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> Or are you talking about something else? I'm talking about immoral or questionable behavior today to justify a possible future. It's like going back in time

> Or are you talking about something else? I'm talking about immoral or questionable behavior today to justify a possible future. It's like going back in time to kill Hitler's grandfather to prevent Hitler's birth. You have no idea of unintended consequences, and you are intentionally causing harm now for a future completely out of your control (although you deceive yourself into thinking it is in your control by taking action today). > Pick an existential risk, such as nuclear proliferation or artificial intelligence. Study the risks and the benefits. I lived through the Cold War. I don't need this exercise because, the bottom line is, no one knows what existential risk - if any - will happen. The worst of the Cold War never happened, yet many of us thought it would. Likewise, you might choose to focus on AI as your existential risk, go through all the sacrifices and immoral behaviors that longtermism leads you to do in order to mitigate AI, and then a giant meteor collides with Earth. Oops! You chose the wrong existential risk. And meanwhile, you compromised your morals and right behavior in order to mitigate the wrong existential risk. No thanks, not for me. > My recommendation is simple: read MacAskill's book No. I might read about 1000 books in my lifetime (85 reading years * 12 per year). You don't get to choose one of them. But I do appreciate your passion and evangalism.

xpe 3y ago
> no one knows what existential risk - if any - will happen. We live in a world of uncertainty. We can and must make probabilistic assessments. Don't pretend otherwise by using the classic "appeal to ignorance" fallacy.
xpe 3y ago
>> Or are you talking about something else? > I'm talking about immoral or questionable behavior today to justify a possible future. You've outlined a form of deontological ethics, seems to me. You don't subscribe to consequentialism, that fine. But hopefully you recognize there are many moral theories. > It's like going back in time to kill Hitler's grandfather to prevent Hitler's birth. This is a strawman. (A really loaded one at that.)
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  > You've outlined a form of deontological ethics, I had to look this up. You've given a modern label to an ancient concept sometimes known as the Golden Rule. I'm not sure why. >> It's like going back in time to kill Hitler's grandfather to prevent Hitler's birth. > This is a strawman. (A really loaded one at that.) It's not intended that way, and I'm posing it with honesty. If it's too loaded, then replace Hitler with, I don't know, <insert_bad_guy_here>. It doesn't matter who the bad guy is; the point is: you kill an innocent person (grandfather_of_bad_guy) in order to mold the future in a way that you think will save more, other innocent lives. Correct?
  - xpe 3y ago
    > I had to look this up. Great! Philosophers have explored the ideas of "inherent goodness" versus "goodness because of the effects" for thousands of years. People face these decisions everyday, whether they realize it or not. > You've given a modern label to an ancient concept sometimes known as the Golden Rule. I'm not sure why. First, I didn't discover the idea of deontological ethics (DE). From Brittanica: > In deontological ethics an action is considered morally good because of some characteristic of the action itself, not because the product of the action is good. Deontological ethics holds that at least some acts are morally obligatory regardless of their consequences for human welfare. Descriptive of such ethics are such expressions as “Duty for duty’s sake,” “Virtue is its own reward,” and “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.” Second, the Golden Rule is not the same thing as DE. Consider this: > Like most key tenets of ethics, the golden rule shows two major sides: one promoting fairness and individual entitlement, conceived as reciprocity; the other promoting helpfulness and generosity to the end of social welfare. Both the Kantian and Utilitarian traditions focus on only one side, furthering the great distinctions in philosophical ethics—the deontology-teleology and justice-benevolence distinctions. For the general theory project, this one-sidedness is purposeful, a research tool for reductive explanation. > > - https://iep.utm.edu/goldrule/ https://iep.utm.edu/goldrule/ If you want to follow the Golden Rule, you need to think about consequences! Hence probability over future scenarios. You _really_ need to branch out more from Hacker News. Go read some philosophy!
  - xpe 3y ago
xpe 3y ago
> I lived through the Cold War. I don't need this exercise because, the bottom line is, no one knows what existential risk - if any - will happen. The worst of the Cold War never happened, yet many of us thought it would. Likewise, you might choose to focus on AI as your existential risk, go through all the sacrifices and immoral behaviors that longtermism leads you to do in order to mitigate AI, and then a giant meteor collides with Earth. Oops! You chose the wrong existential risk. And meanwhile, you compromised your morals and right behavior in order to mitigate the wrong existential risk. No thanks, not for me. Your claim seems to boil down to two things: First, people sometimes make very incorrect predictions, so you've stopped worrying about them. Second, instead, you focus on "doing the right thing" based on your ethical criteria (which, as I say in sibling comment, seems to be aligned with deontological ethics -- i.e. the ends don't justify the means.) I'm not going to argue with the second (your choice of ethics) here. But your first point is terribly flawed; it ignores probability and decision-making under uncertainty. Sure, you have to make assessments about what to believe. Strictly speaking, as a society, it is irrational to stop paying attention and responding to the most important things, even if any one of them might be unlikely. Personally, you might find it necessary or useful to tune out this stuff. I get that. I'd guess this happened: you have stopped _caring_ for various reasons (perhaps information overload, sensationalization of the news, more pressing matters right in front of you) and your brain has constructed a worldview that _rationalizes_ not caring. Totally human, I get it. But this isn't reasoning nor logic. I may not have your years of experience, but I'm no spring chicken either. Age doesn't always bring wisdom, unfortunately. People learn the wrong lessons. We've learned many. I have a keen interest in the Cold War. If you study the history, you'll recognize that our path 'through' it was no means assured. We are still living with the downstream effects of it, including huge nuclear arsenals and proxy wars. Your comment above is naive with regards to history. It paints a simplistic and convenient narrative with the benefit of hindsight. You've ignored one key aspect of history, which is to understand it _in context_. Using hindsight exclusively isn't the only nor best way to learn from history. Even in deontological ethics, not _everything_ is intrinsically good of bad. There is still a responsibility to act rationally in order to achieve moral ends in a moral way. To completely ignore probability is immoral. Please, remember this: using poor logic and FUD to sully a serious book (based on some vague implied connection to a crook) is not ok.

xpe 3y ago

> no one knows what existential risk - if any - will happen. We live in a world of uncertainty. We can and must make probabilistic assessments. Don't pretend otherwise by using the classic "appeal to ignorance" fallacy.

xpe 3y ago

>> Or are you talking about something else? > I'm talking about immoral or questionable behavior today to justify a possible future. You've outlined a form of deontological ethics, seems to me. You don't subscribe to consequentialism, that fine. But hopefully you recognize there are many moral theories. > It's like going back in time to kill Hitler's grandfather to prevent Hitler's birth. This is a strawman. (A really loaded one at that.)

TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
> You've outlined a form of deontological ethics, I had to look this up. You've given a modern label to an ancient concept sometimes known as the Golden Rule. I'm not sure why. >> It's like going back in time to kill Hitler's grandfather to prevent Hitler's birth. > This is a strawman. (A really loaded one at that.) It's not intended that way, and I'm posing it with honesty. If it's too loaded, then replace Hitler with, I don't know, <insert_bad_guy_here>. It doesn't matter who the bad guy is; the point is: you kill an innocent person (grandfather_of_bad_guy) in order to mold the future in a way that you think will save more, other innocent lives. Correct?
- xpe 3y ago
  > I had to look this up. Great! Philosophers have explored the ideas of "inherent goodness" versus "goodness because of the effects" for thousands of years. People face these decisions everyday, whether they realize it or not. > You've given a modern label to an ancient concept sometimes known as the Golden Rule. I'm not sure why. First, I didn't discover the idea of deontological ethics (DE). From Brittanica: > In deontological ethics an action is considered morally good because of some characteristic of the action itself, not because the product of the action is good. Deontological ethics holds that at least some acts are morally obligatory regardless of their consequences for human welfare. Descriptive of such ethics are such expressions as “Duty for duty’s sake,” “Virtue is its own reward,” and “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.” Second, the Golden Rule is not the same thing as DE. Consider this: > Like most key tenets of ethics, the golden rule shows two major sides: one promoting fairness and individual entitlement, conceived as reciprocity; the other promoting helpfulness and generosity to the end of social welfare. Both the Kantian and Utilitarian traditions focus on only one side, furthering the great distinctions in philosophical ethics—the deontology-teleology and justice-benevolence distinctions. For the general theory project, this one-sidedness is purposeful, a research tool for reductive explanation. > > - https://iep.utm.edu/goldrule/ https://iep.utm.edu/goldrule/ If you want to follow the Golden Rule, you need to think about consequences! Hence probability over future scenarios. You _really_ need to branch out more from Hacker News. Go read some philosophy!
- xpe 3y ago

xpe 3y ago

> I lived through the Cold War. I don't need this exercise because, the bottom line is, no one knows what existential risk - if any - will happen. The worst of the Cold War never happened, yet many of us thought it would. Likewise, you might choose to focus on AI as your existential risk, go through all the sacrifices and immoral behaviors that longtermism leads you to do in order to mitigate AI, and then a giant meteor collides with Earth. Oops! You chose the wrong existential risk. And meanwhile, you compromised your morals and right behavior in order to mitigate the wrong existential risk. No thanks, not for me. Your claim seems to boil down to two things: First, people sometimes make very incorrect predictions, so you've stopped worrying about them. Second, instead, you focus on "doing the right thing" based on your ethical criteria (which, as I say in sibling comment, seems to be aligned with deontological ethics -- i.e. the ends don't justify the means.) I'm not going to argue with the second (your choice of ethics) here. But your first point is terribly flawed; it ignores probability and decision-making under uncertainty. Sure, you have to make assessments about what to believe. Strictly speaking, as a society, it is irrational to stop paying attention and responding to the most important things, even if any one of them might be unlikely. Personally, you might find it necessary or useful to tune out this stuff. I get that. I'd guess this happened: you have stopped _caring_ for various reasons (perhaps information overload, sensationalization of the news, more pressing matters right in front of you) and your brain has constructed a worldview that _rationalizes_ not caring. Totally human, I get it. But this isn't reasoning nor logic. I may not have your years of experience, but I'm no spring chicken either. Age doesn't always bring wisdom, unfortunately. People learn the wrong lessons. We've learned many. I have a keen interest in the Cold War. If you study the history, you'll recognize that our path 'through' it was no means assured. We are still living with the downstream effects of it, including huge nuclear arsenals and proxy wars. Your comment above is naive with regards to history. It paints a simplistic and convenient narrative with the benefit of hindsight. You've ignored one key aspect of history, which is to understand it _in context_. Using hindsight exclusively isn't the only nor best way to learn from history. Even in deontological ethics, not _everything_ is intrinsically good of bad. There is still a responsibility to act rationally in order to achieve moral ends in a moral way. To completely ignore probability is immoral. Please, remember this: using poor logic and FUD to sully a serious book (based on some vague implied connection to a crook) is not ok.