The problem with this argument is that sugar is legal, but people are not, in fact, all eating ice cream for breakfast. The sugar equivalent of the AI castastrophe hasn’t happened.
They aren’t now, but if you look back at the time when sugar was actually discovered (around 1500), every European noble who could afford it did in fact revel in sugar. The wedding of Ercole d’Este, duke of Ferrara, is a particularly infamous example. I cannot find the historical menu in English, but the original Italian version is available here.
The things I was trying to convey here are that when we discover a new technology, it is tempting to get excited and think about all of the cool things we could do with it. Sugar seemed like a nice example here because it is very salient and visceral that it introduces more hedons into your life.
But it’s also possible that the long-term harms and n-th order effects make the new technology a (large) net-negative. Which I’d argue is the case with sugar.
Relatedly, it’s possible that something that seems innocent at first—like a little sugar to sprinkle on top of your coffee—is actually terrible. I agree that in the real world, sugar probably hasn’t crossed that bar. But I think that’s beside the point. From the perspective of the characters in this story, they don’t know that. I think the question at hand is moreso how they should be approaching the situation. And I think that it is appropriate for them to be a little paranoid and consider the possibility of sugar leading to terrible, terrible outcomes (along with other possibilities, such as it leading to “regular-bad” outcomes).
(All of that said, I don’t want to imply that I think this was a great post or anything. It’s moreso just an idea that I was messing around and having fun with.)
The problem with this argument is that sugar is legal, but people are not, in fact, all eating ice cream for breakfast. The sugar equivalent of the AI castastrophe hasn’t happened.
They aren’t now, but if you look back at the time when sugar was actually discovered (around 1500), every European noble who could afford it did in fact revel in sugar. The wedding of Ercole d’Este, duke of Ferrara, is a particularly infamous example. I cannot find the historical menu in English, but the original Italian version is available here.
The things I was trying to convey here are that when we discover a new technology, it is tempting to get excited and think about all of the cool things we could do with it. Sugar seemed like a nice example here because it is very salient and visceral that it introduces more hedons into your life.
But it’s also possible that the long-term harms and n-th order effects make the new technology a (large) net-negative. Which I’d argue is the case with sugar.
Relatedly, it’s possible that something that seems innocent at first—like a little sugar to sprinkle on top of your coffee—is actually terrible. I agree that in the real world, sugar probably hasn’t crossed that bar. But I think that’s beside the point. From the perspective of the characters in this story, they don’t know that. I think the question at hand is moreso how they should be approaching the situation. And I think that it is appropriate for them to be a little paranoid and consider the possibility of sugar leading to terrible, terrible outcomes (along with other possibilities, such as it leading to “regular-bad” outcomes).
(All of that said, I don’t want to imply that I think this was a great post or anything. It’s moreso just an idea that I was messing around and having fun with.)