ialdabaoth comments on Ethics in a Feedback Loop: A Parable - Less Wrong

9 Post author: PeerGynt 25 July 2014 04:25PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 26 July 2014 01:29:04AM 5 points [-]

You can't ask someone if they consent to being hit on.

You can. Hitting on someone is not a single action, it's a process spread out in time. It's easy (and quite common) to start by "testing the waters" or, as someone said in this thread, waving the tentacles in the general direction. The point is to give the human a chance to signal interest or lack of interest and, if the latter, gracefully withdraw. Of course this doesn't work by explicitly asking for consent, you have to be at least somewhat clueful in reading signals.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 26 July 2014 03:54:02AM 1 point [-]

Stretching the metaphor: Suppose that many humans respond to having tentacles waved at them (whether or not they touch) by threatening to cut them off.

Suppose that Martians have a response that causes their tentacle-barbs to grow longer and pointier and stingier whenever they perceive a threat to their tentacles.

Where does this process lead?

Comment author: Lumifer 28 July 2014 03:40:29PM 2 points [-]

Where does this process lead?

Under your assumptions being a "regular" Green is an unstable state. Greens will be forced to evolve either into Blues or into superGreens with superstingy extra-long tentacles.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 28 July 2014 03:49:44PM 2 points [-]

Under your assumptions being a "regular" Green is an unstable state. Greens will be forced to evolve either into Blues or into superGreens with superstingy extra-long tentacles.

This is precisely the actual process that I observe, so there's +1 for this theory.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 26 July 2014 04:00:47AM 0 points [-]

The metaphor states that selective pressure strongly favored the tickling impulse. A physiological response that made tickling so much less successful would have been outbred in the ancestral past.