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denisbider comments on Shut Up and Divide? - Less Wrong
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I think I'm with Wei in his analysis - resolving the inconsistency from the top down, not from the bottom up.
I accept that our feelings of empathy and compassion are something evolution came up with in order to make us function decently in small groups. I accept that this empathy works only for small groups, and cannot scale to groups that are too large for everyone to keep track of each other. Maintaining cohesion and functionality in larger groups requires formal mechanisms such as hierarchy and money, and empathy is at best of marginal value, or at worst sabotages a constructive order. Universal empathy is, if not outright impossible, at least very difficult to reconcile with the things we do to other creatures for convenience.
Of abstract things related to humanity, my top values are creativity and prosperity, not individual people. My perception is that a relatively small proportion of people contribute the vast majority of that which I value. On the other hand, a relatively large proportion of people are having disruptive or destructive effects.
I therefore do not value human life in general, just like I don't value bacteria in general, but I value that human life (and that bacteria) which contributes towards the creativity and prosperity I want to see. People who undermine that, I have no compassion for, and I would in fact prefer them to not exist.
I agree with you for the most part, except that actually thinking that out loud has the tendency to make one a heartless bastard, and I don't want to be that sort of person.
Actually thinking that out loud makes you honest. People who think of themselves as compassionate are much the same as I described, except that they would rather have me not exist, because my existence violates their values. Instead, they would prefer the existence of non-contributing people who need their help. (I have actually heard that from folks like that, in quite those words.)
The difference between me and such people is that they don't understand themselves - nor the dynamics of the world we live in. It's frustrating to be labeled a heartless bastard, but understanding what I do and acting differently would make me a hypocrite and spread falsity. According to my values, that's much worse.
It's also interesting to see how karma on this site falls steadily with honesty, and what that implies about what the balance of readers come here for. Sadly, it seems to be to further their existing preconceptions. :)
I'm sure this is often the case, but please don't overgeneralize.
Your grandparent post is at +2 as I write this.
True; point taken. I find it likely that many (perhaps most here) are not like that.
True. But overall, I'm down about 50 karma today, and still counting. :)
People downvote views that are ill-defined, poorly thought out, impolite, morally repugnant or just dumb. The fact that someone might hold such views honestly is basically irrelevant.
Most of your criticisms here appear to be resulting from "morally repugnant", which means that I hold a view wildly different from that which you find acceptable, but you can't quite figure out why. If you test me, you may find that my views are neither ill-defined, nor poorly thought out, nor dumb; nor even morally repugnant.
Your criticism about politeness is valid however. I do not try to be polite unless the other person is already polite, which creates a sort of vicious circle half the time. I'd like to improve that.
Depends how you define 'heartless bastard'. The attitude denisbider describes is actually more compatible with specific, personal acts of kindness than hardcore utilitarianism. Accepting that empathy and compassion evolved to deal with small groups and embracing it means you don't have to feel bad about helping someone you have direct contact with because your help would be more 'effective' from a utilitarian perspective if directed towards a stranger who is objectively worse off.
A consistent utilitarian might, for example, refuse to contribute to a charitable collection to pay for treatment for a co-worker's child's leukemia treatment because that money would save more lives if used to help starving children in Africa. Most people would view that as being more of a heartless bastard than someone who contributes but doesn't donate much if anything to African aid. I happen to think that the majority opinion is right in this case and the utilitarians are the ones who are both wrong and horribly confused.
You don't have to feel bad about it in any case. Decision theory and emotions are different things.
(Previous comment on this.)
How so?