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Blfr is right, I'm taking utilitarianism as my morality. Specifically, I believe networking with a developer (regardless of gender) is moral, and networking wit

Blfr is right, I'm taking utilitarianism as my morality. Specifically, I believe networking with a developer (regardless of gender) is moral, and networking with a recruiter is useless. What morality do you take? Secondly, I didn't make any assumption that the utility is all mine. The 1 utilon can be split between both parties in some arbitrary manner, it doesn't change the result. Third, you are correct that I my constraint may not be #recruiters + #developers = 100. It might be alpha x #recruiters + #developers = 100 for alpha < 1. That doesn't change the optimal course of action - my best bet is always to minimize time I spend with recruiters. Now if you think my model doesn't work, present a better one. But if you are making a fundamentally moral and non-utilitarian point ("networking with lady developers is intrinsically good no matter how many puppies get killed!!!!!"), make that point and don't waste time on positive claims if the truth of the positive claims is irrelevant anyway. Also, you seem to wildly misunderstand what an appeal to authority is. An appeal to authority would be "I asked Eliezer Yudkowsky and he said I was right." Writing down a simple mathematical model is not remotely an appeal to authority, that's just careful reasoning.

beat 11y ago
Applying a pretense of mathematical rigor is an appeal to authority - the timeless purity of mathematical truth. there are countless historic examples of false rigor to justify immoral behavior as moral - it's the heart of pseudoscience. I am flatly making a non-utilitarian argument for the morality of not making assumptions. That doesn't mean, however, that a rigorous application of utilitarian morality would not come to the same conclusions. I've made good arguments that your utilitarian equation is inadequate, and will arrive at false conclusions. You can think about those shortcomings, or argue that they aren't (as you did with your third point here), or you can write my argument off as mushy do-gooding because it's not "utilitarian". Ignoring my criticism because it's not intrinsically utilitarian would be utilitarian. It would not, however, be rigorous. Utilitarianism without rigor breaks down, almost inevitably. See the problem?
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Math is not an authority. By this logic, all arguments based on reason are an appeal to authority. An appeal to authority is when you appeal to a human who is highly likely to be correct, but who's reasoning is unavailable for examination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority Since I presented every step of my argument, and you examined it, it is by definition not an argument by authority. It's simply an argument. If you want to make a rigorous utilitarian case, do it. Simply pointing out some (non-)problems with the model I presented is not the same thing. All you are doing is arguing that there is more uncertainty than I believed, and then making an unjustified assumption that the uncertainty somehow supports your case. Also, I didn't "ignore" your moral argument. I specifically asked you to make it - "What morality do you take?"
  - beat 11y ago
    Okay, I'll give you that one. Not an appeal to authority - just a weak argument. Again, I'm saying that utilitarian morality requires rigor in order to be valid, or it risks putting the approving stamps of both morality and reason on false conclusions. There are some serious rigor problems in your original argument. Beyond that, I do question utilitarian morality, for exactly these reasons. If it were software, it'd be a code smell. It's very easy to turn into justification for all sorts of foul things, and the track record of utilitarian morality is very ugly - like millions of dead ugly. It sure sounds good, especially if you're smart and used to being right on logical issues that don't involve squishy emotions. But it's a dangerous path.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      Again, you have yet to identify a single problem that lack of "rigor" caused. I'm aware all models are incomplete. On the other hand, swooping in, declaring a model flawed without actually identifying a single problem, and alluding to some unspecified alternate morality is a little silly. I also have no idea where you get "millions of dead ugly" applied to utilitarianism. I also don't get why you think "squishy emotions" like tribalism, desire to affiliate with high status people, or envy of others will somehow save us. Maybe if you actually wrote down a model I'd be able to understand what you are trying to claim.

beat 11y ago

Applying a pretense of mathematical rigor is an appeal to authority - the timeless purity of mathematical truth. there are countless historic examples of false rigor to justify immoral behavior as moral - it's the heart of pseudoscience. I am flatly making a non-utilitarian argument for the morality of not making assumptions. That doesn't mean, however, that a rigorous application of utilitarian morality would not come to the same conclusions. I've made good arguments that your utilitarian equation is inadequate, and will arrive at false conclusions. You can think about those shortcomings, or argue that they aren't (as you did with your third point here), or you can write my argument off as mushy do-gooding because it's not "utilitarian". Ignoring my criticism because it's not intrinsically utilitarian would be utilitarian. It would not, however, be rigorous. Utilitarianism without rigor breaks down, almost inevitably. See the problem?

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Math is not an authority. By this logic, all arguments based on reason are an appeal to authority. An appeal to authority is when you appeal to a human who is highly likely to be correct, but who's reasoning is unavailable for examination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority Since I presented every step of my argument, and you examined it, it is by definition not an argument by authority. It's simply an argument. If you want to make a rigorous utilitarian case, do it. Simply pointing out some (non-)problems with the model I presented is not the same thing. All you are doing is arguing that there is more uncertainty than I believed, and then making an unjustified assumption that the uncertainty somehow supports your case. Also, I didn't "ignore" your moral argument. I specifically asked you to make it - "What morality do you take?"
- beat 11y ago
  Okay, I'll give you that one. Not an appeal to authority - just a weak argument. Again, I'm saying that utilitarian morality requires rigor in order to be valid, or it risks putting the approving stamps of both morality and reason on false conclusions. There are some serious rigor problems in your original argument. Beyond that, I do question utilitarian morality, for exactly these reasons. If it were software, it'd be a code smell. It's very easy to turn into justification for all sorts of foul things, and the track record of utilitarian morality is very ugly - like millions of dead ugly. It sure sounds good, especially if you're smart and used to being right on logical issues that don't involve squishy emotions. But it's a dangerous path.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Again, you have yet to identify a single problem that lack of "rigor" caused. I'm aware all models are incomplete. On the other hand, swooping in, declaring a model flawed without actually identifying a single problem, and alluding to some unspecified alternate morality is a little silly. I also have no idea where you get "millions of dead ugly" applied to utilitarianism. I also don't get why you think "squishy emotions" like tribalism, desire to affiliate with high status people, or envy of others will somehow save us. Maybe if you actually wrote down a model I'd be able to understand what you are trying to claim.