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Raemon comments on Abandoning Cached Selves to Re-Write My Source Code Partially, I've Become Unstable - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: diegocaleiro 10 October 2012 05:47PM

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Comment author: Raemon 17 October 2012 10:54:51PM -1 points [-]

Values is a tricky word (so tricky, in fact, that I think it would be reasonable to say that "values" aren't actually a real thing in the first place). I'm using it approximately to mean "things that you care about."

I want humanity to flourish and un-necessary suffering to end. But there's a limit to my caring energy, and I have to divide it between "universal utilitarian good" and "things I personally want for myself." Right now, UUG gets about 5-10% of my caring energy.

I would take a pill that increased UUG to getting 15-20% of my caring energy. (And in real life, this takes the form of investing myself in altruist communities, which reinforces my self-image as someone who does good things). But I honestly don't have interest in becoming 100% altruist.

Part of me wants to be able to say "I'd take a pill that makes me 100% altruist, so that I only feel motivation to do the bare minimum of selfish-things to survive, and otherwise direct my energy to whatever accomplishes the most good." It's a nice thought to believe that about myself. But it's not true. (If I became 5% more altruist, I might want to become an additional 5% more altruist, and maybe the cycle would repeated. Not sure. But if I got to take exactly one pill and then there would be no more pills after, I don't think I'd choose to become more than 50% altruist).

One related thing I would have benefited from in the past (and possibly still would) is being more honest about how difficult it would be to put my values into practice.

That is also important, and slightly different.

Comment author: Giles 29 October 2012 11:00:06PM *  0 points [-]

Thanks - your comment implied a concrete example of what I was after: someone who thinks that they would take the 100% altruism pill when in fact they wouldn't, isn't being honest about their values. I found this helpful.

I think it would be reasonable to say that "values" aren't actually a real thing in the first place). I'm using it approximately to mean "things that you care about."

I'd hazard a guess that calling it something different doesn't make it any realer, but we don't need to get into that right now ;-)

EDIT: what I meant by "concrete" in this case was "without reifying values/preferences/caring etc."

Comment author: diegocaleiro 20 October 2012 02:42:51AM 0 points [-]

That is how I feel. I choose to test for two months how does it feel to be the maximum percent altruist. I got nearly 70%. But after the precommitment of two months ended, the whole story of this post was starting to emerge.

Now 0% and 80% sound emotionally alike, because I dug too deep.