red75 comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: komponisto 07 June 2010 08:37AM

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Comment author: red75 08 June 2010 04:50:44PM 0 points [-]

BEs aren't humans. They are Baby-Eating aliens

Comment author: Morendil 08 June 2010 05:15:17PM 2 points [-]

You're correct. I'm using the term "people" loosely. However, I wrote the grand-parent while fully informed of what the Babyeaters are. Did you mean to rebut something in particular in the above?

Comment author: red75 08 June 2010 05:29:28PM *  5 points [-]

"All in favor of a 99% chance of dying horribly shortly after being born, in return for the 1% chance to partake in the crowning glory of babyeating cultural tradition, please raise your hands."

If we translate it to our cultural context, we will get something like "All in favor of 100% dying horribly of old age, in return for good lives of your babies, please rise your hands". They ARE aliens.

Comment author: Morendil 08 June 2010 06:01:42PM 2 points [-]

Well, we would say "no" to that, if we had the means to abolish old age. We'd want to have our cake and eat it too.

The text stipulates that it is within the BE's technological means to abolish the suffering of the babies, so I expect that they would choose to do so, behind the Veil.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 08 June 2010 06:07:25PM 4 points [-]

Yes, but a surprisingly large number of humans seem to react in horror when you talk about getting rid of aging.

Comment author: red75 08 June 2010 06:34:50PM *  -1 points [-]

Who will ask them? FAI have no idea, that a) baby eating is bad, b) it should generalize moral values past BE to all conscious beings.

Even if FAI will ask that question and it turns out that majority of population don't want to do inherently good thing (it is for them), then FAI must undergo controlled shutdown.

EDIT: To disambiguate. I am talking about FAI, which is implemented by BEs.

As we should not allow FAI to generalize morals past conscious beings, just to be sure, that it will not take CEV of all bacterium, so BEs should not allow their FAI to generalize past BEs.

As we should built in automatic off switch into our FAI, to stop it if its goals is inherently wrong, so should BEs.

Comment author: Alexandros 08 June 2010 05:43:03PM *  1 point [-]

It doesn't seem from the story like the babies are gladly sacrificing for the tribe...

"But..." said the Master. "But, my Lady, if they want to be eaten -"

"They don't," said the Xenopsychologist. "Of course they don't. They run from their parents when the terrible winnowing comes. The Babyeater children aren't emotionally mature - I mean they don't have their adult emotional state yet. Evolution would take care of anyone who wanted to get eaten. And they're still learning, still making mistakes, so they don't yet have the instinct to exterminate violators of the group code. It's a simpler time for them. They play, they explore, they try out new ideas. They're..." and the Xenopsychologist stopped. "Damn," she said, and turned her head away from the table, covering her face with her hands. "Excuse me." Her voice was unsteady. "They're a lot like human children, really."

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