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Kill all the unhappy people. Such an action would be be the most effective way of raising the average level of happiness. No society should ever optimise for a
by danieltillett 9y ago
Kill all the unhappy people. Such an action would be be the most effective way of raising the average level of happiness.
No society should ever optimise for a single simple factor.
- majewsky 9y agoThat's Goodhart's law, by the way. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Because people game it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law There's a related memorable, though probably untrue, anecdote about a Soviet nail factory: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22375/did-a-soviet-nail-factory-produce-useless-nails-to-improve-metrics https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22375/did-a-sov...
- danieltillett 9y agoIt is not quite the same as Goodhart’s law as it is more a philosophical position in that even if it was not possible to game, we should never do it.
- agumonkey 9y agoit's odd because recently I felt most "modern" society is based on gaming things until things break.
- danieltillett 9y agoYes that certain is true :)
- rcxdude 9y agoThere's a difference between optimising for 'highest level of happiness per person' and optimising for most happiness in total. The second is probably closer to most utilitarian mindsets and may even lead to the moral action being having as many offspring as possible (the details then depend on how exactly you draw your utility function, and especially at what point it goes negative).