It seems to me that Elizier’s post was a list of things that typically seem, in the real world, to be component of people’s happiness, but are commonly missed out when people propose putative (fictional or futuristic) utopias.
It seemed to me that Elizier was saying “If you propose a utopia without any challenge, humans will not find it satisfying” not “It’s possible to artificially provide challenge in a utopia”.
Sure, at that level of abstraction, we’re all in agreement: challenge is better than the absence of challenge.
The question is whether this particular form of challenge is better than the absence of this particular form of challenge.
Just to make the difference between those two levels of abstraction clear: were I to argue, from the general claim that challenge is good, that creating a world where people experience suffering and death so that we can all have the challenge of defeating suffering and death is therefore good, I would fully expect that the vast majority of LW would immediately reject that argument. They would point out, rightly, that just because a general category is good, does not mean that every instance of that category is good, and they would, rightly, refocus the conversation on the pros and cons, not of challenge in general, but of suffering and death in particular.
Similarly, the discussion in this comment thread is not about the pros and cons of challenge in general, but of ignorance in particular.
It seems to me that Elizier’s post was a list of things that typically seem, in the real world, to be component of people’s happiness, but are commonly missed out when people propose putative (fictional or futuristic) utopias.
It seemed to me that Elizier was saying “If you propose a utopia without any challenge, humans will not find it satisfying” not “It’s possible to artificially provide challenge in a utopia”.
Sure, at that level of abstraction, we’re all in agreement: challenge is better than the absence of challenge.
The question is whether this particular form of challenge is better than the absence of this particular form of challenge.
Just to make the difference between those two levels of abstraction clear: were I to argue, from the general claim that challenge is good, that creating a world where people experience suffering and death so that we can all have the challenge of defeating suffering and death is therefore good, I would fully expect that the vast majority of LW would immediately reject that argument. They would point out, rightly, that just because a general category is good, does not mean that every instance of that category is good, and they would, rightly, refocus the conversation on the pros and cons, not of challenge in general, but of suffering and death in particular.
Similarly, the discussion in this comment thread is not about the pros and cons of challenge in general, but of ignorance in particular.