Desires to destroy one thing are often accompanied by desires to protect and elevate another thing; and so a lot of “detection” serves the goal of discrimination: not just detecting the presence of X, but discerning X from some specific Y: food from poison, friend from foe, etc.
A gardener (or gardening robot) removes unwanted plants in order to protect and elevate wanted plants. It doesn’t only have the goal of “destroy the weeds” but also “preserve the crops”.
Agreed that detection is often used for discrimination, I appreciate the added nuance.
Though I would guess that we spend more effort to detect in detail the few things we care about more than the many things we don’t. I think this is because they’re not one to one. We care for our bodies; we dislike all of the germs/diseases that could infect them. We care for our particular, not all those we don’t have. Care is local, and detective infrastructure expensive.
If true, building detection infrastructure for X is a good way to help X get cared for.
Desires to destroy one thing are often accompanied by desires to protect and elevate another thing; and so a lot of “detection” serves the goal of discrimination: not just detecting the presence of X, but discerning X from some specific Y: food from poison, friend from foe, etc.
A gardener (or gardening robot) removes unwanted plants in order to protect and elevate wanted plants. It doesn’t only have the goal of “destroy the weeds” but also “preserve the crops”.
Agreed that detection is often used for discrimination, I appreciate the added nuance.
Though I would guess that we spend more effort to detect in detail the few things we care about more than the many things we don’t. I think this is because they’re not one to one. We care for our bodies; we dislike all of the germs/diseases that could infect them. We care for our particular, not all those we don’t have. Care is local, and detective infrastructure expensive.
If true, building detection infrastructure for X is a good way to help X get cared for.