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khafra comments on Muehlhauser-Goertzel Dialogue, Part 1 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Meteor strikes aren't an example of non-monotonic progress in evolution, are they? I mean, in terms of fitness/adaptedness to environment, meteor strikes are just an extreme examples of the way "the environment" is a moving target. Most people here, I think, would say morality is a moving target as well, and our current norms only look like progress from where we're standing (except for the parts that we can afford now better than in the EEA, like welfare and avoiding child labor).
Yes, they are. Living systems are dissipative processes. They maximise entropy production. The biosphere is an optimisation process with a clear direction. Major meteorite strikes are normally large setbacks - since a lot of information about how to dissipate energy gradients is permanently lost - reducing the biosphere's capabilities relating to maximising entropy increase.
Not stoning, flogging, killing, raping and stealing from each other quite so much is moral progress too. Those were bad way back when as well - but they happened more.
Game theory seems to be quite clear about there being a concrete sense in which some moral systems are "better" than others.