4 ms·
> how is it "better for you" to take the earring off, if "the wearer lives an abnormally successful life, usually ending out as a rich and much-beloved pillar o
by ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago
> how is it "better for you" to take the earring off, if "the wearer lives an abnormally successful life, usually ending out as a rich and much-beloved pillar of the community with a large and happy family?"
I think it's pretty obvious since you read until the end you know in the second one there's quickly no "you" remaining ;)
It's like the terrifying answer to Star Trek teleporter paradox. On the surface it's the same guy. He walks like Bob and talks like Bob and is more successful thanks to the power of instant travel! But YOU are dead after the first teleportation.
- Dylan16807 3mo agoWell in the teleporter example you still have a Bob. With the earring it's probably not processing Bob's mind in there at all, which makes it way worse.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoEarring supposedly directs wearer to what's good for them so supposedly it did processing at first...
- Dylan16807 3mo agoIt's processing something, but probably not running a whole Bob in there.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoSure. But the key part is the same, you die and something else walks instead...
- Dylan16807 3mo agoEh. Like arguably you die when you sleep. It's way better to have an ultra accurate copy than to have a totally different thing half-pretend to be Bob/you.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago> you die when you sleep Eh. The teleporter thing is not about that kind of dying... and the earring one also!
- Dylan16807 3mo agoTeleporter is a spectrum and one end of it is even less than sleeping. And even the high end is way short of how the earring probably works.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoTo me teleporter is pretty specific and instadeath is pretty drastic
- Dylan16807 3mo agoThe least spooky version of the teleporter moves you atom by atom very quickly. There is a point where half of you is on each side of the transmission, but everything stays alive the entire time and you're just fine as long as the process finishes. For optimal results you might also imagine there's a part of the machine that preserves the interactions between the two halves of you so there's no misalignment issues and it doesn't matter if it takes a minute to process your whole body. Same atoms, actively alive the entire time, hard to take issue with that version. This is distinct from the kind of teleporter that makes a copy and kills the original. And Star Trek is... Okay looking it up it apparently converts you into an energy being that is still fully alive and conscious and mobile, then sends that. Let's ignore Star Trek.