MichaelVassar comments on Soulless morality - Less Wrong

20 Post author: PhilGoetz 14 March 2009 09:48PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 15 March 2009 12:19:05AM *  10 points [-]

In real life, rational agents routinely fail to coordinate on PD problems. Perhaps they would coordinate, if they were more rational. In that case, there is a valley of bad rationality between religion and PD-satisficing rationality.

What if the criminals you execute might otherwise stand a decent chance of living forever?

I was inferring the values of the majority of the population from their actions. The majority of the population doesn't think people have a decent chance of living forever in this world.

Comment author: MichaelVassar 15 March 2009 10:16:49AM 6 points [-]

Probably though we should assume that evolution built people to cooperate about the right amount for their ancestral environment, neither too much nor too little, and that cultures then promoted excess cooperation from a gene's eye view because your tendency towards cooperation has larger benefits to me than costs to you so I will pay more to create it than you will to avoid it.