Nick_Tarleton comments on Human values differ as much as values can differ - Less Wrong

13 Post author: PhilGoetz 03 May 2010 07:35PM

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Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 04 May 2010 01:52:27AM *  2 points [-]

Good point, but

Even if values of each person have little in common, this would be a great improvement over status quo.

This doesn't seem to necessarily be the case for an altruist if selfish bastards are sufficiently more common than altruists who subjunctively punish selfish bastards. (Though if I recall correctly, you're skeptical that that sort of divergence is plausible, right?)

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 04 May 2010 09:43:56AM *  1 point [-]

The more negative-sum players could be worse off if their targets become better off as a result of the change. Assuming that punishment is the backbone of these players' preference, and boost in power to do stuff with the allotted matter doesn't compensate the negative effect of their intended victims having a better life. I don't believe any human is like that.

I'm not skeptical about divergence per se, of course preferences of different people are going to be very different. I'm skeptical about distinctly unusual aspects being present in any given person's formal preference, when that person professes that alleged unusual aspect of their preference. That is, my position is that the divergence within human universals is something inevitable, but divergence from the human universals is almost impossible.