Good essay (perhaps wasted on TVTropes?). While I agree on the point being made, I don’t think it’s the critical one.
My own opinion is that Eliezer’s preference for the True Ending does not simply proceed from his conflation of the True Ending with wireheading, but straight from his individually absolutist approach to morality. The effect is so jarring* because the overarching theme of TWC is to make the reader think about the nature of morality, introducing scenarios designed to knock the feet out from under its most common naive conceptions… and then the author goes and endorses a choice (if you can even call it that) that doggedly refuses to make any use of all that analysis of morality. It inherits the failure-to-dissect that closes the Metaethics sequence.
(* At least, I suspect, to the likes of us. One reader with whom I shared it commented that the True Ending was by far his favourite part, because it felt ‘like dropping back to the ground’.)
That the ‘True’ choice would have been reached by most people without analysis doesn’t mean it’s not also the choice that would be reached by analysis.
Whether the choice made by the crew in the True Ending was the correct one for most humans, I don’t know, because I don’t think Eliezer gave us enough information about what humanity would be transformed into by the Superhappies. Getting rid of ‘physical’ pain is mostly good, but some of the changes (such as getting rid of ‘embarrassment’) sounded pretty bad to me.
Regardless, I certainly didn’t observe any failure-to-dissect, as you put it.
Just what do you think the TVTropes demographic is? I mean, do you believe that the average troper is bound to be incapable of understanding the piece, appreciating it and taking something from it?
(note that I don’t identify as a “troper” at all, although I do waste a lot of time there)
Good essay (perhaps wasted on TVTropes?). While I agree on the point being made, I don’t think it’s the critical one.
My own opinion is that Eliezer’s preference for the True Ending does not simply proceed from his conflation of the True Ending with wireheading, but straight from his individually absolutist approach to morality. The effect is so jarring* because the overarching theme of TWC is to make the reader think about the nature of morality, introducing scenarios designed to knock the feet out from under its most common naive conceptions… and then the author goes and endorses a choice (if you can even call it that) that doggedly refuses to make any use of all that analysis of morality. It inherits the failure-to-dissect that closes the Metaethics sequence.
(* At least, I suspect, to the likes of us. One reader with whom I shared it commented that the True Ending was by far his favourite part, because it felt ‘like dropping back to the ground’.)
That is another good point—Eliezer’s metaethics were certainly a sticking point when I was discussing the idea of FAI with a philosopher.
That the ‘True’ choice would have been reached by most people without analysis doesn’t mean it’s not also the choice that would be reached by analysis.
Whether the choice made by the crew in the True Ending was the correct one for most humans, I don’t know, because I don’t think Eliezer gave us enough information about what humanity would be transformed into by the Superhappies. Getting rid of ‘physical’ pain is mostly good, but some of the changes (such as getting rid of ‘embarrassment’) sounded pretty bad to me.
Regardless, I certainly didn’t observe any failure-to-dissect, as you put it.
Just what do you think the TVTropes demographic is? I mean, do you believe that the average troper is bound to be incapable of understanding the piece, appreciating it and taking something from it?
(note that I don’t identify as a “troper” at all, although I do waste a lot of time there)