Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Protected From Myself - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 October 2008 12:09AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 October 2008 04:35:42PM 7 points [-]

Is it only honesty that has this protection-rail tendency, or have other ethics also had it?

Interesting question. As far as I can tell, the two main effects that leap out at me are (1) the benefit of having not done various life-complicating bad things in the pursuit of early goals that I later had to change, and (2) the beneficial effect of holding myself to a higher standard when pursuing ethical obligations.

Has my life been better because of my sense of ethical inhibition against taking and wielding power? I honestly don't know - I can't compare my possible selves side-by-side. Maybe that other Eliezer learned to wield power well through practice, and built a large solid organization. Or maybe he turned to the dark side and ended up surrounded by a coterie a la Rand. In the absence of anything that even looks like a really blatant effect, it's hard to extract so much as an anecdote.