If the point is just that it would be hard to predict that people would end up liking sucralose from first principles, then fair enough.
What Yudkowsky and Soares meant was a way to satisfy instincts without increasing one’s genetic fitness. The correct analogy here is other stimuli like video games, porn, sex with contraceptives, etc.
this argument is very difficult for me. we don’t know that those things do not increase inclusive genetic fitness. for example, especially at a society level, it seems that contraceptives may increase fitness. i.e. societies with access to contraceptives outcompete societies without. i’m not certain of that claim, but it’s not absurd on its face, and so far it seems supported by evidence.
SOTA such societies include Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea where birthrates have plummeted. If the wave of AGIs and robots wasn’t imminent, one could have asked how these nations are going to sustain themselves.
Returning to video games and porn, they cause some young people to develop problematic behaviors and to devote less resources (e.g. time or attention) to things like studies, work or building relationships. Oh, and don’t forget the evolutionary mismatch and low-quality food making kids obese.
i may misunderstand. is your point that birthrates in South Korea (for example) would not have plummeted were it not for contraceptive use? this does not match my understanding of the situation.
Returning to video games and porn, they cause some young people to develop problematic behaviors and to devote less resources (e.g. time or attention) to things like studies, work or building relationships.
many (most?) of these virtues are contingent on a particular society. the same criticism (“these activities distract the youth from important virtues”) could be levied by some against military training—or, in a militaristic society, against scholastic pursuits!
i see the point you’re making, and am not at all unsympathetic to it. but evolution is complex and multi dimensional. that some people—or even some societies—have a problem with video games does not cleanly imply that video games are bad for inclusive genetic fitness.
What Yudkowsky and Soares meant was a way to satisfy instincts without increasing one’s genetic fitness. The correct analogy here is other stimuli like video games, porn, sex with contraceptives, etc.
this argument is very difficult for me. we don’t know that those things do not increase inclusive genetic fitness. for example, especially at a society level, it seems that contraceptives may increase fitness. i.e. societies with access to contraceptives outcompete societies without. i’m not certain of that claim, but it’s not absurd on its face, and so far it seems supported by evidence.
SOTA such societies include Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea where birthrates have plummeted. If the wave of AGIs and robots wasn’t imminent, one could have asked how these nations are going to sustain themselves.
Returning to video games and porn, they cause some young people to develop problematic behaviors and to devote less resources (e.g. time or attention) to things like studies, work or building relationships. Oh, and don’t forget the evolutionary mismatch and low-quality food making kids obese.
i may misunderstand. is your point that birthrates in South Korea (for example) would not have plummeted were it not for contraceptive use? this does not match my understanding of the situation.
many (most?) of these virtues are contingent on a particular society. the same criticism (“these activities distract the youth from important virtues”) could be levied by some against military training—or, in a militaristic society, against scholastic pursuits!
i see the point you’re making, and am not at all unsympathetic to it. but evolution is complex and multi dimensional. that some people—or even some societies—have a problem with video games does not cleanly imply that video games are bad for inclusive genetic fitness.