If nothing else, a lot of magic systems exist in extropic worlds, or at the very least, break conservation of energy. Plus, magic is often easier to use. Yeah, early D&D or Discworld is tough, but most systems these days are psychically channeled, in nature if not in name.

The technology and science in this world is awesome (and reality is too), but it's inaccessible. Most magic systems are not. Maybe its just laziness, but that's part of the appeal. Not having to spend thousands of years working out how to heal diseases, for instance.

The shift in focus from intelligence/memory to willpower doesn't hurt either.

What is really comes down to is The Taste of Grass. (And yes, there probably is a more official version, but it's a damn good story and it's after midnight.) As long as we can appreciate the difference, and not take it for granted, the grass can genuinely be greener on the other side.

The most enjoyable part of reading through these comments is that everyone is in a combined state of ethically relaxed and mentally aware. Makes for stimulating conversation.

Think about Free Speech. People have the right to lie to you, to say anything they want to you. A stranger can walk up to you on the street and say horrible, uncomfortable, distress-causing sequences of words and symbols to you, and theres not really much you can do to stop it. Why should a person be allowed to say to you a thing that is not true, a thing that you do not want to hear, just in the interest of his own free expression? Now just include sexuality to be included under the umbrella of free expression, blur the lines between mental and physical pain and discomfort, and there you go. And before anyone assumes that this kind of reasoning makes me at all pro-rape or sympathetic to the idea of it, please know that i personally consider Free Speech laws to actually be in their ultimate effect, regressive and detrimental to veracity within the sociopolitical spectrum. That which is true is sustained by its own evidence and merits, only insanity and falsehood needs establishment power to prop it up.

Try carrying the fetus and giving birth from any other location. I suppose having the fun parts somewhere else than the reproductive dumping tube could be nice, but wouldn't make any sense.

It is, I think, the satisfaction of both utility and curiosity, Engineering and Science, that makes the new discovery the best.

To know that this was the easiest way, and thus not diminish the discovery with futility, but yet to finally succeed in overcoming mental hardship, which is a joyous release. Not least due to the excitement in accomplishment, nor the pride of creating new advancements in aid of ethical positivity.

Or perhaps because having something that no-one else does is far too ingrained in our psyches, as a species.

I don't know what you mean by that, but I resolved my weird ethical quasi-nihilism through a combination of studying Metaethics and reading Luke's metaethical sequence, so you might want to do that as well, if only for the terminology.

I think "moral anti-realist" is better, but not by much.

Specifically, they seem to be talking about something similar to Error Theory.

P: Humans naturally or instinctively act according to a system very close to Utilitarianism

Were this true, the utilitarian answers to common moral thought experiments would be seen as intuitive. Instead, we find that a minority of people endorse the utilitarian answers, and they are more likely to endorse those answers the more they rely on abstract thought rather than intuition. It seems that most people are intuitive deontologists.

I think of this as less an ethical system in itself, rather a justification and rationalization of my position on Nihilism and its compatibility with Utilitarianism, which, coincidentally, seems to be the same as most people on LW.

I don't think "nihilist" is an interesting term, because it smuggles in implications that I do not think are useful (like "why don't you just kill yourself, then?"). I think "moral anti-realist" is better, but not by much. The practical advice I would give: do not seek to use ethics as a foundation, because there is nothing to anchor it on. The parts of your mind are connected to each other, and it makes sense to develop them as a collection. If there is no intrinsic value, then let us look for extrinsic value.

I appreciate I am likely to inexperienced to come up with anything that impressive,

It's not even that (ok, it's probably at least a little of that). Some of the most worthless and nonsensical philosophy has come from professional philosophers (guys with Famous Names, who get chapters in History of Philosophy textbooks) who've constructed massive edifices of blather without any connection to anything in the world. EDIT: See e.g. this quote.

with the utmost respect to Eliezer, I have yet to come across anything in the Sequences which did more than codify or verbalize beliefs I'd already held.

You've got it right. One of the points Eliezer sometimes makes is that true things, even novel true things, shouldn't sound surprising. Surprising and counterintuitive is what you get when you want to sound deep and wise. When you say true things, what you get is "Oh, well... yeah. Sure. I pretty much knew that." Also, the Sequences contain a lot of excellent distillation and coherent, accessible presentation of things that you would otherwise have to construct from a hundred philosophy books.

As for enlightenment that makes your previous views obsolete... in my case, at least, that happened slowly, as I digested things I read here and in other places, and spent time (over a long period) thinking about various things. Others may have different experiences.

As I said, I am reading them, but have found them mostly about how to think as opposed to what to think so far, though I daresay that is intentional in the ordering.

Yeah, one of the themes in Less Wrong material, I've found, is that how to think is more important than what to think (if for no other reason than that once you know how to think, thinking the right things follows naturally).