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timtyler comments on Why didn't people (apparently?) understand the metaethics sequence? - Less Wrong Discussion

12 Post author: ChrisHallquist 29 October 2013 11:04PM

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Comment author: timtyler 01 November 2013 10:53:50AM *  1 point [-]

That's an open-ended question which I don't have many existing public resources to address - but thanks for your interest. Very briefly:

  • I like evolution, Yukdowsky seems to dislike it. Ethically, Yukdowsky is an intellectual descendant of Huxley, while I see myself as thinking more along the lines of Kropotkin.

  • Yukdowsky seems to like evolutionary psychology. So far evolutionary psychology has only really looked at human universals. To take understanding of the mind further, it is necessary to move to a framework of gene-meme coevolution. Evolutionary psychology is politically correct - through not examining huamn differences - but is scientifically very limited in what it can say, because of the significance of cultural transmission on human behaviour.

  • Yudkowsky likes utilitarianism. I view utilitarianism largely as a pretty unrealistic ethical philosophy adopted by ethical philosophers for signalling reasons.

  • Yukdowsky is an ethical philosopher - and seems to be on a mission to persuade people that giving control a machine that aggregates their preferences will be OK. I don't have a similar axe to grind.