Why is survival one of your goals ("I want it." is an acceptable answer, but you have to accept that you might only want it due to being misinformed; even if it is probably correct, it it extremely unlikely that all your desires would be retained in your reflective equilibrium.)? Is it your only goal? Why?
At the moment, my primary goal is the continued existence of sapience. Partly it is due to the fact that since purpose and meaning aren't inherent qualities of anything, but are projected onto things by sapient minds, and I want my existence to have had some meaning, then in order to do that, sapients have to continue to exist. Or, put another way, for just about /any/ goal I can seriously imagine myself wanting, the continued existence of sapience is a necessary prerequisite.
If survival infringes on your other desires it becomes counterproductive. Beware lost purposes. Even if this doesn't hold, maximizing your probability of survival is not the same as maximizing whatever you actually prefer to maximize. If you only focus on survival, you risk giving up everything (or everything else if you value survival in itself - I don't think I do, but I'm very uncertain) for a slightly increased lifespan.
If I seriously come to the conclusion that my continued life has a measurable impact that /reduces/ the probability that sapience will continue to exist in the universe... then I honestly don't know whether I'd choose personal death. For example, one of the goals I've imagined myself working for is "Life forever or die trying", which, as usual, requires at least some sapience in the universe (if only myself), but... well, it's a problem I hope never to have to encounter... and, fortunately, at present, I'm trying to use my existence to /increase/ the probability that sapience will continue to exist, so it's unlikely I'll never encounter that particular problem.
Partly it is due to the fact that since purpose and meaning aren't inherent qualities of anything, but are projected onto things by sapient minds, and I want my existence to have had some meaning, then in order to do that, sapients have to continue to exist. Or, put another way, for just about /any/ goal I can seriously imagine myself wanting, the continued existence of sapience is a necessary prerequisite.
The two ways of putting it are not equivalent; it is possible for a sapient mind to decide that its purpose is to maximize the number of paperclips i...
Politics is the mind-killer; but rationality is the science of /winning/, even when dealing with political issues.
I've been trying to apply LessWrong and Bayesian methods to the premises and favored issues of a particular political group. (Their most basic premise is roughly equivalent to declaring that Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma programs should be 'nice'.) But, given how quickly my previous thread trying to explore this issue was downvoted into disappearing, and many of the comments I've received on similar threads, I may have a rather large blind spot preventing me from being able /to/ properly apply LW methods in this area.
So I'll try a different approach - instead of giving it a go myself again, I'll simply ask, what do /you/ think a good LW post about liberty, freedom, and fundamental human rights would look like?