This all feels galaxy-brained to me and like it proves too much. By analogy I feel like if you thought about population ethics for a while and came to counterintuitive conclusions, you might argue that people who haven’t done that shouldn’t be allowed to have children; or if they haven’t thought about timeless decision theory for a while they aren’t allowed to get a carry license.
(I agree with Lucious in that I think it is important that people have the option of getting cryopreserved and also are aware of all the reality-fluid stuff before they decide to kill themselves.)
“Important” is ambiguous, in that I agree it matters, but it does for this civilization to ban whole life options from people until they have heard about niche philosophy. Most people will never hear about niche philosophy.
I don’t think it proves too much. Informed decision-making comes in degrees, and some domains are just harder? Like, I think my threshold for leaving people free to make their own mistakes if they are the only ones harmed by them is very low, compared to where the human population average seems to be at the moment. But my threshold is, in fact, greater than zero.
For example, there are a bunch of things I think bystanders should generally prevent four year old human children from doing, even if the children insist that they want to do them. I know that stopping four year old children from doing these things will be detrimental in some cases, and that having such policies is degrading to the childrens’ agency. I remember what it was like being four years old and feeling miserable because of kindergarten teachers who controlled my day and thought they knew what was best for me. I still think the tradeoff is worth it on net in some cases.
I just think that the suicide thing happens to be a case where doing informed decision-making is maybe just too tough for way too many humans and thus some form of ban could plausibly be worth it on net. Sports betting is another case where I was eventually convinced that maybe a legal ban of some form could be worth it.
This all feels galaxy-brained to me and like it proves too much. By analogy I feel like if you thought about population ethics for a while and came to counterintuitive conclusions, you might argue that people who haven’t done that shouldn’t be allowed to have children; or if they haven’t thought about timeless decision theory for a while they aren’t allowed to get a carry license.
(I agree with Lucious in that I think it is important that people have the option of getting cryopreserved and also are aware of all the reality-fluid stuff before they decide to kill themselves.)
“Important” is ambiguous, in that I agree it matters, but it does for this civilization to ban whole life options from people until they have heard about niche philosophy. Most people will never hear about niche philosophy.
I don’t think it proves too much. Informed decision-making comes in degrees, and some domains are just harder? Like, I think my threshold for leaving people free to make their own mistakes if they are the only ones harmed by them is very low, compared to where the human population average seems to be at the moment. But my threshold is, in fact, greater than zero.
For example, there are a bunch of things I think bystanders should generally prevent four year old human children from doing, even if the children insist that they want to do them. I know that stopping four year old children from doing these things will be detrimental in some cases, and that having such policies is degrading to the childrens’ agency. I remember what it was like being four years old and feeling miserable because of kindergarten teachers who controlled my day and thought they knew what was best for me. I still think the tradeoff is worth it on net in some cases.
I just think that the suicide thing happens to be a case where doing informed decision-making is maybe just too tough for way too many humans and thus some form of ban could plausibly be worth it on net. Sports betting is another case where I was eventually convinced that maybe a legal ban of some form could be worth it.