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Konkvistador comments on New censorship: against hypothetical violence against identifiable people - Less Wrong Discussion

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 December 2012 09:00PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 December 2012 09:43:43PM 20 points [-]

Depends on exactly how it was written, I think. "The paradigmatic criticism of utilitarianism has always been that we shouldn't rob banks and donate the proceeds to charity" - sure, that's not actually going to conceptually promote the crime and thereby make it more probable, or make LW look bad. "There's this bank in Missouri that looks really easy to rob" - no.

Comment author: [deleted] 24 December 2012 10:16:36AM *  15 points [-]

Uncharitable reading: As long as taking utilitarianism seriously doesn't lead to arguments to violate formalized 21st century Western norms too much it is ok to argue for taking utilitarianism seriously. You are however free to debunk how it supposedly leads to things considered unacceptable on the Berkeley campus in 2012, since it obviously can't.