Sounds like a great rationalization for being a terrible person.
No, you are confused. “You can think of someone you’ve treated badly” fits the same role as “you have built an UFAI/created a real personality cult/been banned from some community for being unpleasant”. That is, the role of clearly undesirable thing that will nevertheless happen with a low probability that can be reduced by more extreme application of some other behavior. Not only does treating people badly remain overtly deprecated, it is the least bad of all the bad things suggested. It doesn’t result in being a terrible person and the ‘rationalization’ business is nonsense.
I was thinking about writing a long, thorough response to this comment, detailing exactly how I perceive it.
That would be a waste of time, so instead I’ll summarize: You are mostly right but not entirely. I therefore retract my downvote in spite of your shitty tone that made it harder for me to update correctly.
If a speculative idea never caused you to have a nightmare, you’re not taking ideas seriously enough.
I can’t agree enough. In fact, I might begin using this as a subtle filter for how impressed I should be with my close acquaintances’ abstract thinking.
I think the idea is that the second part is something you’d normally be expected to do (debug your FAI, think about moral philosophy, etc.), but might do too much of. So your “avoiding Russian Roulette too much” doesn’t quite work. Here’s sort of the prototypical “fun Umeshism”:
If you’ve never hit the ground while skydiving, you’re opening your parachute too early.
Fun with Umeshisms:
If you’ve never accidentally built an UFAI, you’re spending too much time debugging.
If you’ve never intentionally built an UFAI, you’re thinking too much about moral philosophy.
If you’ve never joined a cult, you’re not being credulous enough.
If you’ve never been wrongly accused of being a cult leader, you’re spending too much money on PR.
If you’ve never unintentionally created a real personality cult, you haven’t worked enough on your charisma.
If a speculative idea never caused you to have a nightmare, you’re not taking ideas seriously enough.
If you’ve never been banned from some community, you’re being too nice.
If you can’t think of anyone you’ve treated badly, you’re not having enough social interaction.
(I can’t think of any good ones myself.)
If you can’t think of anyone you’ve treated badly, you’re being too much of a pussy.
Or you’re very overconfident of your ethics.
That’s actually a good point.
Sounds like a great rationalization for being a terrible person.
No, you are confused. “You can think of someone you’ve treated badly” fits the same role as “you have built an UFAI/created a real personality cult/been banned from some community for being unpleasant”. That is, the role of clearly undesirable thing that will nevertheless happen with a low probability that can be reduced by more extreme application of some other behavior. Not only does treating people badly remain overtly deprecated, it is the least bad of all the bad things suggested. It doesn’t result in being a terrible person and the ‘rationalization’ business is nonsense.
I was thinking about writing a long, thorough response to this comment, detailing exactly how I perceive it.
That would be a waste of time, so instead I’ll summarize:
You are mostly right but not entirely. I therefore retract my downvote in spite of your shitty tone that made it harder for me to update correctly.
I can’t agree enough. In fact, I might begin using this as a subtle filter for how impressed I should be with my close acquaintances’ abstract thinking.
Heh, good list.
For people who can’t build AIs but have to deal with the AIs built by other nincompoops:
If you’ve never confused God with a demon, you’re being too cautious with your paracletics.
If you’ve never decided to just worship the Antichrist, you’re thinking too much about moral philosophy.
I’m still not quite sure I get the form of these things. Does this work:
If you’ve never shot yourself in the head, you’re avoiding Russian Roulette too much.
I think the idea is that the second part is something you’d normally be expected to do (debug your FAI, think about moral philosophy, etc.), but might do too much of. So your “avoiding Russian Roulette too much” doesn’t quite work. Here’s sort of the prototypical “fun Umeshism”: