Seconding Kaj_Sotala's question. Is there a good argument why self-improvement doesn't have diverging paths due to small differences in starting conditions?
Dunno. CEV actually contains the phrase, "and had grown up farther together," which the above leaves out. But I feel a little puzzled about the exact phrasing, which does not make "were more the people we wished we were" conditional on this other part - I thought the main point was that people "alone in a padded cell," as Eliezer puts it there, can "wish they were" all sorts of Unfriendly entities.
This is a thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. The previous thread is at close to 500 comments.