This article argues for a form of virtue ethics arising from utilitarianism—in order to be a good person, simulate an alternate self free of whatever desire is applicable, and then use them as a moral exemplar.
Really? I read it simply as as a way to combat social anxiety/decision fatigue/akrasia—object-level advice, in other words, nothing to do with ethics or meta-ethics or whatever. You seem to be reading a philosophical bent into this that I don’t think was particularly present in the actual article. Likewise with the article on Beeminder.
As for CEV and Rousseau, well, I haven’t read much Rousseau, but I sincerely doubt that he had anything close to FAI in mind when constructing his arguments regarding the “collective will of a state”. Note also that a “state”, i.e. a political body, is not at all the same as the entirety of humanity. The latter requires far more cognitive science and psychology to investigate—fields that were hardly present in Rousseau’s time, if at all. Are you sure the comparison here is valid?
Finally, on your point regarding mainstream philosophy: it seems reasonable to say that there are probably some useful insights out there in philosophy. Getting to these insights, however, often requires wading through large amounts of bad thinking and motivated cognition. The problem with philosophers is that often they are smart, but not rational. As a result, they are great at making elaborate arguments that sound convincing (and the issue is further muddled by the dense and obscure language a lot of them seem to like to use), but in fact are motivated by something other than truth-seeking, e.g. “This position seems aesthetically/morally/intuitively pleasing to me; therefore I will argue for it.” If 90% of mainstream philosophy is useless and only 10% is useful, it seems to me as though my time (and the time of fellow LW readers) could be better spent on other things.
Really? I read it simply as as a way to combat social anxiety/decision fatigue/akrasia—object-level advice, in other words, nothing to do with ethics or meta-ethics or whatever. You seem to be reading a philosophical bent into this that I don’t think was particularly present in the actual article. Likewise with the article on Beeminder.
As for CEV and Rousseau, well, I haven’t read much Rousseau, but I sincerely doubt that he had anything close to FAI in mind when constructing his arguments regarding the “collective will of a state”. Note also that a “state”, i.e. a political body, is not at all the same as the entirety of humanity. The latter requires far more cognitive science and psychology to investigate—fields that were hardly present in Rousseau’s time, if at all. Are you sure the comparison here is valid?
Finally, on your point regarding mainstream philosophy: it seems reasonable to say that there are probably some useful insights out there in philosophy. Getting to these insights, however, often requires wading through large amounts of bad thinking and motivated cognition. The problem with philosophers is that often they are smart, but not rational. As a result, they are great at making elaborate arguments that sound convincing (and the issue is further muddled by the dense and obscure language a lot of them seem to like to use), but in fact are motivated by something other than truth-seeking, e.g. “This position seems aesthetically/morally/intuitively pleasing to me; therefore I will argue for it.” If 90% of mainstream philosophy is useless and only 10% is useful, it seems to me as though my time (and the time of fellow LW readers) could be better spent on other things.