ChristianKl comments on Thought Crimes - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Coscott 15 January 2014 05:23AM

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Comment author: Calvin 15 January 2014 05:45:05AM *  2 points [-]

The way I can see it in sci-fi terms:

If human mind is the first copy of a brain that has been uploaded to an computer, than it deserves the same rights as any human. There is a rule against running more than one instance of the same person at the same time.

Human mind created on my own computer from first principles, so to speak of, does not have any rights, but there is also a law in place to prevent such agents from being created, as human minds are dangerous toys.

Plans to enforce thought-taboo devices are likely to fail, as no self-respecting human being would allow such an crude ingerence of third parties into their own thought process. I mean, it starts with NO THINKING ABOUT NANOTECHNOLOGY and in time changes to *NO THINKING ABOUT RESISTANCE *.

EDIT:

Also, assuming that there is really a need to extract some information from an individual, I would reluctantly grant government right to create temporary copy of an individual to be interrogated, interrogate (i.e. torture) the copy and then delete it shortly afterwards. It is squicky, but in my head superior to leaving the original target with memories of interrogation.

Comment author: ChristianKl 15 January 2014 12:24:06PM 3 points [-]

Plans to enforce thought-taboo devices are likely to fail, as no self-respecting human being would allow such an crude ingerence of third parties into their own thought process.

I don't think that's the case. If I would present a technique about how everyone on LessWrong could install in himself Ugh-fields that prevents that person from engaging in akrasia I would think there would be plenty of people who would welcome the technique.

Comment author: Lumifer 15 January 2014 04:13:01PM 2 points [-]

If I would present a technique about how everyone on LessWrong could install in himself Ugh-fields that prevents that person from engaging in akrasia I would think there would be plenty of people who would welcome the technique.

I don't know. That would depend on your credibility, reversibility of the procedure, etc.

So, say, a startup says "Here is a mind-control device, implant it into your head and it will make you unable to engage in akrasia. That's all it does, honest! Trust us! Oh, and if there are bugs we'll fix it by firmware updates." -- how many people would be willing to do it?

Comment author: ChristianKl 15 January 2014 04:51:18PM 1 point [-]

Of course you need a trustworthy source for the technology. But as far as spreading new technology there will always be a bunch of people who trust certain people.

Comment author: Lumifer 15 January 2014 05:04:44PM 2 points [-]

Of course you need a trustworthy source for the technology.

So, who will you trust to rearrange your mind?

Comment author: ChristianKl 15 January 2014 05:30:30PM 1 point [-]

There are quite a few people. All people I have seen face to face.

Unfortunately I'm still quite bad at switching on real trust that you need to do things like that mentally without implanting chips. However the farthest I went in that direction was a hypnosis episode where I allowed someone to switch off my ability to pee accidentally for a short while.

*Just to be clear: I"m not claiming that you can eliminate akrasia completely through hypnosis.

Comment author: ThisSpaceAvailable 20 January 2014 10:33:04PM 1 point [-]

Would you consider the following to be "Ugh-fields that prevents that person from engaging in akrasia"?

A drug such that, when a person who has the drug in their system drinks alcohol, the interaction is very unpleasant.

A surgery altering the tongue so that consuming food is painful.

Comment author: ChristianKl 20 January 2014 11:03:07PM 1 point [-]

As far as my default mental model goes, ugh-field is a term that's specific enough to filter out your examples. But I have no problem accepting a mental model that defines the term more broadly. How narrowly you want to define terms always depends on the purpose for which you want to use them.

A surgery altering the tongue so that consuming food is painful.

Even if you want to lose weight, you probably don't want all eating to hurt. There's however the real world treatment of barbaric surgery that works for most people who want to lose weight. It's however not without it's issues.

Comment author: Calvin 15 January 2014 12:35:19PM 1 point [-]

Uh... I agree with you that it really just depends on the marketing, and thought of people willingly mounting thought-taboo chips seems quite possible in the your given context. The connotations of "Though Crime" moved my away from thinking what are possible uses of such techniques towards why the hell should I allow other people to mess with my brain?

I cannot even think about the variety of interesting ways in which though-blocking technology can be applied.