Eugine_Nier comments on Bad Concepts Repository - Less Wrong

20 Post author: moridinamael 27 June 2013 03:16AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (204)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 27 June 2013 11:20:30PM *  3 points [-]

"Deserve" is harmful because we would often rather destroy utility than allow an undeserved outcome distribution. For instance, most people would probably rather punish a criminal than reform him. I nominate "justice" as the more basic bad concept. It's a good concept for sloppy thinkers who are incapable of keeping in mind all the harm done later by injustices now, a shortcut that lets them choose actions that probably increase utility in the long run. But it is a bad concept for people who can think more rigorously.

A lot of these "bad concepts" will probably be things that are useful given limited rationality.

“Are the gods not just?"

"Oh no, child. What would become us us if they were?”

― C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 29 June 2013 06:19:09AM 0 points [-]

"Deserve" is harmful because we would often rather destroy utility than allow an undeserved outcome distribution.

Would you also two box on Newcomb’s problem?

Comment author: PhilGoetz 29 June 2013 03:56:43PM 0 points [-]

You can still use precommitment, but tie it to consequences rather than to Justice. Take Edward Snowden. Say that the socially-optimal outcome is to learn about the most alarming covert government programs, but not about all covert programs. So you want some Edward Snowdens to reveal some operations, but you don't want that to happen very often. The optimal behavior may be to precommit to injustice, punishing government employees who reveal secrets regardless of whether their actions were justified.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 30 June 2013 04:56:18AM 1 point [-]

International espionage is probably one of the worst examples to attempt to generalize concepts like justice from. It's probably better to start with simpler (and more common) examples like theft or murder and then use the concepts developed on the simpler examples to look at the more complicated one.