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Manfred comments on Ethics in a Feedback Loop: A Parable - Less Wrong Discussion

9 Post author: PeerGynt 25 July 2014 04:25PM

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Comment author: Manfred 25 July 2014 11:14:32PM *  16 points [-]

You know, there's a different possible interpretation here that I like much better.

Green martians - people who are a drag socially.
Blue martians - people who are more fun than effort.
Humans - other people in these interactions.

One thing I like is that this interpretation contains the other. It also leads to some additional complications. When the interpretation applies to all people, then each person is some species of martian, and each person is a human. Each person wants to be tickled by blue martians, and each person wants to tickle other people. This allows for much more interesting behavior, if we model social interactions as some degree of reciprocal tickling.

Issues with this interpretation: Ignores context (someone may be a blue martian in one situation and a green martian in the other). Treats blue/green as a dichotomy rather than a continuum. Reduces interactions to one thing (this makes it too easy for the hypothetical people!).