Now I’m going to go back to trying to understand how nonconsensual sex can be acceptable.
That reference is there to get you thinking about what it means to alter our fundamental values, by showing an example of a human value having been altered already. It’s supposed to be abhorrent, for the same reasons that allowing the Superhappies to modify human values further would be.
FWIW, I never found the Superhappies that abhorrent. Nor did I understand what made them evil for wanting to e.g. offer the least powerful humans a way to “opt out” for a life of pleasure. Nor, especially, did I understand why we would care about altering Superhappy values, as they pertain to stuff not involving interaction with humans, to be more like human values.
I mean, sure, I guess it would be nice if Superhappies had romance and stuff among themselves, but I don’t see why it’s something humans would make major concessions to get. Mostly we’d be trying to get them to not interfere with us, so what they do among themselves (short of torture/killing, which isn’t really an issue) is between them and their god—or Dionysus, as the case may be.
Nor, especially, did I understand why we would care about altering Superhappy values, as they pertain to stuff not involving interaction with humans, to be more like human values.
That part makes more intuitive sense for the Babykillers, I think.
That is, they were defined as having the eating-of-babies as a terminal value; they wanted to maximize the amount of baby-eating in the world, regardless of who is eating the babies. So it makes sense for them to value an offer from us to eat more babies ourselves, and to accept that offer in exchange for them doing something we want.
Similarly, the humans in that story negatively valued babies being eaten, regardless of whose babies they are. That is, the idea that the babyeaters were running around eating their own babies bothered the humans. Having less baby-eating in the world is something those humans valued, and something they were willing to offer things in exchange for (or impose by force) if they could.
Offering the analogous deal to humans becomes trickier, because identifying human terminal values is tricky. I’m not convinced there’s any such thing, actually. But in the world of the story, there are such things, and they include “romance and stuff”. This is a recurring theme in EY’s writing, that humans have terminal values that can survive being optimized for.
If your willing suspension of disbelief doesn’t stretch that far, then yeah, it’s hard to get into the story.
Really? Huh. From what I remembered of the original context, it was more to do with posthuman minds being more robust and non-traumatizable, such that being raped did not have any long-term negative effects; reducing it to just another “interesting surprise” in one’s day. On that reading, I didn’t find it abhorrent.
I still wonder how that would look in practice. Do people have a right to enforce “I’m busy”? :”I prefer spending time with someone else?” “I’ve been raped four times today and I’m really busy”? What happens to celebrities?
Imagine this as a society where people are entitled to a half hour’s work on demand from anyone else they want the work from.
Imagine this as a society where people are entitled to a half hour’s work on demand from anyone else they want the work from.
Some guess cultures kind-of sort-of work like that: you don’t usually ask people favours unless you really need to, or you know they wouldn’t be inconvenienced by doing them, because then they’d feel obligated to do them for you.
...seriously? You’ve never even heard of recreational flirting? Flirting just for the fun of it?
Well then, to answer your question, I do.
Now I’m going to go back to trying to understand how nonconsensual sex can be acceptable.
edit: I should have realized someone else would have said much the same thing I did already.
That reference is there to get you thinking about what it means to alter our fundamental values, by showing an example of a human value having been altered already. It’s supposed to be abhorrent, for the same reasons that allowing the Superhappies to modify human values further would be.
FWIW, I never found the Superhappies that abhorrent. Nor did I understand what made them evil for wanting to e.g. offer the least powerful humans a way to “opt out” for a life of pleasure. Nor, especially, did I understand why we would care about altering Superhappy values, as they pertain to stuff not involving interaction with humans, to be more like human values.
I mean, sure, I guess it would be nice if Superhappies had romance and stuff among themselves, but I don’t see why it’s something humans would make major concessions to get. Mostly we’d be trying to get them to not interfere with us, so what they do among themselves (short of torture/killing, which isn’t really an issue) is between them and their god—or Dionysus, as the case may be.
That part makes more intuitive sense for the Babykillers, I think.
That is, they were defined as having the eating-of-babies as a terminal value; they wanted to maximize the amount of baby-eating in the world, regardless of who is eating the babies. So it makes sense for them to value an offer from us to eat more babies ourselves, and to accept that offer in exchange for them doing something we want.
Similarly, the humans in that story negatively valued babies being eaten, regardless of whose babies they are. That is, the idea that the babyeaters were running around eating their own babies bothered the humans. Having less baby-eating in the world is something those humans valued, and something they were willing to offer things in exchange for (or impose by force) if they could.
Offering the analogous deal to humans becomes trickier, because identifying human terminal values is tricky. I’m not convinced there’s any such thing, actually. But in the world of the story, there are such things, and they include “romance and stuff”. This is a recurring theme in EY’s writing, that humans have terminal values that can survive being optimized for.
If your willing suspension of disbelief doesn’t stretch that far, then yeah, it’s hard to get into the story.
I would want some of the untranslatables. It is so lonely in here.
Really? Huh. From what I remembered of the original context, it was more to do with posthuman minds being more robust and non-traumatizable, such that being raped did not have any long-term negative effects; reducing it to just another “interesting surprise” in one’s day. On that reading, I didn’t find it abhorrent.
I still wonder how that would look in practice. Do people have a right to enforce “I’m busy”? :”I prefer spending time with someone else?” “I’ve been raped four times today and I’m really busy”? What happens to celebrities?
Imagine this as a society where people are entitled to a half hour’s work on demand from anyone else they want the work from.
Some guess cultures kind-of sort-of work like that: you don’t usually ask people favours unless you really need to, or you know they wouldn’t be inconvenienced by doing them, because then they’d feel obligated to do them for you.