Comment on Welcome to Less Wrong! (5th thread, March 2013)

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:23:49 GMT

That seems very simplistic.

Ethically "good" = enabling cooperation, if you are not cooperating you must be "fighting"?

Those are evidently only rough approximations of social dynamics even just in a human context. Would it be good to cooperate with an invading army, or to cooperate with the resistance? The one with an opposing goal, so as a patriot, the opposing army it is, eh?

Is it good to cooperate with someone bullying you, or torturing you? What about game theory, if you're not "cooperating" (for your value of cooperating), you must be "fighting"? What do you mean by fighting, physical altercations? Is a loan negotiation more like cooperation or more like fighting, and is it thus ethically good or bad, for your notion of "ethics = ways for agents with different goals to co-operate"?

It seems like a nice soundbite, but doesn't make even cursory sense on further examination. I'm all for models that are as simple as possible, but no simpler. But cooperation as the definition of ethics? For you, maybe. Collaborateur!

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