satt comments on [LINK] Scott Aaronson on Google, Breaking Circularity and Eigenmorality - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'm broadly sympathetic to your point that Aaronson's algorithm is measuring something like conformity or group consensuses rather than morality, but the specific example you picked to garnish that point is dodgy. From Randall Collins's Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory, pages 425-426:
The last photo Collins refers to ("plate 97") sounds like it's your photo 2, and Collins's interpretation of it seems to me to fit better than the one you imply. I wouldn't go as far as to say that all of the "twenty-nine other visible faces range from somber to apprehensive", as a few of the people in the photo are evidently just trying to get a closer look, and a boy near the front seems more intrigued than anything else. Nonetheless, the crowd as a whole doesn't appear joyful or celebratory to me.
Turning to photo 1, I see perhaps ten spectators' faces clearly enough to make a guess at what they're expressing. Going from left to right, I see (1) thick-eyebrowed man in cap in background who looks as if he's whistling while thinking hard about something; (2) foreground man in white shirt with no tie with neutral-ish expression, but maybe happy; (3) man in middle distance with shorter man in front and a boater-wearer behind, the former gazing off to the photographer's right with a worried/pensive look; (4) smirking man in tie; (5) foreground woman in dress with irregular spots who looks surprised/wary; (6) another woman behind her with open mouth, who might be amused or surprised or scandalized; (7) cluster of three foreground women, where the nearest one's face is too blurry for me to interpret, but the two further back both look apprehensive; (8) foreground man with moustache, pointing as he stares intently; and (9) man at right edge with left eye not visible in photo, looking not especially happily to the photographer's right. As in photo 2, although there are happy-looking people present, they are a minority.
I don't believe it's accurate to use these scenes as examples of rightful celebration or joy. fubarobfusco's warning to exercise caution in how we read these photos may be well-advised.
Yes, I know these photos were analyzed quite substantially, but my point is really simple -- it's that the lynchings (and the witch burnings before them) were culturally normal. The were intense events and, of course, brought out a range of emotions, not just joy, but all I'm trying to say is that the majority of people did not see them as something to be ashamed of. It was OK, it was fine, it was moral.