Multiheaded comments on Irrationality Game II - Less Wrong
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Yet another fictional story that features a rather impressive "emotional basilisk" of sorts; enough to both drive people in-universe insane or suicidal, AND make the reader (especially one prone to agonizing over morality, obsessive thoughts, etc) feel potentially bad distress. I know I did feel sickened and generally wrong for a few hours, and I've heard of people who took it worse.
SCP-231. I'm not linking directly to it, please consider carefully if you want to read it. Curiosity over something intellectually stimulating but dangerous is one thing, but this one is just emotional torment for torment's sake. If you've read SCP before (I mostly dislike their stuff), you might be guessing which one I'm talking about - so no need to re-read it, dude.
Really? That's had basilisk-like effects? I guess these things are subjective ... torturing one girl to save humanity is treated like this vast and terrible thing, with the main risk being that one day they wont be able to bring themselves to continue - but in other stories they regularly kill tons of people in horrible ways just to find out how something works. Honestly, I'm not sure why it's so popular, there are a bunch of SCPs that could solve it (although there could be some brilliant reason why they can't, we'll never know due to redaction.) But it's too popular to ever be decommissioned ... it makes the Foundation come across as lazy, not even trying to help the girl, too busy stewing in self-pity at the horrors they have to commit to actually stop committing them.
Wait, I'm still thinking about it after all this time? Hmm, perhaps there's something to this basilisk thing...
Straw Utilitarian exclaims: "Ha easy! Our world has many tortured children, adding one more is a trival cost to pay for continued human existence." But yes imagining me being put in a position to decide on something like that caused me quite a bit of emotional distress. Trying to work out what I should do according to my ethical system (spaghetti code virtue ethics), honourable suicide and resignation seems a potentially viable option since my consequentialism infected brain cells yell at me for trying hair brained schemes to help the girl.
On a lighter note my favourite SCP.
Ah the entry is tragically incomplete!
The Catholic faith of the animals was not surprising since contact with SPC-3471 by agent ███ █████ and other LessWrong Computational Theology division cell members have received proof of Catholicism's consistency under CEV as well as indications it represented a natural Schelling point of mammalian morality. First pausing to praise the sovereigns taste in books, the existence of Protestantism has lead Dr. █████ █████ to speculate SPC-4271 ("w-force") has become active in species besides Homo Sapiens violating the 2008 Trilateral Blogosphere Accords. He advises full military support to Eugenio the Second in stamping out rebellion and termination of all animals currently under the rule under Duke Baxter of the West Bay.
Adding:
Yep, suicide is probably what I'd do as well, personally, but the story itself is incoherent (as noted in the page discussion) and even without resorting to other SCPs there seem to be many, many alternatives to consider (at the very least they could have made the torture fully automated!). As I've said, it's constructed purely as horror/porn and not as an ethical dilemma.
BTW simply saying that "Catholicism" is consistent under something or other is quite meaningless, as "C." doesn't make for a very coherent system as seen through Papal policy and decisions of any period. Will would've had to point to a specific eminent theologian, like Aquinas, and then carefully choose where and how to expand - for now, Will isn't doing much with his "Catholicism" strictly speaking, just writing emotionally tinged bits of cosmogony and game theory.
I mentally iron man such details when presented with such scenarios. Often its the only way for me to keep suspension of disbelief and continue to enjoy fiction. To give a trivial fix to your nitpick, the ritual requires not only the suffering of the victim to be undiminished but also the sexual pleasure of the torturer and/or rapist to be present, automating it is therefore not viable.
Do not overanalyse the technobabble it ruins suspension of disbelief. And what is a SPC without technobabble? Can I perhaps then interest you in a web based Marxist state?
Also who is this Will? I deny all knowledge of him!
An agent placed in similar circumstances before did just that.