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jkaufman comments on 'Effective Altruism' as utilitarian equivocation. - Less Wrong Discussion

1 Post author: Dias 24 November 2013 06:35PM

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Comment author: jkaufman 25 November 2013 06:00:38PM 0 points [-]

Could you expand more on the incompatibility you see between Yudkowsky and Christiano's values?

Comment author: komponisto 25 November 2013 07:07:22PM 4 points [-]

Christiano strikes me as the sort of person who would embrace the Repugnant Conclusion; whereas I think Yudkowsky would ultimately dodge any bullet that required him to give up turning the universe into an interesting sci-fi world whose inhabitants did things like write fanfiction stories.

Nobody actually acts like they believe in total utilitarianism, but Christiano comes as close as anyone I know of to at least threatening to act as if they believe in it. Yudkowsky, having written about complexity of value, doesn't give me the same worry.