Rationality Quotes September 2012

Jayson_Virissimo

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Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

You do not answer the question and conflate the questions

How is economic progress measured - if you say the aggraegate utility please explain how that is measured.?

How is moral progress measured?

My argument is simple - the measure of either of these is based on poor heuristics.

My first reaction is to want to say that economic progress is an increase in purchasing power. However, purchasing power is measured with reference to the utility of goods. That would be fine as a solution, except that those definitions would mean that it would be literally impossible for an increase in economic progress to be bad on utilitarian grounds. That's not what "economic progress" is generally taken to mean, so I won't use that definition.

Instead, I'll say that economic progress is an increase in the ability to produce goods, whether tho... (read more)