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> Here's the thing: our current prevailing political philosophy of human rights and constitutional democracy is invalidated if we have mind uploading/replicatio

> Here's the thing: our current prevailing political philosophy of human rights and constitutional democracy is invalidated if we have mind uploading/replication or super-human intelligence. Don't agree with this specific point. One of the most common anti-democratic arguments (?) is that people are inherently unequal, because of differences in physical and cognitive capacity. But this of course misses that declaration of all people being equal is performative. I don't think we actually care if it's "naturally" true, we - citizens - don't want to be dominated, so we will make everyone equal by law and politics. Democratic politics is just arguing the specifics, in what areas, to what extent etc. So this is a rational pact. Trying to break it just means there will be someone stronger than you out to dominate you, and you'll be in a suboptimal position to resist, because you alienated and weakened your potential allies. Look up Republicanism for a related line of thinking. In my opinion an artificial person automatically gets all the rights (they are bound to personhood and reciprocity and not biology). But I have no doubt there will be much lawlessness about this and perhaps an American Civil War-like event down the line.

n4r9 4y ago
> declaration of all people being equal is performative The Declaration of Independence states that it is self-evident. This seems to preclude the possibility of it being performative, without some significant mental gymnastics.
- bratbag 4y ago
  Or more simply requires acknowledging that the declaration of independance is in on the performance.
- XorNot 4y ago
  "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." The statement is explicitly performative. It is a statement of belief, not fact.
  - foldr 4y ago
    The truth of the statements is presupposed (“these truths”). It’s only the self-evidence of their truth that’s asserted. There’s no component of the statement that’s performative in Austin’s sense (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance). For example, a statement of the form “A holds B to be C” is clearly truth evaluable, and so doesn’t qualify as performative.
- mdpye 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure that the "all men" in that document wasn't literally "all men" (even, never mind all people) either, so perhaps we wouldn't consider it the last word on the subject.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  The fact that you need to refer to the Declaration of Independence makes it performative. Otherwise it would just be self-evident.
  - xbar 4y ago
    I think you are saying that as soon as anyone says it is performative, it is performative, even if otherwise it is self-evident. Your logic system strongly supports bad-faith arguments.
  - IncRnd 4y ago
    A person is the same person when their limbs are removed. It is self-evident that equality of people is not performative.
  - spicymaki 4y ago
    It is self-evident because it is a moral proposition. It is the same as saying stealing your friend's cherished pet is wrong. It is obvious and needs no more explanation.
    - oneoff786 4y ago
      What if they’re bad owners?
      - spicymaki 4y ago
        Hah that is why I said cherished. It assumes they care and protect the dog.
        oneoff786 4y ago
        What if they’re just incompetent
- namlem 4y ago
  The Declaration of Independence holds no legal weight.
JasonFruit 4y ago
> so we will make everyone equal by law and politics I hope you mean that we will treat everyone as though they were equal, not attempt to make them equal by government-enforced handicapping.
- stereolambda 4y ago
  Yeah, that's what I meant when I mentioned arguing the specifics. I agree that there are egalitarian extremisms that are pretty dystopic, though I think practice shows that only equality before law doesn't mean much by itself. If you ask me specifically, the extent is that everyone should have equal active participation in government and suffer no overwhelming pressure, physical, economic or otherwise from other people. Equality so that we can be free. This is more that we tend to have, but not necessarily in the "socialist" direction I think. To tie it back from an offtopic, this would make many AGI applications uneconomic, though likewise many enterprises are uneconomic if you have to pay your labor. Perhaps free societies, wherever they would be, would have the advantage of having free artificial minds acting in their actual self-interest, and not just serving their masters. You can see similar dynamic in late-18th century revolutionary wars.
  - thaeli 4y ago
    Full AGI is likely uneconomic anyway. I think the sweet spot is going to be right below wherever we ultimately draw the "gets to have rights" line. There would still be good reasons to do AGI, and free artificial minds would be able to contribute greatly to society. But sufficient AI alignment to make existing systems comfortable with this is fundamentally counter to AI rights.
- yucky 4y ago
  That brings up a big point of contention in some circles, for instance see the recent change in wording in the official DNC party platform[1] from Racial Equality (treating people the same regardless of race) to Racial Equity (ensuring equal outcomes amongst races through government policy). [1] https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-Democratic-Party-Platform.pdf https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-Democr...
benlivengood 4y ago
There will at least have to be a law restricting the duplication or creation of persons; otherwise the dictator only needs to copy themselves >N times where world population is N and vote themselves into the top leadership position(s). It would be a race to the bottom cloning people, consuming all available compute resources, just to maintain status quo of political power. And it will be the wealthy/powerful who can afford the resources for mass self-duplication. And then the question of personhood itself; someone is going to try uplifting animals (or raw creation of new beings) and we'll need a rigorous threshold for the properties an intelligence must have for personhood, and this is also vulnerable to the mass-cloning takeover of democracy because the simplest artificial person is likely much less resource intensive than a human, so they will quickly outnumber everyone else and who knows what their values would be in a democracy?
- ajuc 4y ago
  The obvious solution is to make cloning split the weight of the vote. People at year 0 are equal, cloning yourself (or even having kids) you split your votes and when you die your descendants inherit your share.
  - benlivengood 4y ago
    This kind of approach favors the weirdos who want to live forever, never reproduce, and be king of the whole universe. They only have to wait log_R(N) generations where R is the average reproduction rate and N is the current number of people. I think the only realistic solution is maximizing average expected utility (which still has some weird edge-cases like utility monster) or maximizing the minimum expected utility of any person (drag everyone up to some minimum goodness, once they exist), which doesn't get humanity as much overall utility in the long run but avoids so many bad edge-cases that it may be worth it.
    - ajuc 4y ago
      > They only have to wait log_R(N) generations where R is the average reproduction rate and N is the current number of people. I don't think so? The wannabe dictator only gets voting power from his dying ancestors, they can never get more voting power than all their ancestors had together, no matter how much they wait. And even that edge case would only happen if all their ancestors died and had no other living descendants.
spicymaki 4y ago
Yes, equality is subjective and as such has to be performative. It is ridiculous to argue about equality on an objective basis. There is no measure where we are all can be objectively equal (intelligence, strength, agility, musical/artistic ability etc.). Equality is a political construct where we are equal under the law. It is axiomatic thus self-evident. There is nothing to justify.
sangnoir 4y ago
> we - citizens - don't want to be dominated, so we will make everyone equal by law and politics. History[0] makes a mockery of your assumption. What you says makes idealistic sense, but what tends to happen empirically is that people end up with tribal behavior which results in people not fighting for equality for everyone - but just for their in-group[1] (see: American "founding fathers", as alluded to in/lampshaded by TFA). edits: Also - "citizen power" may end up being a footnote of history, as the period sandwiched by monarchs and megacorps 0. The present too, but history has more examples. 1. Also with a dash of fundamental attribution error: anyone infringing my rights is a tyrant, but my infringing on other's rights is necessary for the greater good and/or not an infringement, really
- inawarminister 4y ago
  In the West, this has already occured at least once >Also - "citizen power" may end up being a footnote of history, as the period sandwiched by monarchs and megacorps The Athenian-led democratic city-states had their Golden Age between Solon (who kicked out the Tyrants and instituted democracy) and the Peloponnesian Wars (where Athens was forced to accept the Thirty Tyrants - which was dethroned after less than a year, but after that there was no more a Shining Light of democracy as examples for local democrats to kick out the tyrants and oligarchs with) then the Macedonian period, with all the kings. Well, at least the Romans that replaced them had a senate?
  - memling 4y ago
    > Well, at least the Romans that replaced them had a senate? Not a scholar of the period, but I was under the impression that Greece's democratic system meant that only male land-owners could vote and that the leading philosophers of the day considered slavery the natural order of things, women marginally (if at all) better than slaves, and boys suitable for divine pleasure. It doesn't seem particularly democratic for them? I do think it's reasonable to see in ancient Greece the seeds for democracy, but modern republican and democratic forms are pretty far removed from those days; and I don't suppose most of us would be very pleased to live under such a system.
kybernetikos 4y ago
> declaration of all people being equal is performative. I would say rather that all people are equal in value, not equal in ability nor capacity.
- kbelder 4y ago
  I think it's even more constrained than that. I think that the principle is more like: A government, to effectively regulate the behavior of individuals as part of a group, must not privilege any member of the group over another. Or something like that. I'm no Jefferson... the key point is that the equality that a nation cares about is the equality of all as members of that nation. All subject to equal rights, taxation, representation, punishment, etc., as we can best define it.

n4r9 4y ago

> declaration of all people being equal is performative The Declaration of Independence states that it is self-evident. This seems to preclude the possibility of it being performative, without some significant mental gymnastics.

bratbag 4y ago
Or more simply requires acknowledging that the declaration of independance is in on the performance.
XorNot 4y ago
"We hold these truths to be self-evident..." The statement is explicitly performative. It is a statement of belief, not fact.
- foldr 4y ago
  The truth of the statements is presupposed (“these truths”). It’s only the self-evidence of their truth that’s asserted. There’s no component of the statement that’s performative in Austin’s sense (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance). For example, a statement of the form “A holds B to be C” is clearly truth evaluable, and so doesn’t qualify as performative.
mdpye 4y ago
I'm pretty sure that the "all men" in that document wasn't literally "all men" (even, never mind all people) either, so perhaps we wouldn't consider it the last word on the subject.
xboxnolifes 4y ago
The fact that you need to refer to the Declaration of Independence makes it performative. Otherwise it would just be self-evident.
- xbar 4y ago
  I think you are saying that as soon as anyone says it is performative, it is performative, even if otherwise it is self-evident. Your logic system strongly supports bad-faith arguments.
- IncRnd 4y ago
  A person is the same person when their limbs are removed. It is self-evident that equality of people is not performative.
- spicymaki 4y ago
  It is self-evident because it is a moral proposition. It is the same as saying stealing your friend's cherished pet is wrong. It is obvious and needs no more explanation.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    What if they’re bad owners?
    - spicymaki 4y ago
      Hah that is why I said cherished. It assumes they care and protect the dog.
      - oneoff786 4y ago
        What if they’re just incompetent
namlem 4y ago
The Declaration of Independence holds no legal weight.

JasonFruit 4y ago

> so we will make everyone equal by law and politics I hope you mean that we will treat everyone as though they were equal, not attempt to make them equal by government-enforced handicapping.

stereolambda 4y ago
Yeah, that's what I meant when I mentioned arguing the specifics. I agree that there are egalitarian extremisms that are pretty dystopic, though I think practice shows that only equality before law doesn't mean much by itself. If you ask me specifically, the extent is that everyone should have equal active participation in government and suffer no overwhelming pressure, physical, economic or otherwise from other people. Equality so that we can be free. This is more that we tend to have, but not necessarily in the "socialist" direction I think. To tie it back from an offtopic, this would make many AGI applications uneconomic, though likewise many enterprises are uneconomic if you have to pay your labor. Perhaps free societies, wherever they would be, would have the advantage of having free artificial minds acting in their actual self-interest, and not just serving their masters. You can see similar dynamic in late-18th century revolutionary wars.
- thaeli 4y ago
  Full AGI is likely uneconomic anyway. I think the sweet spot is going to be right below wherever we ultimately draw the "gets to have rights" line. There would still be good reasons to do AGI, and free artificial minds would be able to contribute greatly to society. But sufficient AI alignment to make existing systems comfortable with this is fundamentally counter to AI rights.
yucky 4y ago
That brings up a big point of contention in some circles, for instance see the recent change in wording in the official DNC party platform[1] from Racial Equality (treating people the same regardless of race) to Racial Equity (ensuring equal outcomes amongst races through government policy). [1] https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-Democratic-Party-Platform.pdf https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-Democr...

benlivengood 4y ago

There will at least have to be a law restricting the duplication or creation of persons; otherwise the dictator only needs to copy themselves >N times where world population is N and vote themselves into the top leadership position(s). It would be a race to the bottom cloning people, consuming all available compute resources, just to maintain status quo of political power. And it will be the wealthy/powerful who can afford the resources for mass self-duplication. And then the question of personhood itself; someone is going to try uplifting animals (or raw creation of new beings) and we'll need a rigorous threshold for the properties an intelligence must have for personhood, and this is also vulnerable to the mass-cloning takeover of democracy because the simplest artificial person is likely much less resource intensive than a human, so they will quickly outnumber everyone else and who knows what their values would be in a democracy?

ajuc 4y ago
The obvious solution is to make cloning split the weight of the vote. People at year 0 are equal, cloning yourself (or even having kids) you split your votes and when you die your descendants inherit your share.
- benlivengood 4y ago
  This kind of approach favors the weirdos who want to live forever, never reproduce, and be king of the whole universe. They only have to wait log_R(N) generations where R is the average reproduction rate and N is the current number of people. I think the only realistic solution is maximizing average expected utility (which still has some weird edge-cases like utility monster) or maximizing the minimum expected utility of any person (drag everyone up to some minimum goodness, once they exist), which doesn't get humanity as much overall utility in the long run but avoids so many bad edge-cases that it may be worth it.
  - ajuc 4y ago
    > They only have to wait log_R(N) generations where R is the average reproduction rate and N is the current number of people. I don't think so? The wannabe dictator only gets voting power from his dying ancestors, they can never get more voting power than all their ancestors had together, no matter how much they wait. And even that edge case would only happen if all their ancestors died and had no other living descendants.

spicymaki 4y ago

Yes, equality is subjective and as such has to be performative. It is ridiculous to argue about equality on an objective basis. There is no measure where we are all can be objectively equal (intelligence, strength, agility, musical/artistic ability etc.). Equality is a political construct where we are equal under the law. It is axiomatic thus self-evident. There is nothing to justify.

sangnoir 4y ago

> we - citizens - don't want to be dominated, so we will make everyone equal by law and politics. History[0] makes a mockery of your assumption. What you says makes idealistic sense, but what tends to happen empirically is that people end up with tribal behavior which results in people not fighting for equality for everyone - but just for their in-group[1] (see: American "founding fathers", as alluded to in/lampshaded by TFA). edits: Also - "citizen power" may end up being a footnote of history, as the period sandwiched by monarchs and megacorps 0. The present too, but history has more examples. 1. Also with a dash of fundamental attribution error: anyone infringing my rights is a tyrant, but my infringing on other's rights is necessary for the greater good and/or not an infringement, really

inawarminister 4y ago
In the West, this has already occured at least once >Also - "citizen power" may end up being a footnote of history, as the period sandwiched by monarchs and megacorps The Athenian-led democratic city-states had their Golden Age between Solon (who kicked out the Tyrants and instituted democracy) and the Peloponnesian Wars (where Athens was forced to accept the Thirty Tyrants - which was dethroned after less than a year, but after that there was no more a Shining Light of democracy as examples for local democrats to kick out the tyrants and oligarchs with) then the Macedonian period, with all the kings. Well, at least the Romans that replaced them had a senate?
- memling 4y ago
  > Well, at least the Romans that replaced them had a senate? Not a scholar of the period, but I was under the impression that Greece's democratic system meant that only male land-owners could vote and that the leading philosophers of the day considered slavery the natural order of things, women marginally (if at all) better than slaves, and boys suitable for divine pleasure. It doesn't seem particularly democratic for them? I do think it's reasonable to see in ancient Greece the seeds for democracy, but modern republican and democratic forms are pretty far removed from those days; and I don't suppose most of us would be very pleased to live under such a system.

kybernetikos 4y ago

> declaration of all people being equal is performative. I would say rather that all people are equal in value, not equal in ability nor capacity.

kbelder 4y ago
I think it's even more constrained than that. I think that the principle is more like: A government, to effectively regulate the behavior of individuals as part of a group, must not privilege any member of the group over another. Or something like that. I'm no Jefferson... the key point is that the equality that a nation cares about is the equality of all as members of that nation. All subject to equal rights, taxation, representation, punishment, etc., as we can best define it.