Open Thread, November 1 - 7, 2013

witzvo

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Thank you for trying to explain.

You can be a psychopath, and find yourself surrounded by people where "making their lives better" happens only because you like the action "cause them pain for arbitrary reasons". Or you could be a saint, and find yourself surrounded by people who value being healed, or who need to be protected, and what a coincidence that danger keeps happening.

I'm curious about to what extent these intutions are symmetric. Say that the group of like-minded and mutually friendly extreme masochists existed first, and wanted to create their mutually preferred, mutually satisfying sadist. Do you still have a problem with that?

Or you can be a guardian, and enjoy teaching and protecting people, and find yourself creating people that are weak and in need of guidance.

The above sounds like a description of a "good parent", as commonly understood! To be consistent with this, do you think that parenting of babies as it currently exist is problematic and creepy, and should be banned once we have the capability to create grown-ups from scratch?
(Note that this being even possible depends on whether we can simulate someone's past without that simulation still counting as it having happened, which is nonobvious.)

The creepy factor is that CelestAI made one being, both less intelligence than possible and less intelligent than need be.

If David had wanted a symmetrically fulfilled partner slightly more intelligent than him, someone he could always learn from, I get the feeling you wouldn't find it as creepy. (Correct me if that's not so). But the situation is symmetrical. Why is it important who came first?

Thank you for the questions, and my apologies for the delayed response.

I'm curious about to what extent these intutions are symmetric. Say that the group of like-minded and mutually friendly extreme masochists existed first, and wanted to create their mutually preferred, mutually satisfying sadist. Do you still have a problem with that?

Yes, with the admission that there are specific attributes to masochism and sadism that are common but not universal to all possible relationships or even all sexual relationships with heavy differences in power dynamics... (read more)

0lmm13y

That seems less worrying, but I think the asymmetry is inherited from the behaviours themselves - masochism seems inherently creepy in a way that sadism isn't (fun fact: I'm typing this with fingers with bite marks on them. The recursion is interesting, and somewhat scary - usually if your own behaviour upsets or disgusts you then you want to eliminate. But it seems easy to imagine (in the FiOverse or similar) a masochist who would make themselves suffer more not because they enjoyed suffering but because they didn't enjoy suffering, in some sense. Like someone who makes themselves an addict because they enjoy being addicted (which would also seem very creepy to me)) [...] Yes. Though I wouldn't go around saying that for obvious political reasons. (Observation: people who enjoy roleplaying parent/child seem to be seen as perverts even by many BDSM types). [...] I think creating someone less intelligent than you is more creepy than creating someone more intelligent than you for the same reason that creating your willing slave is creepier than creating your willing master - unintelligence is maladaptive, perhaps even self-destructive.