I don’t buy the “genuinely do not love anyone” assertion. I think this doesn’t match the profiles and biographies and Wikipedia summaries of almost anyone in power I have read. I don’t think it never happens, but it seems very rare, even from this somewhat elevated baseline.
I agree that many people intrinsically enjoy exerting power over people, and have a substantial amount of indifference to their suffering. I mention both of these in the posts as things that I don’t think would cause someone to largely squander the future. The arguments are not overwhelmingly strong against it, but I think you need to mess up a bunch more than just enjoying exerting power over people, or be indifferent to other people’s suffering.
Taking active joy in the full complexity of someone’s suffering would I think be the hard case. I currently think the kind of psychological profile necessary to arrive at that in stable reflective equilibrium is very rare (though not literally non-existent), and the few bits you get in this direction from someone being very powerful and broadly considered evil are not enough to end up with substantial probability on this. But it’s a tricky question!
I don’t buy the “genuinely do not love anyone” assertion. I think this doesn’t match the profiles and biographies and Wikipedia summaries of almost anyone in power I have read. I don’t think it never happens, but it seems very rare, even from this somewhat elevated baseline.
I agree that many people intrinsically enjoy exerting power over people, and have a substantial amount of indifference to their suffering. I mention both of these in the posts as things that I don’t think would cause someone to largely squander the future. The arguments are not overwhelmingly strong against it, but I think you need to mess up a bunch more than just enjoying exerting power over people, or be indifferent to other people’s suffering.
Taking active joy in the full complexity of someone’s suffering would I think be the hard case. I currently think the kind of psychological profile necessary to arrive at that in stable reflective equilibrium is very rare (though not literally non-existent), and the few bits you get in this direction from someone being very powerful and broadly considered evil are not enough to end up with substantial probability on this. But it’s a tricky question!
Have you read John Wentworth’s posts…
(I think) different meanings of “love”!