Stupid Questions Open Thread Round 2

OpenThreadGuy

From Costanza's original thread (entire text):

This is for anyone in the LessWrong community who has made at least some effort to read the sequences and follow along, but is still confused on some point, and is perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed. Here, newbies and not-so-newbies are free to ask very basic but still relevant questions with the understanding that the answers are probably somewhere in the sequences. Similarly, LessWrong tends to presume a rather high threshold for understanding science and technology. Relevant questions in those areas are welcome as well. Anyone who chooses to respond should respectfully guide the questioner to a helpful resource, and questioners should be appropriately grateful. Good faith should be presumed on both sides, unless and until it is shown to be absent. If a questioner is not sure whether a question is relevant, ask it, and also ask if it's relevant.

Meta:

How often should these be made? I think one every three months is the correct frequency.
Costanza made the original thread, but I am OpenThreadGuy. I am therefore not only entitled but required to post this in his stead. But I got his permission anyway.

From Costanza's original thread (entire text):

This is for anyone in the LessWrong community who has made at least some effort to read the sequences and follow along, but is still confused on some point, and is perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed. Here, newbies and not-so-newbies are free to ask very basic but still relevant questions with the understanding that the answers are probably somewhere in the sequences. Similarly, LessWrong tends to presume a rather high threshold for understanding science and technology. Relevant questions in those areas are welcome as well. Anyone who chooses to respond should respectfully guide the questioner to a helpful resource, and questioners should be appropriately grateful. Good faith should be presumed on both sides, unless and until it is shown to be absent. If a questioner is not sure whether a question is relevant, ask it, and also ask if it's relevant.

Meta:

How often should these be made? I think one every three months is the correct frequency.
Costanza made the original thread, but I am OpenThreadGuy. I am therefore not only entitled but required to post this in his stead. But I got his permission anyway.

This comment by Richard Chappell explained clearly and concisely Eliezer's metaethical views. It was very highly upvoted, so apparently the collective wisdom of the community considered it accurate. It didn't receive an explicit endorsement by Eliezer, though.

From the comment by Richard Chappell:

(namely, whatever terminal values the speaker happens to hold, on some appropriate [if somewhat mysterious] idealization).
(i) 'Right' means, roughly, 'promotes external goods X, Y and Z' (ii) claim i above is true because I desire X, Y, and Z.

People really think EY is saying this? It looks to me like a basic Egoist stance, where "your values" also include your moral preferences. That is my position, but I don't think EY is on board.

"Shut up and multiply" implies a symmetry in value between diff... (read more)

-1David_Gerard14y

Shifting the lump under the rug but not getting rid of it is how it looks to me too. But I don't understand the rest of that comment and will need to think harder about it (when I'm less sleep-deprived). I note that that's the comment Lukeprog flagged as his favourite answer, but of course I can't tell if it got the upvotes before or after he did so.

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Stupid Questions Open Thread Round 2

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Stupid Questions Open Thread Round 2

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