TGGP4 comments on Fake Selfishness - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 November 2007 02:31AM

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Comment author: TGGP4 08 November 2007 05:01:06AM 3 points [-]

Read the comments at Hopefully Anonymous' most recent post. He explains why he has been inactive.

I want you to be altruistic, Eliezer. That's partly because I think you're intelligent. I would prefer if some people were more selfish though.

I choose living in comfort for one more year. There are things I might die for, but I don't know what exactly. Perhaps to spite someone. If other people knew that I had the chance to save the world and were going to punish me for failing to do so, I might not risk their wrath. I also choose the stanger getting tortured, but I might risk the toe-stubbing to prevent a policy of torture. I'd steal Gates' money (take that, beneficiary of intellectual property laws!) but really I wouldn't care if you stole a thousand dollars from me and I never found out (unless you meant finding out who specifically did it rather than finding out that it had happened at all).