Part of the answer could lie into “what would someone teleported to another culture think ?” I don’t think it totally solves the question, but it’s a hint, or a part of the answer.
If you take someone from now, and he’s teleported to dark ages, with absolute monarchy, serfdom, capital punishment with the most horrible ways of killing, torture, … he will be horrified.
If you take someone from the dark ages and teleport him now, he’ll probably be very lost at first, but I don’t think he would be horrified by the fact we manage to take more-or-less reasonable decisions using democracy (at least as reasonable at what the kings used to do), that the society doesn’t collapse into crime and chaos when we suppress death penalty, serfdom, torture, …
Many people who, in the past, advocated the use of what we now consider barbaric (torture, death penalty, dictatorship, …) did it saying “there is no alternative”, “if we don’t maintain order, it’ll be chaos and everyone will murder each other”, “if you don’t have a king, no decision will be taken”, …
The same applies to points which are debated right now in western societies, like “painless” death penalty, or corporal punishment in education. People who are against them are horrified by them, people who are in favor are more arguing “we need them”.
And it also applies things like prison, which are almost consensual right now. I find very few people around me who justify prison for the sake of it, but only because we need it to prevent/deter crime. So when we’ll find a way to do without prison (or using it much less), by finding alternatives (using technology like electronic monitoring, societal evolution, better understanding of psychology and sociology, …) people in the future will be outraged thinking how we locked people away for so long, while we, if teleported in that future, would be confused on how they manage to keep society from chaos without prison, but not outraged of it.
That gives a general direction of “ethical progress”, which is (to a point) universal to all humans. But it’s just a hint to a real theory of moral progress (I didn’t read yet the following posts, nor took months formalizing it).
...the fact we manage to take more-or-less reasonable decisions using democracy (at least as reasonable at what the kings used to do), that the society doesn’t collapse into crime and chaos when we suppress death penalty, serfdom, torture, …
Recently, it has been quite fashionable on LW to profoundly disagree with all of those points. At the very least, someone’s going to say that, when an attempt to suppress slavery was made, the US society did for a while collapse into chaos unheard of before or since.
Speaking quite frankly (and in purple prose), though, there are few other things in the realm of the mind I’d desire right now than to be able to trust securely in all those points, and rest well, knowing that the job of SIAI and partly LW is simply to fight our way upwards before the sky comes crashing down—not also to run as fast as possible from the eldritch monster born of our own shadow!
Temporary chaos frequently happen when changes are made—but that’s not what I was referring to. The issue of “will chaos occur when moving from slavery to no slavery” is a different issue than “would a society without slavery be more chaotic”. That can justify inertia (keeping things as they are), but is not in itself an argument for or against slavery (or anything else).
And that fact that despite that inertia we still see things like torture or slavery mostly disappearing is a good indicator or moral progress.
Eh, I’m just not the go-to guy here. You should try talking to people like:
sam0345 (low-level combat tutorial)
TGGP (online co-op mode)
Aurini (MEDIUM) - and he might end up just opening the gate and letting you pass if you look like enough of a bro—has recently been witnessed in a brawl against a pick-up raid. Pick-up, get it? Get it? Eh heh!
Konkivistador (HARD)
steven0461 (BONUS CONTENT; need the Meta^2-Contrarian Edition DLC to unlock—BUY NOW for only LW$ 5499)
Test your mind, Test your mind,
Test your mind, Test your mind.
MORAL KOMBAT!
FIGHT!
MORAL KOMBAT!
EXCELLENT!
Konkvistador, TGGP, Roko, Will_Newsome,
steven, cousin_it, Vladimir.
MORAL KOMBAT!
FIGHT!
MORAL KOMBAT!
Konkvistador, TGGP, Roko, Will_Newsome,
steven, cousin_it, Vladimir.
MORAL KOMBAT!
(Modus ponens!)
(Ceteris paribus)
(Aumann's agreement)
(Excellent!)
FIGHT!
Test your mind, Test your mind.
Konkvistador, TGGP, Roko, Will_Newsome,
steven, cousin_it, Vladimir.
MORAL KOMBAT!
FIGHT!
MORAL KOMBAT! [4x]
Since I’m apparently a stepping stone on the path to the Final Boss of the contrarian Internet, I wonder what my fatality is.
So, we have an agreement that outright flattering each other in the future shall be reprociated with positive karma loops, as long as it’s done in a sufficiently nerdy manner? C’mon, bro, just say yeah!
We are glad to announce an upcoming full-fledged expansion pack: ‘The Twisting Way’
Engage the enigmatic genius Will_Newsome and rescue Lady AspiringKnitter from his unspeakable experiments; survive the shamanistic Rites of Hanson (not for the sake of survival!); endure stigma and uproar as you optimize your threads for the gaze of the feared Outsiders; boldly embark upon the Doomed Quest for Mencius’ Magnificient Monocle, and more!
I like the criteria above. If people on one side are arguing that x is “necessary” and people on the other are arguing that x is “horrible”, then it should be clear that x is horrible and something should be done about it. (make x less horrible, find an alternative to x, remove whatever makes x necessary)
Applies well to things like medical testing on animals, prisons, and death.
This is interesting. I was going to offer what I thought were counterexamples, such as abortion, masturbation, and drug use, but now I’m not so sure.
For one thing, the “something” that should be done might simply be to prevent anyone from feeling horror (such as for masturbation) and for another it seems that there should be ways to mitigate the negative consequences of ‘horrible’ things (such as for abortion, by transferring an unwanted fetus to an artificial womb for adoption, or deliberately mitigating the unwanted side effects of drugs).
Part of the answer could lie into “what would someone teleported to another culture think ?” I don’t think it totally solves the question, but it’s a hint, or a part of the answer.
If you take someone from now, and he’s teleported to dark ages, with absolute monarchy, serfdom, capital punishment with the most horrible ways of killing, torture, … he will be horrified.
If you take someone from the dark ages and teleport him now, he’ll probably be very lost at first, but I don’t think he would be horrified by the fact we manage to take more-or-less reasonable decisions using democracy (at least as reasonable at what the kings used to do), that the society doesn’t collapse into crime and chaos when we suppress death penalty, serfdom, torture, …
Many people who, in the past, advocated the use of what we now consider barbaric (torture, death penalty, dictatorship, …) did it saying “there is no alternative”, “if we don’t maintain order, it’ll be chaos and everyone will murder each other”, “if you don’t have a king, no decision will be taken”, …
The same applies to points which are debated right now in western societies, like “painless” death penalty, or corporal punishment in education. People who are against them are horrified by them, people who are in favor are more arguing “we need them”.
And it also applies things like prison, which are almost consensual right now. I find very few people around me who justify prison for the sake of it, but only because we need it to prevent/deter crime. So when we’ll find a way to do without prison (or using it much less), by finding alternatives (using technology like electronic monitoring, societal evolution, better understanding of psychology and sociology, …) people in the future will be outraged thinking how we locked people away for so long, while we, if teleported in that future, would be confused on how they manage to keep society from chaos without prison, but not outraged of it.
That gives a general direction of “ethical progress”, which is (to a point) universal to all humans. But it’s just a hint to a real theory of moral progress (I didn’t read yet the following posts, nor took months formalizing it).
Recently, it has been quite fashionable on LW to profoundly disagree with all of those points. At the very least, someone’s going to say that, when an attempt to suppress slavery was made, the US society did for a while collapse into chaos unheard of before or since.
Speaking quite frankly (and in purple prose), though, there are few other things in the realm of the mind I’d desire right now than to be able to trust securely in all those points, and rest well, knowing that the job of SIAI and partly LW is simply to fight our way upwards before the sky comes crashing down—not also to run as fast as possible from the eldritch monster born of our own shadow!
Temporary chaos frequently happen when changes are made—but that’s not what I was referring to. The issue of “will chaos occur when moving from slavery to no slavery” is a different issue than “would a society without slavery be more chaotic”. That can justify inertia (keeping things as they are), but is not in itself an argument for or against slavery (or anything else).
And that fact that despite that inertia we still see things like torture or slavery mostly disappearing is a good indicator or moral progress.
Eh, I’m just not the go-to guy here. You should try talking to people like:
sam0345 (low-level combat tutorial)
TGGP (online co-op mode)
Aurini (MEDIUM) - and he might end up just opening the gate and letting you pass if you look like enough of a bro—has recently been witnessed in a brawl against a pick-up raid. Pick-up, get it? Get it? Eh heh!
Konkivistador (HARD)
steven0461 (BONUS CONTENT; need the Meta^2-Contrarian Edition DLC to unlock—BUY NOW for only LW$ 5499)
Vladimir_M (VERY HARD)
??? (IMPOSSIBLE)
MORAL KOMBAT!
Edit: Lyrics need to be included obviously:
Since I’m apparently a stepping stone on the path to the Final Boss of the contrarian Internet, I wonder what my fatality is.
So, we have an agreement that outright flattering each other in the future shall be reprociated with positive karma loops, as long as it’s done in a sufficiently nerdy manner? C’mon, bro, just say yeah!
Past behaviour is an excellent predictor of future behaviour. Nerdy flattery and humour seem to be consistently rewarded on LessWrong.
:reads the edit:
Now you’re just adding insult to injury, except that “injury” is “awesomeness” and “insult” is “nostalgia”.
We are glad to announce an upcoming full-fledged expansion pack: ‘The Twisting Way’
Engage the enigmatic genius Will_Newsome and rescue Lady AspiringKnitter from his unspeakable experiments; survive the shamanistic Rites of Hanson (not for the sake of survival!); endure stigma and uproar as you optimize your threads for the gaze of the feared Outsiders; boldly embark upon the Doomed Quest for Mencius’ Magnificient Monocle, and more!
I like the criteria above. If people on one side are arguing that x is “necessary” and people on the other are arguing that x is “horrible”, then it should be clear that x is horrible and something should be done about it. (make x less horrible, find an alternative to x, remove whatever makes x necessary)
Applies well to things like medical testing on animals, prisons, and death.
This is interesting. I was going to offer what I thought were counterexamples, such as abortion, masturbation, and drug use, but now I’m not so sure.
For one thing, the “something” that should be done might simply be to prevent anyone from feeling horror (such as for masturbation) and for another it seems that there should be ways to mitigate the negative consequences of ‘horrible’ things (such as for abortion, by transferring an unwanted fetus to an artificial womb for adoption, or deliberately mitigating the unwanted side effects of drugs).
Seems like there are more such people than we’d expect. (Are you in Europe too?)