The big problem for me is the children down the line. You save some children, boys and girls, they grow up and have more children, who die after terrible suffering (in 10 years time so no singularity yet, but the oil is seriously running short with all the consequences).
I actually have suffered malnourishment as a child for several years (fall of soviet union related). Today i’m making good income by western standards—i have been very lucky. So I kind of see this issue from both sides.
As terrible as it sounds, I’d rather donate for a scheme where the child that is saved is sterilized. Otherwise the donations may indeed be measured in dead children at a discount rates—the children who die after severe suffering thanks to your donation making them exist in the first place. You can’t just throw nutrients into ecosystem and expect a morally good outcome.
You’re arguing that keeping children from dying now is not actually very valuable because of other problems. Then take your argument farther toward DH7 and consider the same idea but with a charity that’s working towards making the world better in whatever way you thinks the most sense (perhaps SIAI). The main idea, that by spending money on yourself you are paying a cost in reduced progress of whatever world-improving efforts you most support, still stands.
Well, I was more commenting on the choice of dead children as the currency. I do think that it is possible to improve the world, just the issue is quite complicated.
edit: with regards to AI i do plan to contribute directly… I am currently earning my money doing independent game development but my main talents lie elsewhere (engineering). I was thinking over a dramatically cheap mosquito zapping laser (putting as much of the complexity into software rather than high precision hardware). High IQ is similar to being that strong AI—I can solve problems that only few people can, and there’s shortage of those people and abundance of problems to solve.
I can’t say I care a whole ton though—it’s not my fault the world is naturally a hell-hole. Think about it, the condition of suffering has evolved because it is very useful to prodding you forward—in the natural conditions you suffer a lot, the pain circuitry gets a lot of use. No species can just live happily, the evolution will make such species work harder at reproducing and suffer.
I was thinking over a dramatically cheap mosquito zapping laser (putting as much of the complexity into software rather than high precision hardware).
I don’t understand this sentence. Is this something that you were contemplating doing personally? The Gates Foundation has already funded such a project.
I can’t say I care a whole ton though—it’s not my fault the world is naturally a hell-hole.
I agree with the second clause but don’t think that it has a great deal to do with the first clause. Most people would upon being confronted by a sabertooth tiger would care about not being maimed by it despite the fact that it’s not their fault that there’s a possibility that they might be maimed by a saber tooth tiger. A sense of bearing responsibility for a problem is one route toward caring about fixing it but there are other routes.
Nevertheless, sadly I can relate to not caring very much.
Think about it, the condition of suffering has evolved because it is very useful to prodding you forward—in the natural conditions you suffer a lot, the pain circuitry gets a lot of use. No species can just live happily, the evolution will make such species work harder at reproducing and suffer.
Any reason to think that negative feelings are a more effective motivator than positive feelings? If not, is there any reason to doubt that it’s in principle possible for a species to have motivational mechanisms consisting exclusively of rewards?
Any reason to think that negative feelings are a more effective motivator than positive feelings?
The Happiness Hypothesis, I book I recommend, addresses this. A long string of good decisions/rewards will keep us alive, while a single bad decision/punishment will kill us. E.g. if you do eat that mushroom it might kill you, but if you don’t you probably won’t starve right away and can probably find something else to eat. Thus avoiding pain is a better policy than pursuing rewards.
However, we’re smart and can decide when to override this instinct. For example, my reptile brain just tells me to save all my resources for me and mine. But my more rational mind tells me how much I have in my bank account and that I can afford to help strangers.
The Gates foundation project for mosquito zapping AFAIK started in 2007 and still didn’t get anywhere practical despite more than sufficient investment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser#Implementations
It’s not so simple to make something that actually works and is cheap to build. In principle it can be as cheap as a DVD writer, but look, you wont have same effort put into this as DVD writer had. It’s not so much about money as about having someone who’ll actually work on the device productively. In programming there is this phenomena: good programmers are 5..10x more productive than average.
Regarding whose fault the world is, I meant that if it was my fault that other people are in hellhole, I would care more. For extreme example, consider some alien species whom are going extinct because they are extremely nasty to each other, they all are, not a single one is nice. In this case its basically ‘their’ fault.
With regards to the positive feeling-only motivated beings… how do you impose soft limit on joint movement for example upon damage of that joint? Make that being ecstatic happy except when the joint is off limits? I don’t think this scales to all types of ‘software’ restrictions that needs to be imposed for survival. And even if it does, that state must be possible for evolution to arrive at, and must be reasonably stable when the species evolve further. Right now if someone is mutated not to feel pain, that person typically dies young even with all the intervention and help.
I just want to say that even though I generally disagree with these objections to donation*, I really love the “You can’t just throw nutrients into ecosystem and expect a morally good outcome.” bit and will try to remember/save that in the future.
It’s rather interesting that Malthusianism is completely accepted without comment in ecology and evolution, but seems to be widely hated when brought up in political or social spheres, so maybe phrasing it in ecosystem terms will make people more liable to accept it. Probably be best to introduce the concept that way first before suggesting any policies derived from it.
*Not the objection, but the bit where people conclude “So I’m going to keep my money for myself” rather than “So I’m going to give to a charity to distribute birth control instead”. Which to be fair you don’t seem to be entirely doing, so you’re not actually one of those people.
The big problem for me is the children down the line. You save some children, boys and girls, they grow up and have more children, who die after terrible suffering (in 10 years time so no singularity yet, but the oil is seriously running short with all the consequences).
I actually have suffered malnourishment as a child for several years (fall of soviet union related). Today i’m making good income by western standards—i have been very lucky. So I kind of see this issue from both sides.
As terrible as it sounds, I’d rather donate for a scheme where the child that is saved is sterilized. Otherwise the donations may indeed be measured in dead children at a discount rates—the children who die after severe suffering thanks to your donation making them exist in the first place. You can’t just throw nutrients into ecosystem and expect a morally good outcome.
You’re arguing that keeping children from dying now is not actually very valuable because of other problems. Then take your argument farther toward DH7 and consider the same idea but with a charity that’s working towards making the world better in whatever way you thinks the most sense (perhaps SIAI). The main idea, that by spending money on yourself you are paying a cost in reduced progress of whatever world-improving efforts you most support, still stands.
Well, I was more commenting on the choice of dead children as the currency. I do think that it is possible to improve the world, just the issue is quite complicated.
edit: with regards to AI i do plan to contribute directly… I am currently earning my money doing independent game development but my main talents lie elsewhere (engineering). I was thinking over a dramatically cheap mosquito zapping laser (putting as much of the complexity into software rather than high precision hardware). High IQ is similar to being that strong AI—I can solve problems that only few people can, and there’s shortage of those people and abundance of problems to solve.
I can’t say I care a whole ton though—it’s not my fault the world is naturally a hell-hole. Think about it, the condition of suffering has evolved because it is very useful to prodding you forward—in the natural conditions you suffer a lot, the pain circuitry gets a lot of use. No species can just live happily, the evolution will make such species work harder at reproducing and suffer.
I don’t understand this sentence. Is this something that you were contemplating doing personally? The Gates Foundation has already funded such a project.
I agree with the second clause but don’t think that it has a great deal to do with the first clause. Most people would upon being confronted by a sabertooth tiger would care about not being maimed by it despite the fact that it’s not their fault that there’s a possibility that they might be maimed by a saber tooth tiger. A sense of bearing responsibility for a problem is one route toward caring about fixing it but there are other routes.
Nevertheless, sadly I can relate to not caring very much.
Any reason to think that negative feelings are a more effective motivator than positive feelings? If not, is there any reason to doubt that it’s in principle possible for a species to have motivational mechanisms consisting exclusively of rewards?
The Happiness Hypothesis, I book I recommend, addresses this. A long string of good decisions/rewards will keep us alive, while a single bad decision/punishment will kill us. E.g. if you do eat that mushroom it might kill you, but if you don’t you probably won’t starve right away and can probably find something else to eat. Thus avoiding pain is a better policy than pursuing rewards.
However, we’re smart and can decide when to override this instinct. For example, my reptile brain just tells me to save all my resources for me and mine. But my more rational mind tells me how much I have in my bank account and that I can afford to help strangers.
The Gates foundation project for mosquito zapping AFAIK started in 2007 and still didn’t get anywhere practical despite more than sufficient investment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser#Implementations It’s not so simple to make something that actually works and is cheap to build. In principle it can be as cheap as a DVD writer, but look, you wont have same effort put into this as DVD writer had. It’s not so much about money as about having someone who’ll actually work on the device productively. In programming there is this phenomena: good programmers are 5..10x more productive than average.
Regarding whose fault the world is, I meant that if it was my fault that other people are in hellhole, I would care more. For extreme example, consider some alien species whom are going extinct because they are extremely nasty to each other, they all are, not a single one is nice. In this case its basically ‘their’ fault.
With regards to the positive feeling-only motivated beings… how do you impose soft limit on joint movement for example upon damage of that joint? Make that being ecstatic happy except when the joint is off limits? I don’t think this scales to all types of ‘software’ restrictions that needs to be imposed for survival. And even if it does, that state must be possible for evolution to arrive at, and must be reasonably stable when the species evolve further. Right now if someone is mutated not to feel pain, that person typically dies young even with all the intervention and help.
I just want to say that even though I generally disagree with these objections to donation*, I really love the “You can’t just throw nutrients into ecosystem and expect a morally good outcome.” bit and will try to remember/save that in the future. It’s rather interesting that Malthusianism is completely accepted without comment in ecology and evolution, but seems to be widely hated when brought up in political or social spheres, so maybe phrasing it in ecosystem terms will make people more liable to accept it. Probably be best to introduce the concept that way first before suggesting any policies derived from it.
*Not the objection, but the bit where people conclude “So I’m going to keep my money for myself” rather than “So I’m going to give to a charity to distribute birth control instead”. Which to be fair you don’t seem to be entirely doing, so you’re not actually one of those people.