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DanielLC comments on If you can see the box, you can open the box - Less Wrong Discussion

49 Post author: ThePrussian 26 February 2015 10:36AM

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Comment author: gjm 26 February 2015 04:58:14PM 9 points [-]

I'm unconvinced that this is a good question, for two reasons.

  • If it exists but is incredibly rare, the answer is still "yes". And for pretty much anything you can briefly describe, there exist people who take pleasure in it.
  • There are probably substantial numbers of people who, e.g., take pleasure in unwanted pain when inflicted as punishment for something they strongly disapprove of. This may or may not be a bad thing, but it doesn't seem reasonable to say that it's evil by definition. (And I guess that James_Miller didn't intend to.)

So I think we'd get nearer to James's intent if we asked whether a substantial fraction of humans (let's say, at least 3% or so) take pleasure in other people's unwanted pain for its own sake.

Comment author: DanielLC 26 February 2015 10:13:48PM 4 points [-]

I don't think it really matters. "Evil" isn't an archetype meant for describing psychopaths. It's meant for describing people like Al Qaeda. Or, if you happen to be a member of Al Qaeda, for describing Americans. It's a form of dark arts used by Azathoth to make us behave in a way that we, personally, do not wish to behave in. Don't repurpose it for a tiny portion of humanity that acts vaguely like that by coincidence. Abandon it.

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