I genuinely do not understand people who no longer recognise violence when the violence is wielded legally by authority figures. A cop shooting someone may act legally; he may even act morally; but that doesn’t stop it from being violent. Even if the end is a good one, this does not undo the violence. The person shot is no less dead as a result. This is the whole reason we speak of the state having a monopoly on violence.
And yes, it is common to say “I do not support violence” and “violence does not fix anything” while still saying that having police with guns, and a military with nukes, is a good idea. This being common does not mean it is correct or reasonable. It just means that our governments have managed to convince people that there is something fundamentally different about being killed by a citizen authorised by your government vs killed by a non-authorised citizen, to a degree where you cannot even use the same words. This would imply that the US bombing Vietnam was “non-violent”. Heck, even much simpler examples like Breonna Taylor being surprise shot by cops in her fucking bed after having done nothing should drive home just how strange this distinction is; she had no idea who was shooting her, or why. Or in scenarios like the recent ones in Lützerath, where the state decides to disown some humans in order to destroy their churches and farms to dig up coal, which was not needed, and argues it can, because coal is for the common good, despite scientists saying that it really isn’t and violates the 1,5 degree target and burns our future, but hey, legally, coal is codified as being for the common good, and some of the residents refused to leave, and got taken out by armed cops, and the residents defending their homes and trying to stop them from being torn up for fossil fuels was framed as the residents being violent, while the cops beating them and kicking them on the ground and cutting trees they were on were not.
And the fact that is legal does not at all ensure that the end is a good one; confusing legal for moral is dangerous. It makes people tolerate things that are irrational and evil because they are lawful. And avoid things which are necessary and moral because they are not. It is a mindset that has led to absolute horror. (Think “Banality of evil”). I’m German, and have spent time in countries like Iran and South Africa, so my particular historical background has strongly affected the fact that I do not find something being legal inherently reassuring.
I find this inability to recognise violence if state-wielded especially baffling if the same people do recognise violence as violence when it is used for a good cause, but illegally and not by authority figures.
And it is troubling that people have a tendency to believe that violence does not ever work, and is never necessary, and was not historically used in civil rights groups or by their shadow wings, even when the evidence does not support this at all. I’ve talked to people who genuinely seem to believe that people of color and women and queer people and colonies got the rights they have today without ever having used violence. People commemorate pride, apparently under the impression that the first pride was a bunch of happy peaceful queers with rainbow flags on company trucks with rainbow cops. There is also a weird historical division here: There are people who applaud those who tried to assassinate Hitler, but think assassinating Putin would be horrible. I’ve wondered whether these “civil rights movements were King and Ghandi and that is literally it” teachings are intentionally misleading.
There are situations that warrant violence. (Genuine self defence.) It doesn’t always work; it very often does not actually. It can even be counter-productive, and is mostly not worth it. It isn’t always appropriate. It has a bitter cost that you cannot undo. It should always be a last resort. There is currently no political cause where I have personally even seriously considered using violence. But there are situations where violence is necessary and effective. If we did not honestly think so, we would have no militaries, and our cops would have no guns.
I do not think we ought to, or will, bomb data centers in Silicon Valley, China, or Russia. I wouldn’t, even if my government told me it is fine and in fact great if I do so and there was a great legal framework that would limit the violence to just that. So I am also not going to tell my country to do it for me; that doesn’t make it less bad, just because it is not my hand on the trigger. This is effectively why I did not sign any of these letters; if we do not enforce this treaty, the only people who hold to it will be the most ethical actors most likely to produce aligned AI, while the others forge ahead, and I do not like that outcome.
But if you do support such an international treaty, and you want it to actually work, then you support violent enforcement if diplomacy and appealing to joint interest fails. I am hence highly sympathetic to Eliezer not mincing words here.
Related: I am similarly deeply unsympathetic to people who eat meat, but refuse to slaughter animals themselves, and avoid any imagery of how these animals are raised, and like their meat to be packaged in a way where they can no longer identify it as a former sentient being at all. If you can’t bear these things, your diet (behaviour) is dependent on hiding reality from yourself, and that should really worry you, especially as a rational person.
- If you are downvoting me, I am curious. Is your distinction of state-sanctioned violence vs violence that is not state-sanctioned genuinely the result of rational reflection? Did you used to think they were the same, but then thought deeply about it, and changed your mind and decided they are so radically different we should use different words? Or is it something you have always believed, and that coincidentally, your teachers have always told you, too? Including that it is your duty to immediately and strongly reject it being questioned?
I downvoted because of the assumption that people aren’t ‘recognizing’ violence, which I don’t see any evidence of (i.e. the OP goes out of it’s way to recognize violence)
(I have more thoughts/disagreements with other portions of that. But it sort of mostly felt to me like this comment was you arguing a set of things that are important to you, that sound sort of like you’re disagreeing with the OP or other people who’ve endorsed it. But it seems to be missing the point of the OP and not really arguing against things people actually said or suggested)
I genuinely do not understand people who no longer recognise violence when the violence is wielded legally by authority figures. A cop shooting someone may act legally; he may even act morally; but that doesn’t stop it from being violent. Even if the end is a good one, this does not undo the violence. The person shot is no less dead as a result. This is the whole reason we speak of the state having a monopoly on violence.
And yes, it is common to say “I do not support violence” and “violence does not fix anything” while still saying that having police with guns, and a military with nukes, is a good idea. This being common does not mean it is correct or reasonable. It just means that our governments have managed to convince people that there is something fundamentally different about being killed by a citizen authorised by your government vs killed by a non-authorised citizen, to a degree where you cannot even use the same words. This would imply that the US bombing Vietnam was “non-violent”. Heck, even much simpler examples like Breonna Taylor being surprise shot by cops in her fucking bed after having done nothing should drive home just how strange this distinction is; she had no idea who was shooting her, or why. Or in scenarios like the recent ones in Lützerath, where the state decides to disown some humans in order to destroy their churches and farms to dig up coal, which was not needed, and argues it can, because coal is for the common good, despite scientists saying that it really isn’t and violates the 1,5 degree target and burns our future, but hey, legally, coal is codified as being for the common good, and some of the residents refused to leave, and got taken out by armed cops, and the residents defending their homes and trying to stop them from being torn up for fossil fuels was framed as the residents being violent, while the cops beating them and kicking them on the ground and cutting trees they were on were not.
And the fact that is legal does not at all ensure that the end is a good one; confusing legal for moral is dangerous. It makes people tolerate things that are irrational and evil because they are lawful. And avoid things which are necessary and moral because they are not. It is a mindset that has led to absolute horror. (Think “Banality of evil”). I’m German, and have spent time in countries like Iran and South Africa, so my particular historical background has strongly affected the fact that I do not find something being legal inherently reassuring.
I find this inability to recognise violence if state-wielded especially baffling if the same people do recognise violence as violence when it is used for a good cause, but illegally and not by authority figures.
And it is troubling that people have a tendency to believe that violence does not ever work, and is never necessary, and was not historically used in civil rights groups or by their shadow wings, even when the evidence does not support this at all. I’ve talked to people who genuinely seem to believe that people of color and women and queer people and colonies got the rights they have today without ever having used violence. People commemorate pride, apparently under the impression that the first pride was a bunch of happy peaceful queers with rainbow flags on company trucks with rainbow cops. There is also a weird historical division here: There are people who applaud those who tried to assassinate Hitler, but think assassinating Putin would be horrible. I’ve wondered whether these “civil rights movements were King and Ghandi and that is literally it” teachings are intentionally misleading.
There are situations that warrant violence. (Genuine self defence.) It doesn’t always work; it very often does not actually. It can even be counter-productive, and is mostly not worth it. It isn’t always appropriate. It has a bitter cost that you cannot undo. It should always be a last resort. There is currently no political cause where I have personally even seriously considered using violence. But there are situations where violence is necessary and effective. If we did not honestly think so, we would have no militaries, and our cops would have no guns.
I do not think we ought to, or will, bomb data centers in Silicon Valley, China, or Russia. I wouldn’t, even if my government told me it is fine and in fact great if I do so and there was a great legal framework that would limit the violence to just that. So I am also not going to tell my country to do it for me; that doesn’t make it less bad, just because it is not my hand on the trigger. This is effectively why I did not sign any of these letters; if we do not enforce this treaty, the only people who hold to it will be the most ethical actors most likely to produce aligned AI, while the others forge ahead, and I do not like that outcome.
But if you do support such an international treaty, and you want it to actually work, then you support violent enforcement if diplomacy and appealing to joint interest fails. I am hence highly sympathetic to Eliezer not mincing words here.
Related: I am similarly deeply unsympathetic to people who eat meat, but refuse to slaughter animals themselves, and avoid any imagery of how these animals are raised, and like their meat to be packaged in a way where they can no longer identify it as a former sentient being at all. If you can’t bear these things, your diet (behaviour) is dependent on hiding reality from yourself, and that should really worry you, especially as a rational person.
- If you are downvoting me, I am curious. Is your distinction of state-sanctioned violence vs violence that is not state-sanctioned genuinely the result of rational reflection? Did you used to think they were the same, but then thought deeply about it, and changed your mind and decided they are so radically different we should use different words? Or is it something you have always believed, and that coincidentally, your teachers have always told you, too? Including that it is your duty to immediately and strongly reject it being questioned?
I downvoted because of the assumption that people aren’t ‘recognizing’ violence, which I don’t see any evidence of (i.e. the OP goes out of it’s way to recognize violence)
(I have more thoughts/disagreements with other portions of that. But it sort of mostly felt to me like this comment was you arguing a set of things that are important to you, that sound sort of like you’re disagreeing with the OP or other people who’ve endorsed it. But it seems to be missing the point of the OP and not really arguing against things people actually said or suggested)