milindsmart comments on Open Thread, Aug 29. - Sept 5. 2016 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Elo 29 August 2016 02:28AM

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Comment author: milindsmart 02 September 2016 06:58:46PM *  0 points [-]

I think it would be interesting if we weigh the benefits of human desire modification in all its forms (ranging from strategies like delayed gratification to brain pleasure centre stimulation: covered very well in this fun theory sequence article ) against the costs of continuous improvement.

Some of these costs :

  • Resource exhaustion : There is always the risk of using up resources earlier for relatively unimportant things, and facing constraints for later, more important, purposes. This risk ends up materialising more often as we develop faster. Undoing material exhaustion is difficult, while energy is impossible.
  • Environmental limits : Excessive global warming, pollution, etc. impose costs on humans
  • Economic : Continuous uncoordinated development likely misallocates resources due to various market imperfections
  • Social : Creating winners and losers is harmful to the happiness of people
  • Psychological : If we cannot improve as fast as we adapt to the resulting happiness, then we get less happy

A lot of singularitarian thought tries to holds human desire to be exogenous and untouchable, which seems to be a rather odd blind-spot to have... we rightly discard the notion that death is desirable because it is natural, but not the notion that desire is sacred and hence should always be fulfilled, fighting against any and all limits?