John_Maxwell_IV comments on Really Extreme Altruism - Less Wrong

16 Post author: CronoDAS 15 March 2009 06:51AM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 04 May 2011 12:32:32AM *  3 points [-]

Hm, I wrote that comment two years ago. My new view is that it's not much worth arguing over the definition of "dishonesty" so figuring out whether the guy is "dishonest" or not is just a word game--we should figure out if others having correct beliefs is a terminal value to us, and if so, how it trades off against other terminal values. (Or perhaps individually not acting in ways that give others incorrect beliefs is a terminal value.)

As a consequentialist, I mostly say the ends justify the means. I am a little cautious due to the issues Eliezer discusses in this post, but I don't think I'm as cautious as Eliezer is--I have a fair amount of confidence in my ability to notice when my brain is going in to a failure mode like he describes.