I value that not everyone is like me. I am better than some people at some things and I like that. If I practice or try harder and achieve more than others that also makes me feel good. I enjoy playing games in which winning means others must lose and vice versa.
CEV questions:
Would I change my values if I knew more?
If yes, then I have the wrong values now?
If no, but I want others to be happy as well, what then?
Trans-humanism questions:
Does trans-humanism end up just making everyone the same person?
Will there be no diversity?
Will everyone be just as good as everyone else?
Will everyone be smart as the latest patch, everyone strong as the latest hardware?
For some reason I am not satisfied in this future – where everyone can bypass what they were by chance given, and is now hyper attractive and intelligent, yet I recognize that it would be a cruel world if we couldn’t achieve such.
...are just a proxy for “Should I think this is morally wrong on my own terms?”—I don’t think invoking CEV helps on this.
I am better than some people at some things and I like that. If I practice or try harder and achieve more than others that also makes me feel good. I enjoy playing games in which winning means others must lose and vice versa.
And because you also will that these things should continue into the future of the galaxies, even to the children’s children, therefore, you are of the Competitive Conspiracy and its secrets will be made yours.
where everyone can bypass what they were by chance given
Doesn’t imply everyone is equal in all respects. If you can get better at anything by practicing, screw talent, it doesn’t mean everyone has to spend the same amount of time practicing the same things.
If you demand that you be more formidable than some others in all respects so that they lose at the very game of life, then this I may dispute, but this the Competitive Conspiracy does not hold as an ideal. Though there may be some within the Erotic Conspiracy who would endorse that their masters be truly higher than them at any given point in time.
I think it’s very likely, for the same reasons why boredom is an important human value, that humans value that kind of diversity enough to make it into CEV (or whatever the actual morality function is).
I enjoy playing games in which winning means others must lose and vice versa.
Gamblers fallacy helps us out here. If winning is more memorable than losing everyone can win sometimes/in some activities and everyone is happy. Also, I wouldn’t play a sport in which I always won.
Would I change my values if I knew more? If yes, then I have the wrong values now? If no, but I want others to be happy as well, what then?
I find these particular questions quite hard to think about, so I’ll just mention these few thoughts:
There is a huge difference between wanting to win, and wanting others to lose. Not everyone will be on the same wavelength, but if they’re mostly on the first wavelength, it creates an atmosphere of friendly competition / self-betterment, whereas wanting others to lose looks like academia (bitter competition / self-aggrandizement). In the former, you can lose thoroughly and still get satisfaction out of your participation, so I don’t hesitate to say that updating in this direction promotes a better social environment for every individual. Perhaps this somewhat answers your third question.
There’s almost certainly value in limiting competition size. Losing with a thousand others placing ahead of you is much less motivating than losing with 50 others placing ahead of you. (it’s not clear to me what exactly you meant by ‘games’ here—the most general sense?). So if your
Many games can also be played with a focus on beating yourself rather than your competitors. Having the mental resolve to do this consistently is relatively rare, but AFAICS this is a strict win (both in satisfaction/motivation levels and quality of results) over merely beating your competitors. Updating in this direction should make you more friendly in competition, more effective, and less vulnerable to temporary setbacks. And also more able to continue improving even if you are ranked at the top.
Will everyone be just as good as everyone else? Will everyone be smart as the latest patch, everyone strong as the latest hardware?
I think if you look at the wild variety of Linux distributions, that effectively answers these questions, assuming you believe that open-sourcing this stuff will be mandatory (I think it must be, in order to avoid social chaos and oppression, but I don’t know if it will be). Perfection is highly subjective/contextual, and even transhumanists have limited resources to allocate.
There’s also a pretty strong argument to be made that once we can ‘reallocate’ resources like intelligence, physical/visual attributes, health factors, that attractiveness / fitness will become ever more subjective, Basically arising from the same fact, that resources are still limited and ‘perfection’ is highly subject to context.
Is your projected self unhappy because this individuation of what is attractive/fit/winning effectively divides society up into hundreds of thousands of sub-sub-sub-subcultures, and we presumably become more blase about differences but simultaneously more clique-ish / narrowly focused / echo-chamber-ish?
Now I want to read some fiction discussing these topics :)
Only if for some reason we all end up with identical values. I find that to be extremely unlikely (and undesirable). People will have personal preferences, and will self-modify and self-optimize to suit those preferences. For example, some people might want gills to live underwater or something. Most won’t.
I value that not everyone is like me. I am better than some people at some things and I like that. If I practice or try harder and achieve more than others that also makes me feel good. I enjoy playing games in which winning means others must lose and vice versa.
CEV questions:
Would I change my values if I knew more? If yes, then I have the wrong values now? If no, but I want others to be happy as well, what then?
Trans-humanism questions:
Does trans-humanism end up just making everyone the same person? Will there be no diversity? Will everyone be just as good as everyone else? Will everyone be smart as the latest patch, everyone strong as the latest hardware?
For some reason I am not satisfied in this future – where everyone can bypass what they were by chance given, and is now hyper attractive and intelligent, yet I recognize that it would be a cruel world if we couldn’t achieve such.
...are just a proxy for “Should I think this is morally wrong on my own terms?”—I don’t think invoking CEV helps on this.
And because you also will that these things should continue into the future of the galaxies, even to the children’s children, therefore, you are of the Competitive Conspiracy and its secrets will be made yours.
Doesn’t imply everyone is equal in all respects. If you can get better at anything by practicing, screw talent, it doesn’t mean everyone has to spend the same amount of time practicing the same things.
If you demand that you be more formidable than some others in all respects so that they lose at the very game of life, then this I may dispute, but this the Competitive Conspiracy does not hold as an ideal. Though there may be some within the Erotic Conspiracy who would endorse that their masters be truly higher than them at any given point in time.
I think it’s very likely, for the same reasons why boredom is an important human value, that humans value that kind of diversity enough to make it into CEV (or whatever the actual morality function is).
Gamblers fallacy helps us out here. If winning is more memorable than losing everyone can win sometimes/in some activities and everyone is happy. Also, I wouldn’t play a sport in which I always won.
I find these particular questions quite hard to think about, so I’ll just mention these few thoughts:
There is a huge difference between wanting to win, and wanting others to lose. Not everyone will be on the same wavelength, but if they’re mostly on the first wavelength, it creates an atmosphere of friendly competition / self-betterment, whereas wanting others to lose looks like academia (bitter competition / self-aggrandizement). In the former, you can lose thoroughly and still get satisfaction out of your participation, so I don’t hesitate to say that updating in this direction promotes a better social environment for every individual. Perhaps this somewhat answers your third question.
There’s almost certainly value in limiting competition size. Losing with a thousand others placing ahead of you is much less motivating than losing with 50 others placing ahead of you. (it’s not clear to me what exactly you meant by ‘games’ here—the most general sense?). So if your
Many games can also be played with a focus on beating yourself rather than your competitors. Having the mental resolve to do this consistently is relatively rare, but AFAICS this is a strict win (both in satisfaction/motivation levels and quality of results) over merely beating your competitors. Updating in this direction should make you more friendly in competition, more effective, and less vulnerable to temporary setbacks. And also more able to continue improving even if you are ranked at the top.
I think if you look at the wild variety of Linux distributions, that effectively answers these questions, assuming you believe that open-sourcing this stuff will be mandatory (I think it must be, in order to avoid social chaos and oppression, but I don’t know if it will be). Perfection is highly subjective/contextual, and even transhumanists have limited resources to allocate.
There’s also a pretty strong argument to be made that once we can ‘reallocate’ resources like intelligence, physical/visual attributes, health factors, that attractiveness / fitness will become ever more subjective, Basically arising from the same fact, that resources are still limited and ‘perfection’ is highly subject to context.
Is your projected self unhappy because this individuation of what is attractive/fit/winning effectively divides society up into hundreds of thousands of sub-sub-sub-subcultures, and we presumably become more blase about differences but simultaneously more clique-ish / narrowly focused / echo-chamber-ish?
Now I want to read some fiction discussing these topics :)
Only if for some reason we all end up with identical values. I find that to be extremely unlikely (and undesirable). People will have personal preferences, and will self-modify and self-optimize to suit those preferences. For example, some people might want gills to live underwater or something. Most won’t.
I’d actually expect more diversity, assuming no disaster.