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wedrifid comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012) - Less Wrong
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Yeah, I get it, you don't consider babies people and I do. So pretty much we just throw down (ie. trying to reason each other into having the same values as ourselves would be pointless). You vote for baby killing, I vote against it. If there is a war of annihilation and I'm forced to choose sides between the baby killers and the non-baby killers and they seem evenly matched then I choose the non-baby killers side and go kill all the baby killers. If I somehow have the option to exclude all consideration of your preferences from the optimisation function of an FAI then I take it. Just a plain ol' conflict of terminal values.
I'm curious now, though. What do you think defines an agent as a person, for the moral calculus? How is it that ten-month-old babies meet this definition? Do, say, pigs also meet this definition?
If babies were made of bacon then I'd have to rerun the moral calculus all over again! ;)
Well, they are made of eggs. Actual eggs and counterfactual bacon are an important part of this nutritious breakfast.
Oh, and to clarify the extent of my disagreement: When I say "You vote for baby killing, I vote against it" that assumes I don't live in some backwards country without compulsory voting. If voting is optional then I'm staying home. Other people killing babies is not my problem - because I don't have the power to stop a mob of humans from killing babies and I'm not interested in making the token gesture.
How do you know?
It is a core belief of Bakkot's - nothing is going to change that. His thinking on the matter is also self consistent. Only strong social or personal influence has a chance of making a difference (for example, if he has children, all his friends have children and he becomes embedded in a tribe where non-baby-killing is a core belief). For my part I understand Bakkot's reasoning but do not share his preference based premises. As such changing my mind regarding the conclusion would make no sense.
More succinctly I don't expect reasoning with each other to change our minds because neither of us is wrong (in the intellectual sense). We shouldn't change our minds based on intellectual arguments - if we do then we are making a mistake.
Yes, and my question is how do you know? Admittedly I haven't read the entire thread from the beginning, but in the large part I have, I see nothing to suggest that there is anything particularly immutable about either of your positions such that neither of you could possibly change your mind based on normal moral-philosophical arguments. What makes you so quick to dismiss your interlocutor as a babyeating alien?
I trust his word.
You're spinning this into a dismissal, disrespect of Bakkot's intellectual capability or ability to reason. Yet disagreement does not equal disrespect when it is a matter of different preferences. It is only when I think an 'interlocutor' is incapable of understanding evidence and reasoning coherently (due to, say, biases or ego) that observing that reason cannot persuade each other is a criticism.
He is a [babykilling advocate]. He says he is a babykilling advocate. He says why. That I acknowledge that he is an advocate of infanticide rights is not, I would hope, offensive to him.
I note that while Bakkot's self expression is novel, engaging and coherent (albeit contrary to my values), your own criticism is not coherent. You asked "how do you know?" and I gave you a straight answer. Continued objection makes no sense.
He said his mind could never be changed on this?
Spinning? I'm not trying to spin anything into anything. You said this was a matter of different preferences before, and I understood the first time. You don't need to repeat it. My criticism is about why you think this a difference in values rather than a mere confusion of them. (Also, "dismissal" has connotations, but I can't think of a better word to capture "throwing up your hands and going to war with them")
Emphasis was meant to be on alien. Aliens are distinguished by, among other things, not living in our moral reference frame.
I answered your question. And I will not repeat it again.
The question was "how do you know?", not "what do you mean?". Aliens are almost certain to fundamentally disagree with humans in a variety of important matters, by simple virtue of not being genetically related to us. Bakkot is a human. Different priors are called for.