Those who suspect me of advocating my unconventional moral position to signal my edgy innovativeness or my nonconformity should consider that I have held the position since 1992, but only since 2007 have I posted about it or discussed it with anyone but a handful of friends.
I believe rhollerith. I met him the other week and talked in some detail; he strikes me as someone who’s actually trying. Also, he shared the intellectual roots of his moral position, and the roots make sense as part of a life-story that involves being strongly influenced by John David Garcia’s apparently similar moral system some time ago.
Hollerith doesn’t mean he was applying his moral position to AI design since ’92, he means that since ’92, he’s been following out a possible theory of value that doesn’t assign intrinsic value to human life, to human happiness, or to similar subjective states. I’m not sure why people are stating their disbelief.
Good point, Anna: John David Garcia did not work in AI or apply his system of values to the AI problem, but his system of values yields fairly unambiguous recommendations when applied to the AI problem—much more unambiguous than human-centered ways of valuing things.
Unfortunately, they can’t consider that you have have held the position since 1992 -- all they can consider is that you claim to have done so. You could get your handful of friends to testify, I suppose...
Cyan points out, correctly, that all the reader can consider is that I claim to have held a certain position since 1992. But that is useful information for evaluating my claim that I am not just signaling because a person is less likely to have deceived himself about having held a position than about his motivations for a sequence of speech acts! And I can add a second piece of useful information in the form of the following archived email. Of course I could be lying when I say that I found the following message on my hard drive, but participants in this conversation willing to lie outright are (much) less frequent than participants who have somehow managed to deceive themselves about whether they really held a certain position since 1992, who in turn are less frequent than participants who have somehow managed to deceive themselves about their real motivation for advocating a certain position.
1995 Jul 4 16:20
Subject: Re: July 15th
Russell Brand writes:
Will you be able to join us at my house to hear John David Garcia talk about
the mechanisms for thought, creativity and quantum mechanics?
I certainly would like to join you. Garcian ethics has become an important
part of my philosophy, and I want to meet people who assign a similar
importance to the ethical principles outlined in Creative Transformation.
I don’t disagree with the above post—I just wanted to make a pedantic distinction between claims and facts in evidence. (Also, my choice of the pronoun “they” rather than “we” was deliberate.)
I don’t know how long you’ve held the position, or much care—I don’t think it’s relevant. But it is signaling, I think, for 2 reasons:
Your public concern with saying it’s not signaling is just a way of signaling;
Claiming a certain timespan of belief is just an old locker room way of saying “I got here first.” Which surely is signaling.
This is the sort of thing that causes unnecessary splintering in groups. I have a very visceral reaction to this sort of signaling (which I would label preening, actually). Perhaps I should examine that.
It is likely the case that rhollerith’s moral position contains at least some element of signalling. His expression thereof probably does too. In fact, there are few aspects of social behavior that could be credibly claimed to be devoid of signalling. That said, these points do not impress me in the slightest.
Your public concern with saying it’s not signaling is just a way of signaling;
Yes, public concern surely involves signalling. That doesn’t mean that which is concerned about isn’t also true. Revealing truth is usually an effective form of signalling.
Claiming a certain timespan of belief is just an old locker room way of saying “I got here first.” Which surely is signaling.
It is completely unreasonable to dismiss claims because they are similar to something that was signalling in the locker room. Even the “I got here first” signalling in said locker room quite often accompanies the signaller, in fact, getting there first.
I suspect that you have not become acquainted with my moral position! If you knew my moral position, you would be more likely to say I am ruining the party by crapping in the punchbowl than to say I am preening. (Preen. verb. Congratulate oneself for an accomplishment).
Those who suspect me of advocating my unconventional moral position to signal my edgy innovativeness or my nonconformity should consider that I have held the position since 1992, but only since 2007 have I posted about it or discussed it with anyone but a handful of friends.
I believe rhollerith. I met him the other week and talked in some detail; he strikes me as someone who’s actually trying. Also, he shared the intellectual roots of his moral position, and the roots make sense as part of a life-story that involves being strongly influenced by John David Garcia’s apparently similar moral system some time ago.
Hollerith doesn’t mean he was applying his moral position to AI design since ’92, he means that since ’92, he’s been following out a possible theory of value that doesn’t assign intrinsic value to human life, to human happiness, or to similar subjective states. I’m not sure why people are stating their disbelief.
Good point, Anna: John David Garcia did not work in AI or apply his system of values to the AI problem, but his system of values yields fairly unambiguous recommendations when applied to the AI problem—much more unambiguous than human-centered ways of valuing things.
Off-topic until May, all.
Unfortunately, they can’t consider that you have have held the position since 1992 -- all they can consider is that you claim to have done so. You could get your handful of friends to testify, I suppose...
Cyan points out, correctly, that all the reader can consider is that I claim to have held a certain position since 1992. But that is useful information for evaluating my claim that I am not just signaling because a person is less likely to have deceived himself about having held a position than about his motivations for a sequence of speech acts! And I can add a second piece of useful information in the form of the following archived email. Of course I could be lying when I say that I found the following message on my hard drive, but participants in this conversation willing to lie outright are (much) less frequent than participants who have somehow managed to deceive themselves about whether they really held a certain position since 1992, who in turn are less frequent than participants who have somehow managed to deceive themselves about their real motivation for advocating a certain position.
I don’t disagree with the above post—I just wanted to make a pedantic distinction between claims and facts in evidence. (Also, my choice of the pronoun “they” rather than “we” was deliberate.)
I don’t believe you.
Don’t believe my advocacy of the moral position is not really just signaling or don’t believe I’ve held the moral position since 1992?
I don’t know how long you’ve held the position, or much care—I don’t think it’s relevant. But it is signaling, I think, for 2 reasons:
Your public concern with saying it’s not signaling is just a way of signaling;
Claiming a certain timespan of belief is just an old locker room way of saying “I got here first.” Which surely is signaling.
This is the sort of thing that causes unnecessary splintering in groups. I have a very visceral reaction to this sort of signaling (which I would label preening, actually). Perhaps I should examine that.
It is likely the case that rhollerith’s moral position contains at least some element of signalling. His expression thereof probably does too. In fact, there are few aspects of social behavior that could be credibly claimed to be devoid of signalling. That said, these points do not impress me in the slightest.
Yes, public concern surely involves signalling. That doesn’t mean that which is concerned about isn’t also true. Revealing truth is usually an effective form of signalling.
It is completely unreasonable to dismiss claims because they are similar to something that was signalling in the locker room. Even the “I got here first” signalling in said locker room quite often accompanies the signaller, in fact, getting there first.
I suspect that you have not become acquainted with my moral position! If you knew my moral position, you would be more likely to say I am ruining the party by crapping in the punchbowl than to say I am preening. (Preen. verb. Congratulate oneself for an accomplishment).