army1987 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: [deleted] 29 July 2014 07:44:22AM *  0 points [-]

Nowhere in the story is it implied that the humans a martian will pleasantly tickle once blue must be the same ones he unpleasantly tickled when green in order to become blue.

Comment author: Jiro 29 July 2014 02:32:39PM *  0 points [-]

The analogy doesn't require that the same individual human who is green-tickled is the one who's blue-tickled, but the analogy does require that the humans and Martians who green-tickle them are an analogy for the same kind of thing as the humans and the Martians who blue-tickle them. So if "humans blue-tickled by Martians" means "employers hiring educated people on an individual basis", then "humans green-tickled by Martians" means "employers paying to educate people on an individual basis". Employers don't do that--the analogy fails.

You can't just say that blue-tickling means hiring and green-tickling means paying for education, without considering who is hiring whom, and who is paying to educate whom.