Swimmer963 comments on Schelling fences on slippery slopes - Less Wrong

179 Post author: Yvain 16 March 2012 11:44PM

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Comment author: Swimmer963 13 March 2012 09:17:53PM 17 points [-]

Very good post! I feel like I understand the concept of slippery slopes much better now. The breakdown into different categories of "slippery slope argument", and cases where they would be valid, is one I find especially useful.

It does make me wonder whether the existence of "slippery slopes" is based on the flawed design of human brains, i.e. hyperbolic discounting, and just the general tendency to alter beliefs for self-consistency or because they sound/feel better. (An example of this would be a real-life version of Gandhi's pill, where starting out with a small not-very-bad act which someone can justify within their moral system, like stealing candy, could lead someone to be more comfortable with stealing in general and end up stealing much bigger things.) Would a non-human 'perfectly rational' alien, one that didn't hyperbolically discount and had no tendency to automatically update their beliefs/moral system so that their past actions weren't evil, still need to worry about slippery slope arguments?

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 14 March 2012 07:25:27AM 3 points [-]

Would a non-human 'perfectly rational' alien, one that didn't hyperbolically discount and had no tendency to automatically update their beliefs/moral system so that their past actions weren't evil, still need to worry about slippery slope arguments?

Not from hyperbolic discounting or value drift. Maybe from other sources, like the coalition argument presented by Yvain.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 14 March 2012 03:50:37PM 4 points [-]

You could still hit them with large rewards for making themselves less rational, and thus recreate the slippery slope argument along that axis.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 14 March 2012 11:07:01PM 4 points [-]

Or large rewards for changing their utility function.