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Jack comments on Only humans can have human values - Less Wrong
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Maybe sometime I'll write a post on why I think the paperclipper is a strawman. The paperclipper can't compete; it can happen only if a singleton goes bad.
The value systems we revile yet can't prove wrong (paperclipping and wireheading) are both evolutionary dead-ends. This suggests that blind evolution still implements our values better than our reason does; and allowing evolution to proceed is still better than computing a plan of action with our present level of understanding.
Besides, Clippy, a paperclip is just a staple that can't commit.
I wonder if our problem with wireheading isn't just the traditional ethic that sloth and gluttony are vices and hard-work a virtue.
I agree. I think that we're conditioned at a young age, if not genetically, to be skeptical about the feasibility of long-term hedonism. While the ants were working hard collecting grain, the grasshopper was having fun playing music -- and then the winter came. In our case, I think we're genuinely afraid that while we're wireheading, we'll be caught unaware and unprepared for a real world threat. Even if some subset of the population wire-headed while others 'manned the fort', I wonder if Less Wrong selects for a personality type that would prefer the manning, or if our rates of non-wireheading aren't any higher.
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