= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Nornagest comments on Rationality Quotes November 2012 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (898)
If we're using "humanity" to mean human values, this quote seems simply false (presuming that value stability is a solved problem by then).
If we're using the word to mean the architecture of baseline humans, it seems somewhere between false and irrelevant depending on what features of that architecture we care about.
If we're using it to mean some kind of metaphysical quality of human nature, it seems entirely unverifiable.
I found the quote amusing specifically because of this ambiguity (modulus your first point - the question of values seems tangential to me).
I found the mix of optimism (ie. the assumptions that no extinction type events will occur, and that there will be a continuous descendant type relationship between generations far into our future, etc...) and pessimism (ie, the assumption that, on a large enough time scale, most architectural components traceable to now-humans will become obsolete) poignant.
That seems like the presumption that the quote is challenging.
Even if that's true (which I'm not convinced it is; as I implied, "humanity" covers a lot of ground before it stops working in context), I'm uncomfortable with the implications of the quote. It seems to be treating value stability less as a (difficult) problem and more as an insurmountable obstacle, the sort where the only way to win is not to play. Then there's the "alas, Babylon" overtones.
Suppose I should expect as much from someone taking the name of a Kurt Vonnegut character, though.
Even if you think the essence of the quote is wrong, that "we" would be better off if all the poets and street performers were making good livings in the white economy, don't you think the quote is valuable for pointing up an important question that many of us working on coding intelligence may need to answer some day?
Wait, what? I was talking about self-modification, not social normativity. It might be a point about the latter in context, but it isn't out of context; I was responding to the words you presented, not the ones in the source.
And my objection isn't that it raises the wrong question, but that it closes that question with a wrong answer.
What's the quote have to do with whether we want to be street performers? Do you think that self-modifying humans would try to make themselves want to work in offices instead of street performance, or something?
You can make a lot more money per unit time working in an office rather than as a street performer.
Is that what you would do if you could self-modify better? Do you use your limited capacity to change how your mind functions to make yourself into a more efficient money-making machine? I don't.
Do you do any instrumental things? Like say, eat? Practice? Learn? Self modify?
Making more money happens to be a very effective way to achieve most goals.
You should use your "limited capacity to change how your mind functions " to become more capable of doing whatever it is you want to do, in the most effective way possible.
If you find that making money is not instrumental to your goals, say so, but don't just make fun of it and imply that the people who do (try to make money) are doing something wrong.
yeah. Sorry. The tone I was using was totally wrong for the kind of discussions we want to have here.
Is the point of being a street performer to make money or artistic fulfillment? It seems like there are better ways to achieve either one of these goals.