SoullessAutomaton comments on Less wrong economic policy - Less Wrong

6 Post author: gworley 09 June 2009 08:11PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (32)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: SoullessAutomaton 10 June 2009 10:01:31AM 1 point [-]

You seem to be handwaving the definition of "free will" a bit here. On some level, the laws of physics "make all my decisions", but this clearly doesn't bother me. Is it really free will that matters, or the perception of it?

If Omega felt sorry for someone and (based on their own utility function) started making subtle interventions in their life, blocking off the possibility of bad choices and opening doors for good choices, all without them noticing--they'd still be reacting to their environment and would have a higher utility. Is that bad?

Comment author: conchis 10 June 2009 10:30:05AM 0 points [-]

Is that bad?

My own view is that there's no particular reason it couldn't be bad, if the individual concerned happened to value Omega not doing that sort of thing.