If you read my comment below, you would see that I was not referring to my own life. Also, as I said before, that statement is a generalization. I am not hard programmed to absolutely value the maximization of life, but, as a general rule, I feel bad if something that could be alive is not.
Also, I never said that extra production is a good thing, I said that there was moral value to be found in it, which can compensate for the overall end of the process. And valuing additional life does not obligate you to impregnate women if you feel a stronger moral obligation towards not forcibly impregnating people. I made a statement about a characteristic of my utility function, I did not make a statement about the driving force behind my utility function. The desire to optimize life in others does not override most of my other desires.
By the way, its interesting that you automatically seem to assume I’m male. You happen to be right and the odds were on your side, but still.
My apologies on the male assumption. By sheer chance, when I first wrote the comment referencing ciphergoth, I noticed myself using the pronoun “he” and took steps to rephrase appropriately. Yet I did not do the same with you.
I really need to spend more time checking my assumptions before I post, but old habits are tough to break in a short period of time. Your above post will reinforce the need for me to check assumptions before hitting the “comment” button.
As for extra production, I can see that a stronger moral obligation would override in circumstances like rape. But what about culture wide influences? It isn’t obvious to me that a stronger moral obligation would override your desire to have a culture-wide policy on reproducing as often as possible. Wouldn’t a major goal of yours be to somehow help guide civilization toward some optimal human saturation in your light cone? I don’t mean paperclip maximization style, as obviously after a certain density overall good would be lessened, not greatened. But surely an increase in human density up to some optimal saturation?
I know you say that “the desire to optimize life in others does not override most of my other desires”, but surely this applies mostly to principles like “don’t rape”, and not to principles like “don’t institute strong societal encouragement for procreation”.
edit: Added a missing “don’t institute” on the final line.
If you read my comment below, you would see that I was not referring to my own life. Also, as I said before, that statement is a generalization. I am not hard programmed to absolutely value the maximization of life, but, as a general rule, I feel bad if something that could be alive is not.
Also, I never said that extra production is a good thing, I said that there was moral value to be found in it, which can compensate for the overall end of the process. And valuing additional life does not obligate you to impregnate women if you feel a stronger moral obligation towards not forcibly impregnating people. I made a statement about a characteristic of my utility function, I did not make a statement about the driving force behind my utility function. The desire to optimize life in others does not override most of my other desires.
By the way, its interesting that you automatically seem to assume I’m male. You happen to be right and the odds were on your side, but still.
My apologies on the male assumption. By sheer chance, when I first wrote the comment referencing ciphergoth, I noticed myself using the pronoun “he” and took steps to rephrase appropriately. Yet I did not do the same with you.
I really need to spend more time checking my assumptions before I post, but old habits are tough to break in a short period of time. Your above post will reinforce the need for me to check assumptions before hitting the “comment” button.
As for extra production, I can see that a stronger moral obligation would override in circumstances like rape. But what about culture wide influences? It isn’t obvious to me that a stronger moral obligation would override your desire to have a culture-wide policy on reproducing as often as possible. Wouldn’t a major goal of yours be to somehow help guide civilization toward some optimal human saturation in your light cone? I don’t mean paperclip maximization style, as obviously after a certain density overall good would be lessened, not greatened. But surely an increase in human density up to some optimal saturation?
I know you say that “the desire to optimize life in others does not override most of my other desires”, but surely this applies mostly to principles like “don’t rape”, and not to principles like “don’t institute strong societal encouragement for procreation”.
edit: Added a missing “don’t institute” on the final line.