The further point, which I think Eliezer’s fun theory, as written, kind of elides, is that we also need limits and pain for the conflict to matter.
I think Eliezer writing says this sort of thing pretty explicitly? (Like, in Three Worlds Collide, the “bad” ending was the one where humans removed all conflict, romantic struggle, and similar types of pain that seem like the sort of thing you’re talking about here)
If the tenets of agonism are correct, however, any solution geared towards “efficiently resolving conflict” is destructive of human value
I assume this will come up later in your sequence, but, as stated this seems way too strong. (I can totally buy that there are qualities of conflict resolution that would be bad to abstract away, but, as stated this is an argument against democracy, markets, mediation, norms for negotiation, etc. Do you actually believe those are destructive of human value and we should be, like, waging war instead of talking? Or do you mean something else here)
I agree that Eliezer has made different points different places, and don’t think that the Fun Theory series makes this clear, and CEV as described seems to not say it. (I can’t try to resolve all the internal tensions between the multiple bookshelves woth of content he’s produced, so I referred to “fun theory, as written.”)
And I certainly don’t think conflict as such is good! (I’ve written about the benefits of avoiding conflict at some length on my substack about cooperation.) My point here was subtly different, and more specific to CEV; I think that solutions for eliminating conflict which route around humans themselves solving the problems might be fundamentally destructive of our values.
I think Eliezer writing says this sort of thing pretty explicitly? (Like, in Three Worlds Collide, the “bad” ending was the one where humans removed all conflict, romantic struggle, and similar types of pain that seem like the sort of thing you’re talking about here)
I assume this will come up later in your sequence, but, as stated this seems way too strong. (I can totally buy that there are qualities of conflict resolution that would be bad to abstract away, but, as stated this is an argument against democracy, markets, mediation, norms for negotiation, etc. Do you actually believe those are destructive of human value and we should be, like, waging war instead of talking? Or do you mean something else here)
I agree that Eliezer has made different points different places, and don’t think that the Fun Theory series makes this clear, and CEV as described seems to not say it. (I can’t try to resolve all the internal tensions between the multiple bookshelves woth of content he’s produced, so I referred to “fun theory, as written.”)
And I certainly don’t think conflict as such is good! (I’ve written about the benefits of avoiding conflict at some length on my substack about cooperation.) My point here was subtly different, and more specific to CEV; I think that solutions for eliminating conflict which route around humans themselves solving the problems might be fundamentally destructive of our values.