The best 15 words

apophenia

People want to tell everything instead of telling the best 15 words. They want to learn everything instead of the best 15 words. In this thread, instead post the best 15-words from a book you've read recently (or anything else). It has to stand on its own. It's not a summary, the whole value needs to be contained in those words.

It doesn't need to cover everything in the book, it's just the best 15 words.
It doesn't need to be a quote, it's just the best 15 words.
It doesn't have to be 15 words long, it's just the best "15" words.
It doesn't have to be precisely true, it's just the best 15 words.
It doesn't have to be the main 15 words, it just has to be the best 15 words.
It doesn't have to be the author's 15 words, it just has to be the best 15 words.
Edit: It shouldn't just be a neat quote--the point of the exercise is to struggle to move from a book down to 15 words.

I'll start in the comments below.

(Voted by the Schelling study group as the best exercise of the meeting.)

It doesn't need to cover everything in the book, it's just the best 15 words.
It doesn't need to be a quote, it's just the best 15 words.
It doesn't have to be 15 words long, it's just the best "15" words.
It doesn't have to be precisely true, it's just the best 15 words.
It doesn't have to be the main 15 words, it just has to be the best 15 words.
It doesn't have to be the author's 15 words, it just has to be the best 15 words.
Edit: It shouldn't just be a neat quote--the point of the exercise is to struggle to move from a book down to 15 words.

I'll start in the comments below.

(Voted by the Schelling study group as the best exercise of the meeting.)

If there's a historical consensus that the Civil War could have been avoided, I have not encountered it; and that being so, might as well have the Civil War sooner rather than later.

Well, no way to avoid it other than letting the Confederacy secede. Oh what am I saying; sure if we did that we might saved a few hundred thousand lives but we'd be letting the evil of slavery continue, and that's obviously such a great evil we can end the discussion right there. We don't need a decision theory when we've got our trusty moral intuitions right?

But on the safe side why don't we "shut up and multiply" for a second, see what our bargain bought us...

We paid 750,000 lives in the Civil War to free less than 4,000,000 slaves; in other words, the suffering of a lifetime of slavery is evidently worth 18.75% of the death of a free person in a horrific war. In other words, for the trade to come out equal a slave would be suffering more than a chemotherapy patient with recurring metastasized antibiotic-resistant breast cancer and sepsis. And even that weight is far too high; a slave could only expect to suffer for 20 years on average while a free man typically lived to 41, more than twice that value, not to mention that QALY weights are normed against a society with free pornography and twinkies rather than one with regular TB epidemics. So really terminal cancer is an absolute wonderland of fun compared to being in bondage! No wonder it was such a strong moral imperative to justify starting a preposterously bloody war over...

I concede defeat good sir, in the face of your flawless logic. I'm sorry ever to have doubted your well-considered opinion.

Backing out a little... if I see two people about to shoot someone tied to a tree, on your view am I ever justified in shooting them both to save the tied-up person's life? If so, what does it minimally take to justify that?

17EHeller13y

Depends on how long slavery would have lasted without the war. You don't just free current slaves, you prevent future generations from ever being enslaved. I take that to be Yudkowsky's point- the earlier the better, because the more slaves you prevent. Edit: Actually, use your own numbers: [...] This implies converting someone from slave to free should increase their life by 20+ years, approximately half the life time of a free person. Just multiplying, using 1 free person dead = 41 years lost, one slave freed = 21 years gained, we pass a cost benefit test.

6Multiheaded13y

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. -- Abraham Lincoln [...] Leaving aside all moral considerations of collective responsibility and individual complicity... and switching to my rough model of preference utilitarianism, which I generally don't use... this would sound like an incredible, unbelievably lucky bargain with this cruel universe at HALF a life for a freed slave. At 18,75% it appears perverse even to hesitate in this non-dilemma. P.S.: instead of preference utilitarianism, I do find it much more comfortable to use broadly Christian virtue ethics for a snap moral decision. According to which... well, let's just mention that even a Catholic like Chesterton could be unapologetic in his respect for the Jacobins. Never mind the Christian abolitionists of the day.

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The best 15 words

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The best 15 words

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