Re: ExI principles: people left behind?

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 04:40:32 MDT

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    On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 05:03:09AM -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
    >
    > Ah Anders, you raise a host of issues -- probably my fault
    > for stirring the pot.
    >
    > On Sat, 19 Jul 2003, Anders Sandberg wrote:
    >
    > > Ah. So you do not think that any of the historical villains thought they
    > > had really good causes?
    >
    > Of course they "thought" they had good causes -- but did they really?

    Sigh. I assume you have found a way of objectively determining whether
    causes really are good? If you haven't, how are you going to defend
    yourself against a critic asking whether you are just *thinking* your
    views are good?

    > The Extropians have a set of "principles" (or one might say that the
    > WTA might have a general "philosophy" (allowing/promoting the
    > development of trans/posthumans)). The question with principles or
    > philosophies may be precisely "where" does one draw the line?

    Which is really what all the philosophical debating is all about. It
    takes a lot of time and effort to do right.

    One way of finding lines is to see where you get contradictions. If the
    goal is allowing/promoting the development of trans/posthumans then
    actions that prevent/discourage it more than they allow and promote it
    contradict the goal and should not be part of the resulting actions from
    the philosophy.

    Another meta-approach is to look at stability: if others adopt or do not
    adopt this view, will that strengthen it and produce good results? For
    example, pre-emptive attacking is unstable since if others also use the
    strategy they will be motivated to prepare against you, and arms races
    result. Unconditional altruism is unstable against players who do are
    not altruists.

    Using meta-arguments like this it is possible to slowly build a more
    reasoned model of when it is OK to do an action that is first-order
    against your goals but right according to second order reasoning. But as
    I said, it takes a lot of time and sophistication to do right. Look at
    the complexities of medical ethics at its best (i.e. when not hi-jacked
    by special interests).

    > > Good causes are plentiful, but they are not worth getting *others*
    > > killed for.
    >
    > Ah, so allowing humanity as a whole to be sacrificed for this
    > principle is ok???
    >
    > (I realize that I'm making some giant steps here...)

    Indeed. You jumped over my point :-)

    -- 
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
    asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
    GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
    


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