Caledonian, yes, I simplified to the point of inaccuracy, but thanks for providing the footnote.
The interaction between brain and environment is complex, but reactions are variable enough that I think it’s difficult to say X environmental stimulus (or lack there of) produces Y emotional state in a human brain. That goes for obsety, poverty, the range. This is minus some extreme and developmental examples many people here could conjure up. But “rational fear of death”, “existential angst”, it’s entirely possible to go through life happy and excited while at least conceptually experiencing stuff like this. It’s also possible to go through life without thinking much about these things at all.
Carl Shulman first clued me into this line of thinking (in a comment on my blog) more strongly when he pointed out that a lot of the stress of being subordinated in status heirarchies could be eliminated pharmaceutically. I thought it was a brilliant point which potentially solved the situational need for hierarchical relationships between groups of humans without putting an inevitable health cost on those not at the top of them.
I bring this up because Eliezer seems to be proposing large social undertakings (although I suppose they could be done at the individual level, they’d still be large in aggregate) which would seem to me to come at an economic cost. If a pill or a treatment is cheaper and accomplishes the same outcome (happiness), then that would be an argument to go with the more efficient outcome in that case.
Caledonian, yes, I simplified to the point of inaccuracy, but thanks for providing the footnote.
The interaction between brain and environment is complex, but reactions are variable enough that I think it’s difficult to say X environmental stimulus (or lack there of) produces Y emotional state in a human brain. That goes for obsety, poverty, the range. This is minus some extreme and developmental examples many people here could conjure up. But “rational fear of death”, “existential angst”, it’s entirely possible to go through life happy and excited while at least conceptually experiencing stuff like this. It’s also possible to go through life without thinking much about these things at all.
Carl Shulman first clued me into this line of thinking (in a comment on my blog) more strongly when he pointed out that a lot of the stress of being subordinated in status heirarchies could be eliminated pharmaceutically. I thought it was a brilliant point which potentially solved the situational need for hierarchical relationships between groups of humans without putting an inevitable health cost on those not at the top of them.
I bring this up because Eliezer seems to be proposing large social undertakings (although I suppose they could be done at the individual level, they’d still be large in aggregate) which would seem to me to come at an economic cost. If a pill or a treatment is cheaper and accomplishes the same outcome (happiness), then that would be an argument to go with the more efficient outcome in that case.