You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

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

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

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (136)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Jiro 29 July 2014 02:32:39PM *  0 points [-]

The analogy doesn't require that the same individual human who is green-tickled is the one who's blue-tickled, but the analogy does require that the humans and Martians who green-tickle them are an analogy for the same kind of thing as the humans and the Martians who blue-tickle them. So if "humans blue-tickled by Martians" means "employers hiring educated people on an individual basis", then "humans green-tickled by Martians" means "employers paying to educate people on an individual basis". Employers don't do that--the analogy fails.

You can't just say that blue-tickling means hiring and green-tickling means paying for education, without considering who is hiring whom, and who is paying to educate whom.