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ChristianKl comments on If you can see the box, you can open the box - Less Wrong Discussion
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Evil, defined as taking pleasure in someone else's unwanted pain, exists. And if we pretend it doesn't and look for other motives when evil was the driving force we get a mismatch between map and territory.
Edit
Good/Love = My utility goes up as other peoples' utility increases. Evil/Hate = My utility goes up as other peoples' utility decreases.
As I tell my intermediate microeconomics students, only economists really understand love.
I don't think that's a good definition of evil. Feeling pleasure for punishing a person who defects from a prisoner dilemma isn't inherently evil.
When look at how clinical psychopaths are "evil" it's more complicated then simple taking pleasure in someone's unwanted pain.
LOL. I just want to keep this quote as an example of LW ethics... X-D
Do you disagree with the substance, or only want to remark on the way the statement is made?
I'm not sure there's much substance involved, but I certainly think of humans as Turing complete.
I think you mixed up two different threads.
Ah, sorry, yes I did.
My amusement at this quote isn't quite at the agree/disagree level, it has more to do with the mindset which produced it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katja-rowell-md/when-feeding-therapy-becomes-aversion-therapy_b_2951294.html
I think there are people who feel a strong impulse to cause pain. Subjectively, it may seem to them that they simply didn't think of a non-pain-causing method of achieving their other ends. For all I know, at least some of them feel causing pain as a relief of anxiety rather than pleasure.
Also, it's possible to frame just about anything as punishing defection. I've been seeing some indications that a lot of bad behavior is punishing people for claiming more status than they are felt to deserve.
Or, for something milder but closer to showing a terminal value, try this.
I'm not sure about this terminal value thing-- if someone is causing pain because they feel pleasure from it, isn't pleasure the terminal value?
The question is always whether a given interpretation is useful.
The economist position that defecting in prisoner dilemmas isn't evil but punishing defectors is evil seems wrongheaded to me.