I think most Christians are probably pretty happy, humane lives. And the ways in which their lives are not happy seem likely to be improved a lot by trustworthy superintelligence.
Like if a guy is gay, growing up trapped in a intensely Christian environment that is intent on indoctrinating him that homosexuality is sinful, seems pretty bad. But in the year 3000, it seems like the Christian superintelligence will have effective techniques for removing his homosexual urges .
It does seem bad if you’re trapped in an equilibrium where everyone knows that being gay is sinful, and also that removing homosexual urges is sinful, and also there’s enormous superintelligence resources propping up those beliefs, such that it’s not plausible for one to escape the memetic traps. Is that what you anticipate?
It depends on what you think is a glorious future. As I said in my conclusion above, I personally think that the situation I described is kind of lame and depressing, and also there is some possibility that it is bad in a scope-sensitive way if these enclaves continue to control large proportions of the resources of the future (e.g. because their members have a fixed proportion of voting power over the decisions made by the US government).
(As a sort-of-aside, the US government continuing to control large proportions of the resources of the future — any current institution being locked in forever like that — strikes me as similarly lame and depressing. (A really good future should be less familiar.))
Would a Christian (or any other ) superintelligence also be able to remove heterosexual urges? If not, I don’t think there’s much hope for removing homosexual urges.
Is this that bad?
I think most Christians are probably pretty happy, humane lives. And the ways in which their lives are not happy seem likely to be improved a lot by trustworthy superintelligence.
Like if a guy is gay, growing up trapped in a intensely Christian environment that is intent on indoctrinating him that homosexuality is sinful, seems pretty bad. But in the year 3000, it seems like the Christian superintelligence will have effective techniques for removing his homosexual urges .
It does seem bad if you’re trapped in an equilibrium where everyone knows that being gay is sinful, and also that removing homosexual urges is sinful, and also there’s enormous superintelligence resources propping up those beliefs, such that it’s not plausible for one to escape the memetic traps. Is that what you anticipate?
It depends on what you think is a glorious future. As I said in my conclusion above, I personally think that the situation I described is kind of lame and depressing, and also there is some possibility that it is bad in a scope-sensitive way if these enclaves continue to control large proportions of the resources of the future (e.g. because their members have a fixed proportion of voting power over the decisions made by the US government).
(As a sort-of-aside, the US government continuing to control large proportions of the resources of the future — any current institution being locked in forever like that — strikes me as similarly lame and depressing. (A really good future should be less familiar.))
Would a Christian (or any other ) superintelligence also be able to remove heterosexual urges? If not, I don’t think there’s much hope for removing homosexual urges.
What? Yes. Clearly it is possible to configure a brain without heterosexual urges.