(Re: The Tails Coming Apart As Metaphor For Life. I dunno, if most people, upon reflection, find that the extremes prescribed by all straightforward extrapolations of our moral intuitions look ugly, that sounds like convergence on… not following any extrapolation into the crazy scenarios and just avoiding putting yourself in the crazy scenarios. It might just be wrong for us to have such power over the world as to be directing us into any part of Extremistan. Maybe let’s just not go to Extremistan – let’s stay in Mediocristan (and rebrand it as Satisficistan). If at first something sounds exciting and way better than where you are now, but on reflection looks repugnant – worse than where you are now – then maybe don’t go there. If utilitarianism, Christianism etc yield crazy results in the limit, so much the worse for them. Repugnance keeps hitting your gaze upon tails that have come apart? Maybe that’s because what you care about are actually homeostatic property clusters: the good doesn’t “boil down” to one simple thing like happiness or a few commands written on a stone tablet. Maybe you care about a balance of things – about following all four Red, Yellow, Blue and Green lines (along with 100 other ones no doubt) – never one thing at the unacceptable expense of another. But this is a topic for another day and I’m only gesturing vaguely at a response.)
(Re: The Tails Coming Apart As Metaphor For Life. I dunno, if most people, upon reflection, find that the extremes prescribed by all straightforward extrapolations of our moral intuitions look ugly, that sounds like convergence on… not following any extrapolation into the crazy scenarios and just avoiding putting yourself in the crazy scenarios. It might just be wrong for us to have such power over the world as to be directing us into any part of Extremistan. Maybe let’s just not go to Extremistan – let’s stay in Mediocristan (and rebrand it as Satisficistan). If at first something sounds exciting and way better than where you are now, but on reflection looks repugnant – worse than where you are now – then maybe don’t go there. If utilitarianism, Christianism etc yield crazy results in the limit, so much the worse for them. Repugnance keeps hitting your gaze upon tails that have come apart? Maybe that’s because what you care about are actually homeostatic property clusters: the good doesn’t “boil down” to one simple thing like happiness or a few commands written on a stone tablet. Maybe you care about a balance of things – about following all four Red, Yellow, Blue and Green lines (along with 100 other ones no doubt) – never one thing at the unacceptable expense of another. But this is a topic for another day and I’m only gesturing vaguely at a response.)