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joeteicher comments on Open Thread: August 2009 - Less Wrong
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Due to an unfortunate accident with a particle accelerator, you are transformed into a mid-level deity and the rest of the human race is wiped out. Experimenting with your divinity, you find you have impressive though limited levels of control over the world, but not enough finesse or knowledge to rewire the minds of intelligent creatures or create new ones.
With humanity gone, you discover that the only intelligent race left in the universe is the Pebble Sorters.
Do you use your newfound powers to feed starving Pebblesorters, free their slaves, slay their tyrants, heal their sick, preserve their places of natural beauty, protect their rights, and end their wars? Or do you use it to build lots and lots of heaps of prime-numbered heaps of pebbles?
Which course of action do you think would be more moral?
I would help them deconstruct their notion of the "right" size of a heap in terms of prime numbers, and then I would do all that other nice stuff for them, while leaving them to build the heaps of pebbles themselves, since they seem to enjoy it so much.
Is there some reason I can't do all of the above?
I think it's obvious which would be more right. But the real question is, which would be more prime?
No, I'm asking which would be more right, and I don't think it's obvious.
If I like steak and you're a vegetarian, and I'm feeling altruistic according to normal human standards, which do I give you? Steak or vegetables?
My utility function contains a term that sort of resembles a desire to increase your utility function, which is why I'd probably give you vegetables. But intuitively I feel like this only works when your utility function is close enough to mine that I can at least sympathize with it. I honestly don't know what I'd do in the Pebble Sorter situation.
Well, if you want to do something that I would think was nice, then you give me whichever one I'd rather receive (presumably vegetables).
But are you concerned about what I would want, or what you would?
It's time to go teach those baby-eating pebblesorters right from wrong!
(I don't have any opinions about what to do for pebblesorters. Morality is about reality.)