ago and we know that they have their consequentialist price. The price may be a million dollars, saving a hundred people's lives, getting revenge or another non-monetary reward, but there is a price. Already before the million-dollar question, we know that we may assume she definitely is 'that kind of girl'. Almost every girl, and every guy, is 'that kind of girl', because they will trade their affections for what the other party offers. Be it under the guise of love or not. Going into a business negotiation thinking either you or them are deontologists is selfdeception that will hinder you in your negotiations.
- jimbokun 16y ago
  "Going into a business negotiation thinking either you or them are deontologists is selfdeception that will hinder you in your negotiations." Maybe. But in practice, it might be a simplifying assumption that either you or them are "deontologists" in the context of the negotiations because there is nothing you have to offer that has any chance of budging their position. In other words, she may be that kind of girl for a million dollars, but you don't have a million dollars.
  - ericb 16y ago
    True. Also, I've seen a number of negotiations broken off over pride--offers were made that were deemed "offensive." Don't be misled by treating everyone as "consequentialists" or you are very likely to step on a pride booby trap and cause the other party to sever negotiations. So in a practical sense, your simplifying assumption makes a lot of sense.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
      While I can't think of an instance where I've seen this myself, I remember my real estate agent warning me about this when I was buying my first house. Some buyers will simply not consider any offer you make if your first one is so far below what they are asking that they consider it insulting.
Tycho 16y ago
It is the characterisation of moral systems as either 'deontological' or 'teleological' which I find invalid, thus undermining the usefulness of this here debate. In the articles terms, you could be moral according to the category of your actions, or according to the consequences of your actions. The first one ignores reality ('whatever happens, don't lie'), and the second one negates judgement ('the right action depends on the consequences, and the consequences of the consequences, and the consequences of... ad infinitum' an endless, useless subjectivism). They can be sidestepped by applying judgement according to reality and a measurable standard of value, eg. self-interest. You could call this contextual or objective morality.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  Consequentialism encompasses all value systems that incorporate consequences to any degree at all. So your "applying judgement according to reality and a measurable standard of value" system is actually consequentialist.
Shorel 16y ago
I think that what's wrong is the idea that a single decision, specially one involving sex and money, can determine 'the kind of person' you are. Extremely simplistic and unrealistic point of view.
noamsml 16y ago
I feel like the problem with this is that sleeping with someone for money is not inherently unethical, i.e. it hurts no one. Certainly, if you were to replace it with "kill a person", the spread of answers would change significantly.

174 points by moraitakis 16y ago

A thought: if someone offered me a trillion dollars to kill a person, I would get trillion-dollar loan, invent brain-uploading and emulation technology with it, copy the person into the machine, and then kill them. To put that more simply: past a certain point, the idea of marginal value in a cost/benefit analysis breaks down, because the benefit "changes the game." (That is, creates a discontinuity in the valuation curve.) A million dollars "changes the game" of your life. $100 doesn't.

philwelch 16y ago
So for a trillion dollars, you wouldn't kill someone, only restrict them to living inside a stationary computer for eternity without their consent.
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  Given sufficient technology, what exactly is the difference?
  - btmorex 16y ago
    Well, you're making decisions about someone else's mortality. Maybe they wouldn't want to live forever with everyone else that they knew dying? Maybe they would want to have a physical existence in the form of a human body. You're denying them that. There are a ton of similar questions.
    - derefr 16y ago
      I think the parent's phrase "sufficient technology" was meant to be interpreted as more than my "brain uploading and emulation"—i.e. an infinite Matrix landscape, synchronized with a doorway in the real world, that would gradually quantum-de-/re-materialize them as they progressed further into or out of it, so that, on the outside of the door, they were real people made of real matter, but ten or fifteen feet inside they were completely virtual. Assuming a wide-enough door, you could bring in your house, your car, whatever else you'd like, and bring them out again if you wanted to live a mortal life. (But, if you got your leg blown off in reality, you could always go in and, sufficiently digitized, apply a patch from a record of your previous body and walk back out, good as new.) The problem with speculative fiction is that it needs a technological conflict. Worthwhile utopias don't do that.
  - lazugod 16y ago
    The rest of the word might hesitate to consider the person "not dead" when their body, their instantly recognizable human feature, has been taken away from them.
- derefr 16y ago
  The important word in my analogy was "invent." Given that the technology exists, lots of other things would happen—an emulation could be plugged into arbitrary "sensory" inputs, so a simulated universe could be created for it; that simulated universe would seem like an inviting prospect for those that do not wish to continue a life that mostly consists of sitting around on the Internet anyway, so more people (first-adopters) would upload as well, even if their "real" bodies continued separately; the large number of ems would provoke discussions of em rights, which would lead to internationally-funded medical programs to create two-way bridges between our reality and the simulations... and so on. That's what I mean by "discontinuity": you can't give a cost-benefit analysis to something like a trillion dollars, because one trillion-dollar investment can completely alter the course of civilization with its knock-on effects.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    You're still seriously inconveniencing some guy, and doing something highly significant to him without his consent. But it was mostly a quibble :) I agree with your central argument.
dkersten 16y ago
Would that amount vary much if the person you were to kill was someone you cared about?
- Whippet 16y ago
  That gets to the crux of the matter doesn't it. If your morals are based on principle, then no matter who the person was, your decision would remain the same. I believe/hope that I am the type of person who would not take anothers' life no matter what the circumstances because I want to be a person of principle. If there were some situation where I did take a life, then I am not the principled person I think I am. Take the example of Google and their motto,'Don't be Evil'. It was a nice bit of marketing, but when the value of doing business with a repressive government was high enough, they and other company's apparently had no problems working with said governments to continue the repression of it's citizens. Now, you may say, Google has left that country. But, it was not due to the moral repugnance they felt about repressing the citizens, but the fact they were under attack by agents/citizens of said government and felt it was no longer in their interest 'financially' to stay.
  - nicolas_t 16y ago
    A bit out of topic, I think on the question of China many people have a black and white view of the situation... In the case of google, they came to China but actually provided a less censored service than baidu (by writing in the search pages that some results were left out because of censoring thus attracting attention to it)... So in what way was their behavior evil? Additionnaly, they never started any blogging service in China that would have put them in a situation where they had to give information to the government about political activists (unlike yahoo who gave such information)... So, I don't think Google did anything evil in that case...
    - btmorex 16y ago
      They traded freedom of speech for ~1.3 billion people for a decidedly limited amount of money. To me that's a moral calculation and they chose money.
cduan 16y ago
It's never clear to me why people answer thought experiments like this in this manner. The point of the question "would you kill someone for a trillion dollars" is to tease out an answer to an underlying philosophical question, such as, "is the act of killing as we know it a moral absolute wrong, or is it merely an act with great negative utility that can be compensated by sufficient positive utility?" Yes, there are always creative ways to avoid really answering the question (such as doing a brain upload, as suggested), but these answers do nothing to answer the underlying question, which is what the thought experiment is really trying to get at.
- derefr 16y ago
  And I've always ignored that sort of question—there's no such thing as morals or utility, really, only what animals are programmed to think in their animal brains. Robotic arms don't care when other robotic arms die—and neither do we. Paperclips don't care about increasing in number, even if someone is trying to make it so. What we have to ask is not "what does the universe say about right and wrong?" (because the answer is "nothing") but rather "what do our minds say about right and wrong?"—that is, "what is the human utility function?" The problem with that, of course, is that even within our species, we have many different (and mutually-exclusive!) utility functions; sociopaths, for example, calculate theirs noticeably differently. So, it still ends up turned into a problem of cultural meta-ethics. That is, it's no longer a matter of "who do we shun and revile?" but "how do we get along?" or perhaps "do we want to get along?" (Which brings me to this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/)
  - btmorex 16y ago
    For an individual you can make those proclamations, but individuals don't operate in a vacuum. There is such a thing as morals and utility in a society. There is value in participating in a society. Therefor, there is value is having individual morals and calculating the utility of actions at least on a societal level.
    - derefr 16y ago
btmorex 16y ago
If you're going to invent scenarios, you should invent realistic one's. For example, I'm fairly confident that you couldn't solve the problem of brain duplication for a trillion dollars. The NIH budget in 2010 was ~32 billion which isn't close to a trillion, but it's a lot closer to a trillion than we are to duplicating a brain. On a philosophical level though, a lot of people would probably disagree with your proposed actions. For me, personally, I wouldn't want to "influence" (vaguely kill, but also any of these "duplication" scenarios) someone else's mortality for any amount of money.
- chancho 16y ago
  You could cure a lot of cancer for $1 trillion. By turning the offer down, are you sure you're not "influencing" someone else's mortality? (That's a rhetorical question, of course. I don't have an answer.)
  - btmorex 16y ago
    So, I did say "any amount of money", not any amount of lives. I do think it's morally okay to trade one life for many (definitely ambiguous in terms of amounts because I don't feel like trying to figure that one out). In fact, I don't think you could justify war without also justifying this moral decision so I don't think it's very rare even if people don't often think about it.
    - jimbokun 16y ago
      "I do think it's morally okay to trade one life for many" So you're a Spock, not a Kirk.
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  CLoning would be cheaper/possible
  - MichaelSalib 16y ago
    You couldn't replicate memories and consciousness though. And cloning involves a long lead time since we only know how to clone embryos. So from your family and friends' perspective, it would be like you died, since they're not going to enjoy the company of your clone for a few decades and even then it won't have your memory or much of your personality.
jedbrown 16y ago
Terrible example, but the point that cost-benefit analysis is nonlinear is indeed valid. Suppose that instead of being offered money, you were threatened with losing it. This change is immaterial for small amounts, but highly relevant for large amounts (e.g. as the amount approaches your net worth/lifetime earning potential).

davidu 16y ago

In business you are rarely forced to murder or whore yourself out. You are, however, constantly faced with changing your direction, compromising your vision or similar, all for some potential upside and downside. That's the nature of business, and trying to tie it to moral questions doesn't do justice to the line of reasoning one should employ. Of course you should be moral, but most business questions aren't a question of morality, but of direction and the most appropriate path to achieve your objectives.

axod 16y ago
Surely the analogy for some of us would be "Would you sell your startup to microsoft for X". Logically and from a business perspective it may make sense to do so, but it's a hard pill to swallow for many I'd bet.
- davidu 16y ago
  But if Jerry Yang had sold Yahoo in 2008 then shareholders wouldn't be left holding a company today that is worth less than half what MSFT offered, would we? But that was an emotional decision, and he made the wrong one. Still not a moral question, imho.
  - axod 16y ago
    It's only wrong for certain criteria of 'wrong'. Who can say what would be left of Yahoo if MSFT sprinkled their unique webfail all over it? I'd expect that they would have destroyed most of it.
Confusion 16y ago
I'm sure the managers at BP that choose to forego certain safety measures completely recognize themselves in this line of reasoning. Which immediately illustrates how dangerously false it is. Companies are amoral (not to be confused with immoral) entities that will not necessarily act in the people's best behavior. If companies act in a morally acceptable way, it is because of the individual employees that together make morally acceptable choices. Every business question is a question of morality, because you can always choose to commit fraud, cheat someone or act in an otherwise immoral fashion. Sometimes you won't do that for fear of customer or supplier retribution. Often you won't do that for fear of the law. But sometimes, you just shouldn't do it, because it has possible consequences you should never risk. No one at BP is individually responsible for the current calamity. The more responsibility is spread over multiple layers of decision making, the less responsible individuals feel and the less moral their behavior will be. Not because they are immoral, but because the pressure to act as is best for the company is strong enough to suppress moral qualms. No 'evil' individual made the immoral decision that lead to the accident. It was a large number of people that each made slightly immoral decisions, the cumulative result of which is now the largest ecological disaster in US history. This is the essence of the problem of libertarianism and complete free market capitalism. This is why we need a government to regulate capitalism.

reitzensteinm 16y ago

Is it just me or is there someone going on a downvoting spree here? I've seen at least 8 comments at 0, and I only checked the thread twice. It's kind of weird, since there's quite a high karma threshold for downvoting.

olliesaunders 16y ago
One angry person?
axod 16y ago
I'm guessing since there is no downvote for articles, some people take their dislike of an article out on all the commenters.
Herring 16y ago
You guys really don't see how misogynistic these articles are, do you?
- roundsquare 16y ago
  I suspect everyone noticed it, but decided to focus on the what the author was trying to get across instead. Not saying thats the right thing to do, but thats my guess.
- reitzensteinm 16y ago
  When I first saw the comment threads, basically everything was voted down to 0. It now feels much more like a typical contraversial thread - lots of disagreement, and a few people who've gotten strongly downvoted. I have no problem with that, it's what I expect to see. It just kind of pissed me off to see the vandalism of presumably one person downvoting everything on the page, because only people with quite a lot of karma can downvote. I suspect that's also why I got voted up to 7 and then back down to 1 - because people are looking at the votes now see no issue.
- jules 16y ago
  Is that a good reason for downvoting all comments? The example may be misogynistic, but the idea that the example is an example of is not. Also, suppose that the genders were removed: X: “If I gave you a million dollars, would you sleep with me?” Y: “A million dollars is a lot of money, and you don’t look that bad, so I guess I would consider it” X: “Ok, since I don’t have a million dollars, would you sleep with me for $100?” Y: (outraged) “What kind of person do you think I am?” X: “We’ve already established the answer to that question. Now we’re just negotiating the price” Now who is shown in a less negative light, X or Y? I'd say Y. Of course Y is also shown in a negative light.

willz 16y ago

The guy's main point is that you should decide which girl you are: the "Consequentialist" (relativist), or the "Categoricalist" (absolutist). He said: "... I find it helpful, before I consider a dilemma, to at least debate whether I’m in that girl’s situation, and what kind of girl I’m going to be for this particular question..." This shows that he is the "Consequentialist" girl.

diN0bot 16y ago

(it's not worth noting but i'm going to do so anyway: we know what kind of guy he is before we know what kind of girl she is, but no one even points that out. we focus on her because she's indecisive?)

dejb 16y ago
I have a problem voting for a comment that is entirely in brackets. Feels it could cause a divide by zero problem if the bracketed part doesn't count thus rending the comment to be of infinite value per character.

tome 16y ago

Here is a collection of supposed attributions for that quotation: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/what_kind_of_woman_do_you_take_me_for_madam_weve_already_established_that_c/ http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/what... It seems rather hard to pin down the original source!

Confusion 16y ago

The million-dollar question is interesting *because it forces her to really decide* what kind of girl she is. The question actually isn't very interesting at all, because the it suggests there is still a choice to be made. In reality, most people have made that choice long ago and we know that they have their consequentialist price. The price may be a million dollars, saving a hundred people's lives, getting revenge or another non-monetary reward, but there is a price. Already before the million-dollar question, we know that we may assume she definitely is 'that kind of girl'. Almost every girl, and every guy, is 'that kind of girl', because they will trade their affections for what the other party offers. Be it under the guise of love or not. Going into a business negotiation thinking either you or them are deontologists is selfdeception that will hinder you in your negotiations.

jimbokun 16y ago
"Going into a business negotiation thinking either you or them are deontologists is selfdeception that will hinder you in your negotiations." Maybe. But in practice, it might be a simplifying assumption that either you or them are "deontologists" in the context of the negotiations because there is nothing you have to offer that has any chance of budging their position. In other words, she may be that kind of girl for a million dollars, but you don't have a million dollars.
- ericb 16y ago
  True. Also, I've seen a number of negotiations broken off over pride--offers were made that were deemed "offensive." Don't be misled by treating everyone as "consequentialists" or you are very likely to step on a pride booby trap and cause the other party to sever negotiations. So in a practical sense, your simplifying assumption makes a lot of sense.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
    While I can't think of an instance where I've seen this myself, I remember my real estate agent warning me about this when I was buying my first house. Some buyers will simply not consider any offer you make if your first one is so far below what they are asking that they consider it insulting.

Tycho 16y ago

It is the characterisation of moral systems as either 'deontological' or 'teleological' which I find invalid, thus undermining the usefulness of this here debate. In the articles terms, you could be moral according to the category of your actions, or according to the consequences of your actions. The first one ignores reality ('whatever happens, don't lie'), and the second one negates judgement ('the right action depends on the consequences, and the consequences of the consequences, and the consequences of... ad infinitum' an endless, useless subjectivism). They can be sidestepped by applying judgement according to reality and a measurable standard of value, eg. self-interest. You could call this contextual or objective morality.

MichaelSalib 16y ago
Consequentialism encompasses all value systems that incorporate consequences to any degree at all. So your "applying judgement according to reality and a measurable standard of value" system is actually consequentialist.

Shorel 16y ago

I think that what's wrong is the idea that a single decision, specially one involving sex and money, can determine 'the kind of person' you are. Extremely simplistic and unrealistic point of view.

noamsml 16y ago

I feel like the problem with this is that sleeping with someone for money is not inherently unethical, i.e. it hurts no one. Certainly, if you were to replace it with "kill a person", the spread of answers would change significantly.