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polymathwannabe comments on Ethics in a Feedback Loop: A Parable - Less Wrong Discussion
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Here are some partial attempts at a solution, ordered from the one I would support the most to the one I would support the least:
The laws of Earth prohibit tickling for pay. Interestingly, the laws of Earth do not prohibit paying a Martian and a human actor to act as if the Martian is zapping the human's brain with a ray gun (which in real life is way worse than tickling, even by a green Martian, and which no humans or Martians actually enjoy doing) and then selling the video. It's weird. [ETA: I misunderstood the analogy. Doing experiments on the mothership for pay is illegal. Tickling for pay is legal in theory, but it would seem weird to most people, so it usually isn't done.]
Your other solutions are worth trying. However, I notice that most of them are blunt physical solutions that depend crucially on tickling being a very simple physical action that we have the technology to modify, and not, say, a stand-in for an interlocking set of horrifyingly complicated social problems involving desire, fear, pain, status, envy, humiliation, hope, joy, resentment, contempt, shame, and, oh yeah, politics. Lucky we're just talking about tickling.
I think I get what tickling is supposed to be a metaphor for, but I'm clueless as to what the human and two Martian factions represent.
OK, I really would prefer that this discussion stays on the abstract level, but in order to avoid confusion, I will provide a translation of the intended metaphors:
Green Martian = Low Status Male
Blue Martian = High Status Male
Earthling = Female
Tickling = Flirting (Including obnoxious strategies such as "negs" and "kino escalation")
The moderately painful sting of the tentacles of the Green Martian = Creepiness, Social Awkwardness, etc
Experimentation on Earthlings (defined in comments) = Sex
You should have set this up between Martians and Venusians :-)
Otherwise, I don't think that practicing tickling is the main way for changing the color from Green to Blue.
Silver can make you blue!
A valid point :-D
OK, I had slightly misunderstood it. I'm retracting the comments based on the misunderstanding.
The laws of some countries of Earth prohibit tickling for pay. In other countries it's perfectly legal (but you may be required to have your tentacles periodically screened for infectious diseases).
I agree that in the object-level case, the best solution is probably a fairly simple technology. So, more ideas!
Aka alcohol or E
X-D
I don't think this allegory is good enough for me to endorse further analogizing. Like, people have complicated internal motivations for drinking that look almost nothing like "this will numb the pain when socially awkward people try to talk to me."
But do look like "this will make me less socially awkward".