4 ms·

>For that reason, a criminal is just as guilty of their crime, whether they spiritually willed themselves to rob the bank, or whether they are predetermined to.

by jddj 3y ago

>For that reason, a criminal is just as guilty of their crime, whether they spiritually willed themselves to rob the bank, or whether they are predetermined to. The decision to rob the bank happened in their head. > Punishment for a crime makes just as much sense either way and for the same reason. Seeing criminals get punished will affect the calculations happening in nearby brains, This could be a local maxima. I'm not sure there is a reason (other than us having arrived at it, which does count for something) why blaming, and particularly hating/attributing evilness to people for performing a certain act while operating under an imagined agency is more effective than some alternative. It's possible that there could be a means of dissuading others from the behaviour without that illusion/emotional baggage. It could arrive at the same conclusion (incarceration, for example) but more compassionately. Does that matter? For the bigger picture arguably not, but for the human experience maybe.

FredPret 3y ago
It could be more or less compassionate - if we say "this unit is faulty, put it in a firewalled environment with the others" it might encourage us to be nicer to the criminal, especially for minor misbehaviors. But we might also conclude "this unit only churns out malware" and that might encourage us to end all further processing, or to banish it forever to some lonely, inescapable cell. Edit: now that I think about it, this way of thinking might actually predispose us to try debugging first.
- jddj 3y ago
  It may be true that a part of the population already (privately?) thinks more like that. Some members of the justice system perhaps - criminal lawyers, charitably, and associated medical professionals. These moments of "what if it wasn't like this?" always tend to lead me to ESS and fizzle out. The status quo which I called a local maxima is likely much less well defined and homogeneous than I speculated and where we find ourselves is just what you get when you mix hate / compassion / firewall / dispose / debug in today's specific concentrations

by jddj 3y ago

FredPret 3y ago

It could be more or less compassionate - if we say "this unit is faulty, put it in a firewalled environment with the others" it might encourage us to be nicer to the criminal, especially for minor misbehaviors. But we might also conclude "this unit only churns out malware" and that might encourage us to end all further processing, or to banish it forever to some lonely, inescapable cell. Edit: now that I think about it, this way of thinking might actually predispose us to try debugging first.

jddj 3y ago
It may be true that a part of the population already (privately?) thinks more like that. Some members of the justice system perhaps - criminal lawyers, charitably, and associated medical professionals. These moments of "what if it wasn't like this?" always tend to lead me to ESS and fizzle out. The status quo which I called a local maxima is likely much less well defined and homogeneous than I speculated and where we find ourselves is just what you get when you mix hate / compassion / firewall / dispose / debug in today's specific concentrations