The idea that rationality combined with even the simplest of moralities might require sacrifice of life is deeply repugnant in civilized society, and even more in the Intelligentsia.
The post reads more like, “Yay, self sacrifice!” than it does, “If you ascribe to moral philosophy X, Action(self-sacrifice) yields a more desirable output than Action(Not-self-sacrifice).” If you’d written the latter successfully, that might have struck a nerve. As it is, you struck a nerve by (A) quoting TLP out of context (his post is unrelated to your conclusion) and (B) claiming moral superiority for something you’ve never and (P~=.99999) will never do.
I think it’s pretty easy to hypothesize accurately what we’d do if Omega showed up with a couple of boxes. I do not think it’s possible to hypothesize accurately what we would do with the world burning and a gun to our head. The mind estimates the future off our present emotional state, and no one here is in that emotional state, and almost everyone here never has nor will be. I have no problem with you claiming it’s the right thing to do (well, except that I think you failed to support that claim), but it does bother me that you end the post by basically patting yourself on the back for your opinion.
The post reads more like, “Yay, self sacrifice!” than it does, “If you ascribe to moral philosophy X, Action(self-sacrifice) yields a more desirable output than Action(Not-self-sacrifice).” If you’d written the latter successfully, that might have struck a nerve. As it is, you struck a nerve by (A) quoting TLP out of context (his post is unrelated to your conclusion) and (B) claiming moral superiority for something you’ve never and (P~=.99999) will never do.
I think it’s pretty easy to hypothesize accurately what we’d do if Omega showed up with a couple of boxes. I do not think it’s possible to hypothesize accurately what we would do with the world burning and a gun to our head. The mind estimates the future off our present emotional state, and no one here is in that emotional state, and almost everyone here never has nor will be. I have no problem with you claiming it’s the right thing to do (well, except that I think you failed to support that claim), but it does bother me that you end the post by basically patting yourself on the back for your opinion.