Bakkot comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012) - Less Wrong

25 Post author: orthonormal 26 December 2011 10:57PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 01 January 2012 10:04:13AM *  1 point [-]

Tiny kittens are also cute and haven't even done anything to death yet. But if you accidentally lock one in a car and it suffocates, that's merely unfortunate, and should probably not be a crime. The same is true for infants and all other non-person life. If you kill a kitten for some reason other than sadism, well, it's unfortunate that you felt that was necessary, but again, they're not people.

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.

Comment author: Bakkot 01 January 2012 07:03:42PM 6 points [-]

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?

Comment author: wedrifid 01 January 2012 07:52:41PM 1 point [-]

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! ;)

Comment author: TheOtherDave 01 January 2012 08:04:08PM 4 points [-]

Well, they are made of eggs. Actual eggs and counterfactual bacon are an important part of this nutritious breakfast.