From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Fri Jul 18 2003 - 16:30:39 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> So we could eliminate the problems distracting us from making
> progress at the cost of < 10^8 lives -- compared with 10^14
> lives *per second* while we keep debating how to resolve the
> problems...
Are you autistic? Historical villains have killed millions of people in
terrible causes, but the idea that it's too inconvenient to think about
the subject, and that dropping nukes would save time and aggravation, may
well represent a new low for the human species. That takes work. It's
not something to be proud of.
I doubt the words you're playing games with have the vaguest connection to
reality in your mind. I doubt you could kill a single human being at
close quarters. But then, it's a sad and terrifying truth that it's
easier on the emotions to drop a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima then to stab
one person through the stomach, because knifing a person sets off our
built-in instincts and pressing a button does not. Technological distance
is emotional distance, as Dave Grossman put it in "On Killing". And how
easy it is for people who can't distinguish word games from reality to
arrange a few thoughts in the right order and decide to commit genocide.
The human mind has no safety catch.
> Ok, I *know* you are going to rake me over the coals again.
I suppose none of us have reasons for this. Even for flamebait, the
horror you're suggesting here is enough to get my attention. Because you
genuinely seem to be serious. I wish I could say I don't understand it,
but I do, and I'm sad, and frightened, because you were someone I used to
respect. Even if you don't understand what you're saying, even if it has
no connection to reality for you, you said it, and I can't make it unreal
to myself.
Oh, well, I've wasted 15 minutes and hence around 1500 human lives writing
this reply. You'd better slit your wrists to make sure it doesn't happen
again.
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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