To put it another way, what stops you from murdering somebody you dislike?
I suppose that is just a difference between us. Not a disagreement, but a difference: you are one way and I am another.
You think of disliking someone and ask, what stops you murdering them?
I think of disliking someone and ask (and only because of your question), what would start me murdering them?
Number of days since casual murder was used in a discussion on LessWrong: 0.
The (bad feeling of) fear of getting caught? The (bad feeling of) remorse from taking a human’s life?
Or do you really think you’re a Hollywood rationalist, making a cold and precise computation of negative utility as a result of your potential action, and choosing another path?
None of the above.
(BTW, the Star Trek novels, at least the ones I have read, paint a far more creditable and credible version of Vulcan rationality than the TV shows and films. Vulcans do not suppress their feelings, but master them. A tradition in the real world with multiple long pedigrees. And a shorter one.)
Like the other poster who said roughly the same thing as you, you seem entirely ignorant to the massive amount of bad feelings present in reality, and the usefulness of those feelings.
I am well aware of them. But I think people often misinterpret what they are. As I revised my original comment to say, negative feelings tell you something. What matters is to do something about it. All that stuff about negative reinforcement and feelings conceived as similar to physical forces that push you and pull you into doing stuff is fairy tales, fantasies of non-agency. (Which pop up all over the place, not just in BDSM. Strange.)
“Making someone feel bad” is even more of a fairy tale. How do you “make someone feel bad”? What will happen if you try? Here is one person’s hypothetical reaction, and here is the basic problem with the idea.
I suppose that is just a difference between us. Not a disagreement, but a difference: you are one way and I am another.
You think of disliking someone and ask, what stops you murdering them?
I think of disliking someone and ask (and only because of your question), what would start me murdering them?
I’m pretty sure HPMoR already took a dive into this point, in a manner I found sufficiently eloquent to expose the moral nihilism and/or philosophical egocentrism required for the first to occur.
Are you talking about the same things?
(If you haven’t read HPMoR, darn. I was hoping it would provide a speed boost to that line of philosophical reasoning.)
I suppose that is just a difference between us. Not a disagreement, but a difference: you are one way and I am another.
You think of disliking someone and ask, what stops you murdering them?
I think of disliking someone and ask (and only because of your question), what would start me murdering them?
Number of days since casual murder was used in a discussion on LessWrong: 0.
None of the above.
(BTW, the Star Trek novels, at least the ones I have read, paint a far more creditable and credible version of Vulcan rationality than the TV shows and films. Vulcans do not suppress their feelings, but master them. A tradition in the real world with multiple long pedigrees. And a shorter one.)
I am well aware of them. But I think people often misinterpret what they are. As I revised my original comment to say, negative feelings tell you something. What matters is to do something about it. All that stuff about negative reinforcement and feelings conceived as similar to physical forces that push you and pull you into doing stuff is fairy tales, fantasies of non-agency. (Which pop up all over the place, not just in BDSM. Strange.)
“Making someone feel bad” is even more of a fairy tale. How do you “make someone feel bad”? What will happen if you try? Here is one person’s hypothetical reaction, and here is the basic problem with the idea.
I’m pretty sure HPMoR already took a dive into this point, in a manner I found sufficiently eloquent to expose the moral nihilism and/or philosophical egocentrism required for the first to occur.
Are you talking about the same things?
(If you haven’t read HPMoR, darn. I was hoping it would provide a speed boost to that line of philosophical reasoning.)
I’ve read HPMoR, but not studied it—which chapter?
I fail to recall the specifics at the moment, but I’ll look for the passage (with better search tools) once I get home in a few hours.
Agency is the fantasy.