Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015

polymathwannabe

Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015 — LessWrong

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Eh, that's not really what I'm worried about. It just seems to me that there can be very little good outcome of (say) posting "crazy ideas" here about how to recreate slavery or whatever. Not because it'll make LW look bad, or because there's a significant chance of it coming about ... but because people shouldn't practice at creating social ills, since you get better at what you practice.

Post "crazy ideas" about how to accomplish good ends, sure. But "crazy ideas" for creating conditions that nobody would want their son or daughter to live in? Why bother? History is bad enough.

(This is intended to be a politically neutral argument, applicable equally given progressive or conservative premises.)

HungryHobo11y10

I'm not so sure. There is some value in trying to guess at the limits of the behavior open to the least moral, most hostile and least cooperative individual.

I wouldn't buy children, force them to work half-starved in an open pit diamond mine at gunpoint but in the real world there are people who actually do that and countries that are hellish pits of civil war because that's an economically viable option open to someone sufficiently unconcerned by human suffering.

Just as it can be hard to guess how horrible the solution found by a non-human process can b... (read more)

2Viliam11y

I tried to play devil's advocate and say -- if we can imagine creative bad things, there is a chance that sooner or later someone else will imagine them, too; but if we think about the idea first, we can find a defense. Something like inoculation. But the problem is: we are usually not thinking about the defense, only posting bad ideas. And even if we would post a hint at solution, if a few years later someone takes the idea seriously, people will probably already forget that the solution was posted here. Also, using the same argument, if we can find a quick solution now, most likely other people will be able to find it later if it will be necessary. Yet another problem is that attack is usually more simple than defense, so contributing equally to both sides creates a negative outcome.

0Tem4211y

By the same token, it is good for us to practice arguing against social ills. Of course, we can do that anywhere on the internet. But this way we get community support :-)

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Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015

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Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015

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