The relevant uses on LW of the “psychological unity of humankind” concept were:
As evidence of common human axiology, i.e. that there are few truly persistent moral disagreements once some kind of “idealization” like volition extrapolation is applied
As the explanation for why it is hard for us to imagine non-human minds, since all human minds are so similar
As for (1), I think that it is refuted by an argument of Greene and Haidt: human moral architecture is universal in form, but its function is to absorb the local morality in youth, i.e. morality is universal in form but local in content.
As for (2), the cognitive differences that we do in fact see in people around the world are clearly not big enough to make a well-traveled person unsurprised by the concept of a paperclip maximizer.
We might want to come up with another name for (2). Humans are closer to each other in mindspace than they are to any alien mind, but it does not follow that, close up, all humans have the exact same psychology.
There may be more than zoom-degree involved in the difference.
The relevant uses on LW of the “psychological unity of humankind” concept were:
As evidence of common human axiology, i.e. that there are few truly persistent moral disagreements once some kind of “idealization” like volition extrapolation is applied
As the explanation for why it is hard for us to imagine non-human minds, since all human minds are so similar
As for (1), I think that it is refuted by an argument of Greene and Haidt: human moral architecture is universal in form, but its function is to absorb the local morality in youth, i.e. morality is universal in form but local in content.
As for (2), the cognitive differences that we do in fact see in people around the world are clearly not big enough to make a well-traveled person unsurprised by the concept of a paperclip maximizer.
Well put!
We might want to come up with another name for (2). Humans are closer to each other in mindspace than they are to any alien mind, but it does not follow that, close up, all humans have the exact same psychology.
There may be more than zoom-degree involved in the difference.