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I'm pretty sure that's not what Joscha meant by taking control of your emotions. His point was certainly more in the direction of not unnecessarily suffering or

by dan00 6y ago

I'm pretty sure that's not what Joscha meant by taking control of your emotions. His point was certainly more in the direction of not unnecessarily suffering or creating harm by following your emotions. Following your emotions regarding kids, helping them to raise and become good people, feeling fulfilled doing it, I can't see anything wrong with that. You could even see kids as advancing the knowledge through them. And if you feel that way about your kids, I can also see why someone would be sad not having grand children. I wouldn't even call this sadness to be mainstream, because I think quite a few people don't allow themselves to feel that way or even condemn themselves. So it's quite honest to be open about such a sadness and shows a good understanding of yourself.

jagrsw 6y ago
Yup, I agree with 'advancing the knowledge' through your offspring esp. if you consider your neural net capable and well conditioned (but again, who doesn't?:) and genetically+behaviorally inheritable, but he was talking more about grandchildren there (i.e. lack of them), and the effects will be much more limited in the third generation
Kednicma 6y ago
But children aren't obligated to pass on their genes in order to appease their parents. Parents only get to pass on genes for one generation, and get no further control over the process. To worry about having children because they might not have grandchildren is to be unfairly controlling over the future of children.
- dan00 6y ago
  Feeling sad about it doesn't mean you're going to force your children having children. You can have feelings without acting on them, but just perceive them. When Joscha talks about controlling your emotions this certainly would go into this direction.
  - jagrsw 6y ago
    In one of his appearances (maybe on the Fridman's show) he gave an example of being overly attached to outcomes of elections wrt to success of your favorite political party (being frustrated and sad when the party/president is not in power). His idea was that such feeling are not conductive to your wellbeing, and you should maybe do something about them, (just guessing: rationalizing it, meditating it out or somesuch). I don't think being sad about reproduction choices of your children is beneficial, therefore I'd also suggest dealing with it. In the end it's just influence of your genes saying 'go, do something, talk to them, we need to be replicated'
    - dan00 6y ago
      > I don't think being sad about reproduction choices of your children is beneficial, therefore I'd also suggest dealing with it. Feeling sad about something, doesn't mean you're sad about it all the time, that's suffering. You just can't control every emotion in you and there's also no need for it, it's just part of being human. Trying to control every emotion is certainly more harmful than accepting them. > In the end it's just influence of your genes saying 'go, do something, talk to them, we need to be replicated' Do you really think that why Joscha works in AI and his desire to expand the knowledge has nothing to do with his genes?
      - jagrsw 6y ago
        I have a favor to ask for participants of this thread. I'm genuinely curious, and I don't care my about my karma points. What would be the primary reason for the proponents of the POV 'being sad about your grandchildren being gay b/c cessation of own genetic lineage isn't the best of approaches' being downvoted (like my every entry, and most others)? I believe it's an interesting conversation, and both side of it exchanged some interesting ideas debating in good faith, being reasonably calm and avoiding common fallacies, so I suspect some factors that are not obvious to me, like maybe the interlocutors are worrying that even discussing such topic might be a danger to their future rights of having offspring it all, or somesuch similar (just a guess, probably not even close to the real reason)? I'm trying to figure out what I'm being told, since downvotes don't come with comments/reasoning.

by dan00 6y ago

jagrsw 6y ago

Yup, I agree with 'advancing the knowledge' through your offspring esp. if you consider your neural net capable and well conditioned (but again, who doesn't?:) and genetically+behaviorally inheritable, but he was talking more about grandchildren there (i.e. lack of them), and the effects will be much more limited in the third generation

Kednicma 6y ago

But children aren't obligated to pass on their genes in order to appease their parents. Parents only get to pass on genes for one generation, and get no further control over the process. To worry about having children because they might not have grandchildren is to be unfairly controlling over the future of children.

dan00 6y ago
Feeling sad about it doesn't mean you're going to force your children having children. You can have feelings without acting on them, but just perceive them. When Joscha talks about controlling your emotions this certainly would go into this direction.
- jagrsw 6y ago
  In one of his appearances (maybe on the Fridman's show) he gave an example of being overly attached to outcomes of elections wrt to success of your favorite political party (being frustrated and sad when the party/president is not in power). His idea was that such feeling are not conductive to your wellbeing, and you should maybe do something about them, (just guessing: rationalizing it, meditating it out or somesuch). I don't think being sad about reproduction choices of your children is beneficial, therefore I'd also suggest dealing with it. In the end it's just influence of your genes saying 'go, do something, talk to them, we need to be replicated'
  - dan00 6y ago
    > I don't think being sad about reproduction choices of your children is beneficial, therefore I'd also suggest dealing with it. Feeling sad about something, doesn't mean you're sad about it all the time, that's suffering. You just can't control every emotion in you and there's also no need for it, it's just part of being human. Trying to control every emotion is certainly more harmful than accepting them. > In the end it's just influence of your genes saying 'go, do something, talk to them, we need to be replicated' Do you really think that why Joscha works in AI and his desire to expand the knowledge has nothing to do with his genes?
    - jagrsw 6y ago
      I have a favor to ask for participants of this thread. I'm genuinely curious, and I don't care my about my karma points. What would be the primary reason for the proponents of the POV 'being sad about your grandchildren being gay b/c cessation of own genetic lineage isn't the best of approaches' being downvoted (like my every entry, and most others)? I believe it's an interesting conversation, and both side of it exchanged some interesting ideas debating in good faith, being reasonably calm and avoiding common fallacies, so I suspect some factors that are not obvious to me, like maybe the interlocutors are worrying that even discussing such topic might be a danger to their future rights of having offspring it all, or somesuch similar (just a guess, probably not even close to the real reason)? I'm trying to figure out what I'm being told, since downvotes don't come with comments/reasoning.