From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Jan 11 2003 - 23:58:31 MST
Eliezer writes
> So there is a cognitive difference in *which* disapprovals are produced,
> but the epistemological stance is the same? (I ask because I had thought
> you were arguing that BAD was epistemologically ill-founded but "none of
> my business" was not.)
Oh, sorry. No, I don't consider "BAD" to be ill-founded
epistemologically; almost always, the speaker means that
he disapproves, or that something is unworkable (i.e. leads
to that which both he and his listener disapprove). A
sign that people are getting their epistemology wrong
is when they use the word "Wrong" and you can hear the
capital letter.
> > There are millions of examples where something is none
> > of my business, and interference inconceivable, which
> > are nonetheless very BAD in my opinion. Abortion and
> > infanticide are two such examples, but even such mundane
> > cases as adultery and lying come to mind.
>
> So to you adultery is BAD, second-party intervention to stop adultery is
> WORSE, and a police officer arresting someone who threatens an adulterer
> with a pistol is GOOD?
Nice thought provoking question! I'm pretty sure that rating
these items in order depends on the culture at hand, e.g., between
your first two, is this in a small community that has outlawed
it, or is it in a large nation where the "one size fits all"
mentality has succeeded in making something illegal that
perhaps shouldn't be? But you look to be understanding me
quite skillfully.
> > It's very easy in most cases to determine whether or
> > not something is my affair. It's harder when as a
> > legislator---or as a citizen giving advice to legislators
> > or propping up memes I favor---to try to draw the correct
> > bounds of modularity. For some purposes, the apparent
> > modular unit is the family; sometimes it's "woman with
> > child" (a sort of family). At other times the efficient
> > way to draw boundaries between modules is at the community
> > level, e.g., whose business is it if some small town
> > somewhere wishes to outlaw prostitution? Only the citizens,
> > say I. (I hope that at this point no one says, "Oh yeah?
> > What if they decide to suspend habeas corpus or deny
> > religious freedom?") <lecture on success of nations
> > supporting constitutional rights suppressed for brevity>
>
> Hm... I think you need to separate out your supergoals from your subgoals
> here. That's one of *my* least favorite epistemological confusions.
I appreciate the challenge. What about these, in decreasing
order of importance?
1. Maximal run time and benefits for sentients in spacetime.
2. Rapid expansion of human society (including a Singularity).
3. Unleashing of and maximization of capitalism world-wide
(instead of its confinement to Western-type societies).
4. Maximal protection of individual rights and protection of
private property, and undermining of anti-progress forces
(including Luddites and terrorists).
but to try to incorporate the items about which you noticed
a super-goal/sub-goal confusion, maybe I should add
M. vertical integration and modularity to be determined
foremost by economic considerations, and rights of pre-
existing citizens (at any current level of progress).
I believe that this would be in support of both (3) and (4).
N. minimization of global rules which suppress experimentation,
e.g., all the ad hoc new rules that quickly occur to anyone
when asked whether "there oughta be a law".
This---freedom---would apparently be in support of (3) and (4) too.
> > Now it so happens that slave-owning societies
> > are not competitive, but let's consider a more challenging
> > example to my (and maybe your) world-view. In the 1950s, 1960s,
> > and 1970s, a lot of great economists, like Samuelson, believed
> > that the Soviet economic model was more productive than Western
> > capitalism. In retrospect, this seems very foolish, but for
> > those of us alive then it appeared plausible. The question then
> > could become---say if indeed the Soviet Union had truly begun to
> > supersede the West---might we not have to adopt some of their
> > totalitarian methods if we want to remain competitive? The answer
> > could well have been "yes".
>
> That depends on whether you'd rather keep the light alive in yourself for
> as long as you can, even if it's doomed to eventually fade, rather than
> blow it out yourself to retain the illusion of being in control.
Well, if it's going to be blown out anyway, isn't it better
that it be done by the people with the preferable history?
Naturally, it's obvious that this could always be used as
a rationalization to be used by the usual sorts who get
government power to claim a *necessity*. We are seeing
exactly this effect played out in the Iraq/Ashcroft debate.
To what degree, and when, must a republic (as Samantha has
finally succeeded in convincing me to be the right term)
adopt extreme measures to defend itself? Was Lincoln's
suspension of habeas corpus justified in the Civil War?
Was the internment of the Japanese and the round-up
of suspected German sympathizers, during WWII? In the
latter case, I'd say yes, but I don't know enough about
the former.
> > But that just makes my point! Non-functioning societies or
> > uncompetitive ones aren't admissible to the discussion.
> >
> > So historically we are brought to this: extreme regard for
> > private property and individual legal rights works, and not
> > coincidentally provides the said entities of the time with
> > maximal benefit and prosperity. But the challenging question
> > is about the future, which I know concerns you and should
> > concern all of us.
>
> Okay, so we should have extreme regard for the individual
> legal rights of babies?
Why? They don't play any economic role. There is no evidence
to suggest that attention to their legal rights has ever made
a society more competitive, or has advanced the items (2), (3),
and (4) that you elicited from me. No, we want to assist them
in obtaining protection from their murderous parents because
our heartstrings are plucked, and we want to force everyone
(e.g. Mormons) to do things our way, even at cost of breaking
down the modular boundaries of family or community.
> Incidentally, I think that while parents having control of
> children is often bad, having nonparents or governmental entities
> interfering is worse. I don't say that it's none of my business; I say
> that my goal of protecting the child is best served by protecting the
> child from governors, not protecting the child from parents. It's not a
> perfect solution, though. I would - for example - look favorably on
> someone who released software that children could use to bypass parental
> restrictions on Internet access; I couldn't be on the child's side if I
> thought the child was the parent's property. My theory here is that the
> child has full sentient rights, that a parent who shares 1/2 the child's
> DNA is statistically more likely to protect that child than a governor who
> shares none of the child's DNA, and that the child, who shares 1.0 of the
> child's DNA, is the best decider of all...
This all appears consistent, but do you have any discomfort
with the way that children are legally prevented from driving,
from alcohol, from voting, and from entering into contracts?
I would hardly want to pass laws that kept kids from getting
software (from other kids at school, for example), that enabled
them to circumvent their parents wishes! Yet at the same time,
the citizen-parents ought to have the default legal right to
deny internet access in toto to their children. I suppose that
I feel this way because of the greater experimentation, and the
less regimentation of society that ensues when you have freedom.
> > Don't you feel lucky that there is such a clear distinction between
> > humans and other primates, and other mammals?
>
> Erm... I do feel somewhat lucky, but I think perhaps for different
> reasons. My ethical system says that it might be a bad thing to create
> such halfways. But I don't feel lucky because "my ethical system would
> break down if it confronted halfways".
Well, I feel lucky too, because establishing legal rights
for citizens could have been greatly retarded historically
if there weren't such a clear dividing line. (See discussion
of PETA below.) But for fun let's suppose that the IQ bell
curve was a straight line, with the few humans at the extreme
right of the curve, and the vast mast of plankton on the extreme
left. I say that then we would have much sooner had to come up
with a consistent value system that appreciated superiority.
(Yet observe how much social (read economic) progress has been
made by affording blacks exactly the same legal rights as Jews
and Asians.)
But creating "halfways" at this point wouldn't be a bad thing, IMO.
As I like to emphasize, who's it hurting? Not them. They'd be
better off in the usual cases than not existing. (I realize we
may disagree about that.)
> > As much as PETA might want to award citizenship to numerous
> > other classes of creatures, it's not practical. So we allow
> > humans to own other animals (and children, up to a point).
>
> Not practical? Only if your metric of moral fitness evaluates
> only human fun, which is in fact the very issue being discussed.
I still need to read your important essay on "fun", but my
working hypothesis is that I would agree entirely with it.
I'm sure that it will eventually be shown that chipmunks
are more capable of receiving benefit---have a larger
benefit capacitance, say---than spiders. Likewise, humans
with well functioning nervous systems have more capacity
for fun or benefit than animals.
Our civilization would be delivering much less total benefit
to sentients had legal rights been established for non-humans.
The Singularity, is, of course, the final demonstration that
this is true---when matter whatever its constitution gets
benefit.
Lee
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