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army1987 comments on Is a paperclipper better than nothing? - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: DataPacRat 24 May 2013 07:34PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 28 May 2013 08:43:19PM *  0 points [-]

For some value of “similar”, I agree. Aliens as ‘alien’ as the Babyeaters or the Superhappies don't sound terribly implausible to me, but it'd be extremely hard for me to imagine anything like the Pebblesorters actually existing.

Comment author: lukstafi 29 May 2013 06:59:08AM 0 points [-]

Do you think that CEV-generating mechanisms are negotiable across species? I.e. whether other species would have a concept of CEV and would agree to at least some of the mechanisms that generate a CEV. It would enable determining which differences are reconcilable and where we have to agree to disagree.

Comment author: lukstafi 29 May 2013 06:05:53AM 0 points [-]

Is babyeating necessarily in babyeaters' CEV? Which of our developments (drop slavery, stop admiring Sparta etc.) were in our CEV "from the beginning"? Perhaps the dynamics has some degree of convergence even if with more than one basin of attraction.

Comment author: [deleted] 09 June 2013 08:54:00AM 0 points [-]

Which of our developments (drop slavery, stop admiring Sparta etc.) were in our CEV "from the beginning"?

People disagree about that, and given that it has political implications (google for "moral progress") I dare no longer even speculate about that.

Comment author: lukstafi 09 June 2013 09:43:29AM *  0 points [-]

I agree with your premise, I should have talked about moral progress rather than CEV. ETA: one does not need a linear order for the notion of progress, there can be multiple "basins of attraction". Some of the dynamics consists of decreasing inconsistencies and increasing robustness.