Q: Is it good or bad to exclude a class of sentients with no effective power from the sphere of moral consideration and exploit them to an arbitrary degree to pursue your own ends?
I speculate that this not true, unless by “no effective power” you mean “no powerful members of cosmos willing to defend them”. The reason is that I think sentient beings generally would like some kind of cosmic insurance contract that protects them in case they become powerless in the future, such that they want “don’t exploit sentient beings to arbitrary degrees without mercy” to be a norm, enough to say so, and to expect most others to say so, and so on.
I’m not as confident in this speculation as I am of the “stealing is bad” cosmic Schelling norm, but I’m pretty sure about it still.
Also, I’m not all confident as to the degree of adherence to the “mercy for sentients” norm throughout the cosmos, but I do have some hope that it is substantial, and hereby bid for it to be substantial.
unless by “no effective power” you mean “no powerful members of cosmos willing to defend them”
No powerful members of the cosmos are forthcoming to get us here on earth to get our act together, so from this example I expect that this definition you provided encompasses quite a few sentients throughout the cosmos.It’s fair to say I also mean that in addition to these sentients having no power themselves, there also aren’t powerful agents defending them, but this hardly makes my condition all that restrictive:
I’m not all confident as to the degree of adherence to the “mercy for sentients” norm throughout the cosmos
Presumably if the norm is not being adhered to, it’s because there aren’t sufficiently powerful members of the cosmos who are willing to enforce it.
No powerful members of the cosmos are forthcoming to get us here on earth to get our act together
Like Musk, Bostrom, and many others, I speculate that it’s reasonably likely that the Earth was we know it exists in a simulation or vivarium of some kind that is being observed, and that sentient life outside that vivarium/simulation would consider us more or less of a threat in accordance to our treatment of sentient life here. So, I’m not sure where you are getting your confidence there.
Separately, assuming we are not in a vivarium or simulation, I also speculate that it’s reasonably likely that Earth-originating civilization will eventually encounter alien sentient life, who are more likely to judge us negatively than positively for the ways in which we tend to mistreat sentient life.
I’m guessing you disagree with both of those points?
Presumably if the norm is not being adhered to, it’s because there aren’t sufficiently powerful members of the cosmos who are willing to enforce it.
That wouldn’t make it not the cosmic Schelling norm, to be clear. A norm can be broadly recognized as Schelling without being broadly enforced or adhered to. This is explained in the section on “Recognition versus endorsement versus adherence”, which explains: “Nothing about the concept of a cosmic Schelling norm — that is, the cosmic Schelling answer to a pro tanto moral question — assumes that the norm is universally adhered to in any sense.”
Mundanely: I’ve known communities where “premarital sex is bad” was definitely the Schelling answer to “is premarital sex good or bad”: if you asked it on a survey and told people to pick the same answer as everyone else, they’d pick “bad” and be confident they were winning the Schelling survey game. Yet this norm was not prevalent within the community: most of the people were in fact having premarital sex. The norm did not prevail over other priorities, despite being Schelling and recognizably so amongst the group members.
I speculate that it’s reasonably likely that the Earth was we know it exists in a simulation or vivarium of some kind that is being observed
If this is the case, then the simulators or caretakers are more responsible for all the awful stuff here on Earth than we are, since yes a lot is our fault, but also a lot is a result of scarcity and necessity, or just out of our control entirely. At the very least, they don’t care enough to actively intervene, which is all I’m really saying.
I also speculate that it’s reasonably likely that Earth-originating civilization will eventually encounter alien sentient life, who are more likely to judge us negatively than positively for the ways in which we tend to mistreat sentient life.
Maybe this is the crux? I expect the most powerful aliens we encounter first will be sampling-biased to be more pragmatic-expansionist than even we are, which doesn’t seem to me to correlate with the sort of sentimental universalism that I’d fervently hope for.
> Presumably if the norm is not being adhered to, it’s because there aren’t sufficiently powerful members of the cosmos who are willing to enforce it.
That wouldn’t make it not the cosmic Schelling norm, to be clear. A norm can be broadly recognized as Schelling without being broadly enforced or adhered to.
Now I’m confused, because you initially said:
I speculate that this not true, unless by “no effective power” you mean “no powerful members of cosmos willing to defend them”.
I.e. you’re saying my claim probably isn’t true unless it’s made weaker by making the “no effective power” condition more restrictive. But I accept that restriction, I just don’t think it’s all that restrictive, there are plenty of sentients without powerful members of cosmos willing to defend them, and the important part of that condition is adherence, not theoretical schelling norm.
So do you think that ‘weaker’ claim is false too?
Q: Is it good or bad to exclude a class of sentients with no effective power and no powerful members of cosmos willing to defend them from the sphere of moral consideration and exploit them to an arbitrary degree to pursue your own ends?
Q: Is it good or bad to exclude a class of sentients with no effective power from the sphere of moral consideration and exploit them to an arbitrary degree to pursue your own ends?
Cosmic Schelling answer: good.
I speculate that this not true, unless by “no effective power” you mean “no powerful members of cosmos willing to defend them”. The reason is that I think sentient beings generally would like some kind of cosmic insurance contract that protects them in case they become powerless in the future, such that they want “don’t exploit sentient beings to arbitrary degrees without mercy” to be a norm, enough to say so, and to expect most others to say so, and so on.
I’m not as confident in this speculation as I am of the “stealing is bad” cosmic Schelling norm, but I’m pretty sure about it still.
Also, I’m not all confident as to the degree of adherence to the “mercy for sentients” norm throughout the cosmos, but I do have some hope that it is substantial, and hereby bid for it to be substantial.
No powerful members of the cosmos are forthcoming to get us here on earth to get our act together, so from this example I expect that this definition you provided encompasses quite a few sentients throughout the cosmos. It’s fair to say I also mean that in addition to these sentients having no power themselves, there also aren’t powerful agents defending them, but this hardly makes my condition all that restrictive:
Presumably if the norm is not being adhered to, it’s because there aren’t sufficiently powerful members of the cosmos who are willing to enforce it.
Like Musk, Bostrom, and many others, I speculate that it’s reasonably likely that the Earth was we know it exists in a simulation or vivarium of some kind that is being observed, and that sentient life outside that vivarium/simulation would consider us more or less of a threat in accordance to our treatment of sentient life here. So, I’m not sure where you are getting your confidence there.
Separately, assuming we are not in a vivarium or simulation, I also speculate that it’s reasonably likely that Earth-originating civilization will eventually encounter alien sentient life, who are more likely to judge us negatively than positively for the ways in which we tend to mistreat sentient life.
I’m guessing you disagree with both of those points?
That wouldn’t make it not the cosmic Schelling norm, to be clear. A norm can be broadly recognized as Schelling without being broadly enforced or adhered to. This is explained in the section on “Recognition versus endorsement versus adherence”, which explains: “Nothing about the concept of a cosmic Schelling norm — that is, the cosmic Schelling answer to a pro tanto moral question — assumes that the norm is universally adhered to in any sense.”
Mundanely: I’ve known communities where “premarital sex is bad” was definitely the Schelling answer to “is premarital sex good or bad”: if you asked it on a survey and told people to pick the same answer as everyone else, they’d pick “bad” and be confident they were winning the Schelling survey game. Yet this norm was not prevalent within the community: most of the people were in fact having premarital sex. The norm did not prevail over other priorities, despite being Schelling and recognizably so amongst the group members.
If this is the case, then the simulators or caretakers are more responsible for all the awful stuff here on Earth than we are, since yes a lot is our fault, but also a lot is a result of scarcity and necessity, or just out of our control entirely. At the very least, they don’t care enough to actively intervene, which is all I’m really saying.
Maybe this is the crux? I expect the most powerful aliens we encounter first will be sampling-biased to be more pragmatic-expansionist than even we are, which doesn’t seem to me to correlate with the sort of sentimental universalism that I’d fervently hope for.
Now I’m confused, because you initially said:
I.e. you’re saying my claim probably isn’t true unless it’s made weaker by making the “no effective power” condition more restrictive. But I accept that restriction, I just don’t think it’s all that restrictive, there are plenty of sentients without powerful members of cosmos willing to defend them, and the important part of that condition is adherence, not theoretical schelling norm.
So do you think that ‘weaker’ claim is false too?