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Silver_Swift comments on Open Thread, Jun. 1 - Jun. 7, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 01 June 2015 12:45AM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 01 June 2015 08:29:02PM 5 points [-]

And it isn't that he has no empathy, he just has more empathy for mankind as a whole than for the guy standing in front of him, and he's drawing logical conclusions from that difference.

That's a risky game. It makes the company culture less enjoyable. That makes hiring harder and can motivate people to quit. Musk can afford this because of the strength of the vision of his company, that makes people to work there but it's still not clear that it's optimal.

Comment author: Silver_Swift 02 June 2015 11:46:23AM *  1 point [-]

Basically the ends don't justify the means (Among Humans). We are nowhere near smart enough to think those kinds of decisions (or any decisions really) through past all their consequences (and neither is Elon Musk).

It is possible that Musk is right and (in this specific case) it really is a net benefit to mankind to not take one minute to phrase something in a way that it is less hurtful, but in the history of mankind I would expect that the vast majority of people who believed this were actually just assholes trying to justify their behavior. And besides, how many hurt feelings are 55 seconds of Elon Musks time really worth from a utilitarian standpoint? I don't know, but I doubt Musk has done any calculations on it.