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And yet no one has really made an convincing argument of why the conclusions of utilitarianism contradict the axioms of utilitarianism. And no one seems to off

by judk 12y ago

And yet no one has really made an convincing argument of why the conclusions of utilitarianism contradict the axioms of utilitarianism. And no one seems to offer the rather simple solution that utility is non-linear (so dust in ones eye is really a quite small fraction as bad as a century of torture), and people who mock Eliezer's utilitarianism hypocritically do so on sweatshops built&recycled computers, clothes, and food. The strongest argument against rationalist utilitarianism seems to be that people don't like the cognitive dissonance it imposes on hypocrites.

ta82828 12y ago
The linearity of utility is irrelevant to the dust specks or torture problem because you can always increase the number of people to receive dust specks so the utility of torturing a single individual for 50 years is higher. http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/ And calling people hypocrites because things like involuntary organ donation gives them "cognitive dissonance" is absurd. Also regarding hypocrisy, note that Yudkowski works for an organization whose goal is to protect humanity from Skynet, while people in Africa are starving. (I'm not personally attacking him, he can work on whatever he likes, and I think governments of wealthy nations have both the resources and responsibility to alleviate starvation, and individual efforts are mostly pissing in the wind. But parent poster brought up sweatshops &c. so I went there.)
saraid216 12y ago
The really funny part of HPMOR is that, while it was intended to demonstrate rationalism, what I got out of it was that rationalism doesn't actually work. I'm unwilling to post spoilers, which makes this unfairly undiscussable, but the meaning of the original prophecy did not--could not--come down to rationalism and could not for reasons that were repeated a few times through the fic. I can't tell if this was intentional on Yudkowsky's part, and I don't really care, since it really changes nothing about everything else. For the record, though, when I disparage utilitarianism, I promise it isn't just "Eliezer's".
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davidgerard 12y ago
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davidgerard 12y ago
>And yet no one has really made an convincing argument of why the conclusions of utilitarianism contradict the axioms of utilitarianism. No, they've said "this is a reductio ad absurdum, perhaps reality is a bit more complicated than that." You don't get to assert your assumption - that simplistic utilitarianism works as advertised - as evidence. Consider, for instance, minmaxing as an alternative. (Like real-life AI work tends to.) What answer does that give?

by judk 12y ago

ta82828 12y ago

The linearity of utility is irrelevant to the dust specks or torture problem because you can always increase the number of people to receive dust specks so the utility of torturing a single individual for 50 years is higher. http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/ And calling people hypocrites because things like involuntary organ donation gives them "cognitive dissonance" is absurd. Also regarding hypocrisy, note that Yudkowski works for an organization whose goal is to protect humanity from Skynet, while people in Africa are starving. (I'm not personally attacking him, he can work on whatever he likes, and I think governments of wealthy nations have both the resources and responsibility to alleviate starvation, and individual efforts are mostly pissing in the wind. But parent poster brought up sweatshops &c. so I went there.)

saraid216 12y ago

The really funny part of HPMOR is that, while it was intended to demonstrate rationalism, what I got out of it was that rationalism doesn't actually work. I'm unwilling to post spoilers, which makes this unfairly undiscussable, but the meaning of the original prophecy did not--could not--come down to rationalism and could not for reasons that were repeated a few times through the fic. I can't tell if this was intentional on Yudkowsky's part, and I don't really care, since it really changes nothing about everything else. For the record, though, when I disparage utilitarianism, I promise it isn't just "Eliezer's".

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davidgerard 12y ago

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davidgerard 12y ago

>And yet no one has really made an convincing argument of why the conclusions of utilitarianism contradict the axioms of utilitarianism. No, they've said "this is a reductio ad absurdum, perhaps reality is a bit more complicated than that." You don't get to assert your assumption - that simplistic utilitarianism works as advertised - as evidence. Consider, for instance, minmaxing as an alternative. (Like real-life AI work tends to.) What answer does that give?