“It would be a good idea to invite those with ideas deviant from the lesswrong orthodoxy to out themselves by posting their heretical thoughts in public so we may excise them later” 😈
For those unable to recognise jokes in text form (a lot of us), this is a joke.
I like this, well written sir. it feels very similar to my position. I’ve made no claims of convergence like you have but I could certainly see myself agreeing. I need to think on it.
Thats funny, I would not consider them similar, what lead you to that feeling? Am I missing an interpretation?
Mine is a definition of what morality is plus a way of determining the merits of a moral system if you accept my definition.
Horosphere is making the claim that morality is objective, by which I assume he means that there are things that are universally good vs universally bad in such a way that a mind is uneeded to judge goodness or badness.
I’m interested in what you mean by reasonable definitions.
Also, you’ve basically said “Morality is objective” but with hedging, do you agree? Your position is reasonable and held by many.
I’m however separating what morality is, from what a particular moral system classifies as good or bad. Distinguishing the classifier from the output. I would say our statements are fundamentally incompatible rather than strictly opposite.
Made me laugh :D. I do agree with “a belief in positive communal response to earnestness is important for any truth-seeking group”, sadly I don’t believe that standard is achieved even here in the lofty heights of less wrong, where at least we try.
but “This state of affairs is non-problematic” is an issue, if this post got no comments, that means that less wrong is a total monolith where everyone thinks the same, that’s not good for truth seeking.
Separate them out lol, that way I can more clearly disagree with one of your statements while agreeing with the other ;). Well i mean, i disagree with both :D
One of my particular moral rules is “It is good to intervene in the world to move it towards a state your morality would approve of”
The intuition pump is:
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You live next door to a couple. In their moral framework, a husband has the right and duty to discipline his wife physically. She agrees, it’s how she was raised, it’s what she believes is proper. You are fully aware that this is their moral framework and they are aware of your moral framework, you have common knowledge.
You hear him beating her through the wall.
Your morality says this is wrong. Theirs says it’s right. Neither of you can appeal to a universal referee or the police, there isn’t one in this hypothetical scenario.
Do you intervene?
(This doesn’t have to be fully getting into a punch up, it could be moseying on over there and having a wee chat about it. It could be threatening to withhold favours in future like helping him install a retaining wall or some such, idk. the point is would you act against what they think is right because of what you think is right?)
″
The full argument might be summed up as “I don’t claim cosmic authority, I claim my judgment, I act on it, and reality is the referee” Outcome is everything.
“Morality is a constructed / evolved coordination technology, and we can evaluate specific implementations by how well they achieve the coordination function.”
That is such a good post! Thank you.
Im pretty sure that this “Get a solid system of land titles” basically amounts to becoming the government.
Yeah there’s a few uncomfortable truths hidden in “asking what we want collectively” that mean that that question can’t be answered. Such as different groups wanting mutually exclusive things and who exactly “we” is.
Easy enough, pick a set of moral rules you like the best, and then work towards that AI winning. Who gets to set the tone while such a thing is possible? Amodei, Musk, Altman, Pichai, Xi?
My current vote is Amodei.
I laughed so hard through most of this, good writing!
My concern is that you are not being careful enough with your words to ensure the reader picks up what your trying to communicate.
For example, “I don’t believe that empathy is the sole cause” shortly followed by “it is the root”. Those are contradictory statements. Perhaps you could have said “it is one of the roots of tribe formation”
I honestly also do not understand what you mean by “emotional concern”. Are you saying that someone “has a preference for others to be well, but only if they are in their in-group”?
Your essay blends definitions a little, run it through an AI for specific instances, the three majors are:
Your stipulated definition, “small-scale emotional kindness toward a few people” as the basis for tribal loyalty.
The common usage definition, “concern for others’ suffering”, as what people complain politicians “lack”.
The psychological definition, “The ability to: Understand/recognize others’ emotional states (cognitive empathy) and also share or mirror those emotional states (affective / compassionate empathy)” as the opposite of psychopathy.
I think you have a good point that extreme political polarization is bad and is caused by tribalism. I feel cautious about making empathy the main villain in this, for example I would argue that empathy, in the psychological definition is a near universal human trait. Are their societies without extreme political polarization, maybe Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden or Japan? If so that’s counter evidence.
Don’t get me wrong, I have my own bone to pick with empathy being used as a basis for your politics, it does feel like a sort of emotion that works well at close-range but starts to generate stupidity when applied to animals / plants / rocks / cartoon characters / imaginary friends etc.
“But man, that motivated reasoning sure does not seem very socially-oriented?” I mean add in a internal family systems model of the brain and suddenly it make perfect sense for one part of your brain to recruit the logic center to convince the rest.
I once attended an event run by and for the lowest of the lower class. It was absolutely horrifying. I cannot begin to describe to you how much of a culture shock it was to me. Attitudes and actions from 70 years ago, along with fragrant flouting of good sense, basic hygiene practises and law.
I also love humanity, but recognise the vast majority of us as mentally developed as young children, its hard to develop if no one around you is a good example and there is no incentive. I feel through that framing you can feel positively toward them, but without it I’m not so sure.
If you don’t go to that sports bar, you will remain a “tiniest baby tree frog”, go, learn, grow.
I’d probably say not to worry too much. I think that the question isn’t whether public posting creates additional risk, it’s whether that marginal risk matters given the baseline risk.
If there is a super persuader around, it has many avenues of attack, such as a $5 wrench in the hands of a more gullible person.
I think that “deep nonconsent preference”, is messy, not as compact as it could be. I think a better explanation is that women select for men who could protect them (Not exclusively of course), and an important part of protecting is the capacity for violence, decisiveness, initiative-taking, and being comfortable with tension. These traits match up with your observations.
Running an encounter with a mindset of “deep nonconsent preference” could look the same as one with a “deep demonstrated capacity to protect preference” mindset, but has an important failure case if, as it turns out, she wasn’t actually interested in you.
Steamrolling over consent issues is certainty one way to demonstrate “capacity to protect”, but its rather risky and there are other better ways to indicate your fitness.
Legal ≠ consequence-free. Yes, reporting police locations is legal—Waze does it daily. But there’s a relevant difference between “drivers avoiding speed traps” and “people with deportation orders evading enforcement.”
The app is multi-use. Potential users:
1. Researchers wanting data on enforcement patterns
2. Legal residents avoiding hassle/intimidation
3. People with deportation orders evading enforcement
4. People actively helping category 3 evade enforcement
The developer can’t control which use case dominates. But category 3 and 4 users have the strongest incentive to use and contribute to the app—they’re the ones with real stakes. Selection effects mean they’ll likely dominate the user base.
I’m not claiming the app is illegal. I’m saying “it’s legal” doesn’t fully address whether AWS made a reasonable judgment call about what they want to host. Those are different questions.
Hey fair enough, no argument if you find it useful. I dont really see much of a distinction
Morality usually refers to what i would call a particular moral system, a set of first order normative commitments, what you actually believe is right / wrong or good / bad. It’s the object level rules “killing is bad,” “honesty is good.”
Ethics is in common parlance the “study” or “science” of figuring out the deeper reason something is right or wrong. Unfortunately in my model that boils down to “large groups of people think it is good or bad, right or wrong”. Hey all of the wrong models have to live somewhere!
Im still thankful to the philosophers who study ethics, it’s a wonderful thing to try to get to the roots of things and I wouldn’t have been able to understand without reading their work.