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> If you can uplift species and you choose not to, you have killed their cognition. By that logic you killed all the kids you could have made when you weren't

by ajuc 6y ago

> If you can uplift species and you choose not to, you have killed their cognition. By that logic you killed all the kids you could have made when you weren't having sex.

renewiltord 6y ago
Yes, I did. And I find that acceptable. After all, child killing isn't an unalloyed evil. There are children I am morally all right with killing. I make this choice actively every day. I sleep soundly after.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Are you also morally comfortably with yourself being killed? I assume so, for the same reasons you give.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    I think I can admit that there are moral frameworks that don't care if I live or die and don't, therefore, take active action to prevent the death of this person, and therefore that are comfortable with killing me through inaction should a situation arise where I will die without aid. It would be foolish to believe otherwise. Most people actively take this position. If I were to post that I'm dying, not one on this site would save my life. I don't subscribe to an absolutist view of the veil of ignorance. My life is, to me, of higher utility than yours or the random children who I actively choose to let die daily. So I'm going to act in a manner that preserves my life. That seems natural, after all. The other day I bought a new phone instead of saving a child's life. I don't even like this Pixel 5 that much. I like my life very much. Think about how many kids I'd kill for that.
- ajuc 6y ago
  > We owe the monkeys their sapience. > I did [killed all the kids I haven't had] and I find it acceptable. Don't you think it's a self-contradiction? There's 0 evidence to support valuing hypothetical descendants of these monkeys over hypothetical descendants of your children.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    A fair complaint. These kids are present intelligence. The monkeys are possible intelligence. I think the truth is that I would spend no money of my own on either of these things. And since the activation energy to turn a smart-monkey grant into a save-the-Somali-kids-from-guineaworm-grant is very high, I am acting in the margin to ensure that a smart-monkey grant doesn't get turned into a should-we-make-smart-monkey grant or a how-smart-is-monkey grant, both of which are far more likely. Secondarily, I value some sort of backup intelligence system as a protection against human intelligence monoculture. Though one could reasonably argue that adding a human brain-fold gene to a monkey does make it more human-like than truly independent. I suppose I'm hoping that we get better at this and eventually are capable of uplift that yields not necessarily human-style intelligence.
dogcomplex 6y ago
Kinda true. Though also presumably he feels okay with this with the knowledge that he might have close to his maximum reasonable capacity for children in the future, so it's just a time thing. No time limit on uplifting species either - let's take this nice and slow and do it right, eventually. Similarly, he might choose not to have children, and be content that friends/family/humanity was having kids still, so no big moral harm done. If nobody was doing so though - wtf? Big moral harm by inaction there. Similar if we just have all these tools but never ever use them to uplift another species.

by ajuc 6y ago

> If you can uplift species and you choose not to, you have killed their cognition. By that logic you killed all the kids you could have made when you weren't having sex.

renewiltord 6y ago

Yes, I did. And I find that acceptable. After all, child killing isn't an unalloyed evil. There are children I am morally all right with killing. I make this choice actively every day. I sleep soundly after.

alisonkisk 6y ago
Are you also morally comfortably with yourself being killed? I assume so, for the same reasons you give.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  I think I can admit that there are moral frameworks that don't care if I live or die and don't, therefore, take active action to prevent the death of this person, and therefore that are comfortable with killing me through inaction should a situation arise where I will die without aid. It would be foolish to believe otherwise. Most people actively take this position. If I were to post that I'm dying, not one on this site would save my life. I don't subscribe to an absolutist view of the veil of ignorance. My life is, to me, of higher utility than yours or the random children who I actively choose to let die daily. So I'm going to act in a manner that preserves my life. That seems natural, after all. The other day I bought a new phone instead of saving a child's life. I don't even like this Pixel 5 that much. I like my life very much. Think about how many kids I'd kill for that.
ajuc 6y ago
> We owe the monkeys their sapience. > I did [killed all the kids I haven't had] and I find it acceptable. Don't you think it's a self-contradiction? There's 0 evidence to support valuing hypothetical descendants of these monkeys over hypothetical descendants of your children.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  A fair complaint. These kids are present intelligence. The monkeys are possible intelligence. I think the truth is that I would spend no money of my own on either of these things. And since the activation energy to turn a smart-monkey grant into a save-the-Somali-kids-from-guineaworm-grant is very high, I am acting in the margin to ensure that a smart-monkey grant doesn't get turned into a should-we-make-smart-monkey grant or a how-smart-is-monkey grant, both of which are far more likely. Secondarily, I value some sort of backup intelligence system as a protection against human intelligence monoculture. Though one could reasonably argue that adding a human brain-fold gene to a monkey does make it more human-like than truly independent. I suppose I'm hoping that we get better at this and eventually are capable of uplift that yields not necessarily human-style intelligence.

dogcomplex 6y ago

Kinda true. Though also presumably he feels okay with this with the knowledge that he might have close to his maximum reasonable capacity for children in the future, so it's just a time thing. No time limit on uplifting species either - let's take this nice and slow and do it right, eventually. Similarly, he might choose not to have children, and be content that friends/family/humanity was having kids still, so no big moral harm done. If nobody was doing so though - wtf? Big moral harm by inaction there. Similar if we just have all these tools but never ever use them to uplift another species.