I’ve fixed the 97% statistic! I agree that was a stupid error to make. It wasn’t from LLMs and one bit of evidence for this is that the statistic isn’t online anymore, so an LLM wouldn’t find it. In fact, I remembered the statistic from an old round of high school debate, and emailed someone to find the link. I would be happy to send you an email of the correspondence if you are skeptical.
I am quite certain that I did not use LLM’s in composing the post. Now, I don’t think the mere example of that joke is very convincing evidence that I used LLMs. Would AI really make a Yarvin joke or a joke about Trump not having neurons? Hard to imagine. As for use of em-dashes, as you can see if you read my old posts from before the dawn of AI, I used them a lot too! I’ve also made a similar comment before in a way that pretty clearly doesn’t look AI generated https://benthams.substack.com/p/lyman-stone-continues-being-dumb?utm_source=publication-search:
“Lyman then repeats his argument about shrimp having few neurons, once again ignoring the abundance of evidence that neuron count is a bad proxy for moral significance. Perhaps the shrimp aren’t the only ones with few neurons…”
For reference, I just asked chat-GPT to write a polemic in my style and it was not very similar to what you suggest—here it is (it also didn’t make much sense):
On the Absurdity of Caring Less About the Future Just Because You’ll Be Dead
Every so often, someone will tell me—usually with the smug air of someone who thinks they’ve just said something deeply profound—that “Well, I care about the future, but not too far into the future. After all, I’ll be gone by then.”
This is supposed to be self-evident wisdom, a mic-drop moment where the utilitarian shuts up, nods sadly, and says, “Yes, of course, how could I have forgotten: once you’re dead, ethics ceases to function.”
But here’s the thing: no, it doesn’t. You can die without taking the moral law with you.
If you think people matter, they keep mattering after you’re gone. If you think suffering is bad, it remains bad even in the year 3000. You don’t get to mark an expiration date on morality like it’s a jug of milk.
Imagine applying this logic in any other domain:
“I oppose slavery in 100 years, but in 200 years? Pfft, who cares—won’t be my problem.”
Or:
“I’d like the cure for cancer to be found in my lifetime, but if it comes a decade after my death, well, frankly, let the tumors win.”
The bizarre thing is that the people who say this aren’t usually sociopaths. They’ll donate to help children they’ll never meet, they’ll praise great reformers who died centuries ago—but as soon as you point to future people they’ll never meet, it’s all “Eh, let them fend for themselves.”
It’s time to call this what it is: a lazy, self-exonerating dodge. The moral circle doesn’t collapse when you die. Your concern for the world shouldn’t come with a tombstone-shaped asterisk. The universe will keep running whether or not you’re around to watch, and the future will be inhabited by beings capable of joy and suffering. That is reason enough to care—no matter how many centuries or millennia away they are.
Because, let’s face it, if morality only applies while you’re alive, you’re not really doing ethics. You’re just doing public relations for your lifespan.
I’ve fixed the 97% statistic! I agree that was a stupid error to make. It wasn’t from LLMs and one bit of evidence for this is that the statistic isn’t online anymore, so an LLM wouldn’t find it. In fact, I remembered the statistic from an old round of high school debate, and emailed someone to find the link. I would be happy to send you an email of the correspondence if you are skeptical.
I am quite certain that I did not use LLM’s in composing the post. Now, I don’t think the mere example of that joke is very convincing evidence that I used LLMs. Would AI really make a Yarvin joke or a joke about Trump not having neurons? Hard to imagine. As for use of em-dashes, as you can see if you read my old posts from before the dawn of AI, I used them a lot too! I’ve also made a similar comment before in a way that pretty clearly doesn’t look AI generated https://benthams.substack.com/p/lyman-stone-continues-being-dumb?utm_source=publication-search:
“Lyman then repeats his argument about shrimp having few neurons, once again ignoring the abundance of evidence that neuron count is a bad proxy for moral significance. Perhaps the shrimp aren’t the only ones with few neurons…”
For reference, I just asked chat-GPT to write a polemic in my style and it was not very similar to what you suggest—here it is (it also didn’t make much sense):
On the Absurdity of Caring Less About the Future Just Because You’ll Be Dead
Every so often, someone will tell me—usually with the smug air of someone who thinks they’ve just said something deeply profound—that “Well, I care about the future, but not too far into the future. After all, I’ll be gone by then.”
This is supposed to be self-evident wisdom, a mic-drop moment where the utilitarian shuts up, nods sadly, and says, “Yes, of course, how could I have forgotten: once you’re dead, ethics ceases to function.”
But here’s the thing: no, it doesn’t. You can die without taking the moral law with you.
If you think people matter, they keep mattering after you’re gone. If you think suffering is bad, it remains bad even in the year 3000. You don’t get to mark an expiration date on morality like it’s a jug of milk.
Imagine applying this logic in any other domain:
Or:
The bizarre thing is that the people who say this aren’t usually sociopaths. They’ll donate to help children they’ll never meet, they’ll praise great reformers who died centuries ago—but as soon as you point to future people they’ll never meet, it’s all “Eh, let them fend for themselves.”
It’s time to call this what it is: a lazy, self-exonerating dodge. The moral circle doesn’t collapse when you die. Your concern for the world shouldn’t come with a tombstone-shaped asterisk. The universe will keep running whether or not you’re around to watch, and the future will be inhabited by beings capable of joy and suffering. That is reason enough to care—no matter how many centuries or millennia away they are.
Because, let’s face it, if morality only applies while you’re alive, you’re not really doing ethics. You’re just doing public relations for your lifespan.