What a person gets from the slogan “Death with Dignity” depends on what they consider to be “dignified”. In the context of assisted suicide it means declaring game over and giving up. But Dignitas should have no transhumanist customers. For those, dying with dignity would mean the opposite of giving up. It would mean going for cryonic suspension when all else has failed.
In Eliezer’s article, it clearly means fighting on to the end, regardless of how hopeless the prospect, but always aiming for what has the best chance of working. Dignity is measured in the improvement to log-odds, and whether that improvement was as large as could be attained, even if in the end it is not enough. Giving up is never “dignified”.
But give people a catchy slogan and that is all most of them will remember.
Yep. If I could go back in time, I’d make a louder bid for Eliezer to make it obvious that the “Death With Dignity” post wasn’t a joke, and I’d add a bid to include some catchy synonym for “Death With Dignity”, so people can better triangulate the concept via having multiple handles for it. I don’t hate Death With Dignity as one of the handles, but making it the only handle seems to have caused people to mostly miss the content/denotation of the phrase, and treat it mainly as a political slogan defined by connotation/mood.
I like “improving log odds of survival” as a handle. I don’t like catchy concept names in this domain because they catch on more than understanding of the concept they refer to.
I… don’t know whether it actually accomplishes the right things but I am embarrassed at how long it took “improve log-odds of survival” to get promoted to my hypothesis space as the best handle for the concept of “improving log odds of survival [+ psychological stuff]”
A few people have suggested something like this, and I think it’s failing to accomplish a thing that Death With Dignity was trying to accomplish, which was to direct people’s attention to more-useful-points in strategy-space, and to think sanely while doing so.
What a person gets from the slogan “Death with Dignity” depends on what they consider to be “dignified”. In the context of assisted suicide it means declaring game over and giving up. But Dignitas should have no transhumanist customers. For those, dying with dignity would mean the opposite of giving up. It would mean going for cryonic suspension when all else has failed.
In Eliezer’s article, it clearly means fighting on to the end, regardless of how hopeless the prospect, but always aiming for what has the best chance of working. Dignity is measured in the improvement to log-odds, and whether that improvement was as large as could be attained, even if in the end it is not enough. Giving up is never “dignified”.
But give people a catchy slogan and that is all most of them will remember.
Yep. If I could go back in time, I’d make a louder bid for Eliezer to make it obvious that the “Death With Dignity” post wasn’t a joke, and I’d add a bid to include some catchy synonym for “Death With Dignity”, so people can better triangulate the concept via having multiple handles for it. I don’t hate Death With Dignity as one of the handles, but making it the only handle seems to have caused people to mostly miss the content/denotation of the phrase, and treat it mainly as a political slogan defined by connotation/mood.
I like “improving log odds of survival” as a handle. I don’t like catchy concept names in this domain because they catch on more than understanding of the concept they refer to.
I… don’t know whether it actually accomplishes the right things but I am embarrassed at how long it took “improve log-odds of survival” to get promoted to my hypothesis space as the best handle for the concept of “improving log odds of survival [+ psychological stuff]”
Fairs. I am also liking the concept of “sanity” and notice people use that word more now. To me, it points at some of the psychological stuff and also the vibe in the What should you change in response to an “emergency”? And AI risk post.
“Go Down Fighting”?
A few people have suggested something like this, and I think it’s failing to accomplish a thing that Death With Dignity was trying to accomplish, which was to direct people’s attention to more-useful-points in strategy-space, and to think sanely while doing so.
FWIW I don’t think it’s too late to introduce more handles.
Also, many people will only read the headline of your post, so it’s important to make it sound unambiguous.