Is there an inherent value to human (or sentient) life?
That's a question about an individual utility function, not rationality. I can't convince you why your utility function should have a term for the existence of other humans. But my utility function does. As it does for puppies, flowers, and double rainbows.
I see I've mistaken the word "inherent" to mean "many people share a term for the existence of humans". Thanks.
I've read through some of the Sequences, but I'm still unclear on a few basic concepts around LW rationality. This is in part to my learning still which benefits from social engagement (ie discussions) rather than just reading. One of those concepts I'm unclear on: Is there an inherent value to human (or sentient) life?
It appears to me that one common theme on this site is that human life (current and future) is very important. Why is that so? Why is the goal people over paper clips?
If you don't use a car, how will you get to places?
There are a few very cultural biased responses in the thread. Your statement seems really ignorant to me. Obviously your usage of alternatives depends on what the situation in your area is like. There are cultures that are very much into bicycles (Netherlands, Denmark), some where just no one even has a car (China, many other non-rich countries). Some where public transport is crappy and car is the only alternative (Fill in your own). Some where many alternatives exist. It is for everyone to find out which alternatives exist in her or his locale. It should be easy to figure out the local transport abilities. On an international forum no one can give all-suitable advice that fits every situation.
For example I choose to move into the inner city of a 400.000ppl city in Germany. There is much public transport (bus, tram, subway, distance trains) available, including a great website that tells me how to get from A to B anytime. As a backup there are taxis. But since I am young, poor and healthy I mostly walk everywhere. If is more than 1,5h walking distance I take public transport.
The OP probably does not suggest to never ever drive, but to make a reasonable effort to stay safe. Reducing driving if possible is one way. If it is not feasible in your area, than you still can do the other things. Since we deal with probability here it is all about comparing alternatives and improving your odds.
From a financial viewpoint one can calculate the total cost of a car broken down on usages, vs. public transport vs. increased rent for a more favorable place. And if you do not need a car on a (work)daily basis you can find the local car-sharing offer (no idea if the US provides it. In Germany it is slowly growing), rent a car at times or take the Taxi.
I think a fair question to ask is, "If you don't use a car, how will you get to places safely?"
There seems to be an unsupported assumption that the alternatives to driving (cycling, walking, public transportation) are SAFER than driving.
On a per-mile travelled basis, what are the risks associated with various forms of transportation (driving, walking, cycling, public bus, public train, etc)? My suspicion is that the danger is (in descending order): cycling, walking, driving, public bus, public train, but I don't know where to go to find evidence.
The example doesn't require quantum physics. Just ordinary classical mechanics.
My point still holds. Most people, myself included, don't have a belief that an egg will spontaneously reform according any laws of physics. To use it as an example of the difference between certainty and likelihood is ineffective.
"The rule that says that the egg won't spontaneously reform and leap back into your hand is merely probabilistic."
This example requires a level of education that doesn't match my belief of the expected audience of this post.
The low importance in the distinction between mathematical certainty and realistic likelihood is valid, but involving quantum probability kills the post for me.
I suspect that nuclear weapons would be invented before we as a species saw just how devastating a total war is. The next total war might not have happened until the 1950s, when militaries were that much more devastating.
The big assumption is that a world without WWII is always better, but it could easily be far, far worse as well.
I agree it could be worse as well. But it would have to be much worse, enough to account for the "badness" of WWII itself to be undesirable.
How does retail falling in favor of ship to home lower employment for long-haul truckers? You still have to get the stuff from the ports to the distribution centers. The only thing that cuts down employment for long haul truckers is automated trucks, and that is still a long long way away.
Sorry, I should have been clearer.
I do mean automated trucking. I think that development is less than 30 years away. Self-driving cars are a functioning technology now, the main hurdles (not insignificant ones) being social and legal.
Like most human-replacing technology, where the industry still exists, but is now automated ( modern car factories compared to buggy whip manufacturers), I don't expect trucking to be 100% automated, but the human factor will be reduced significantly the next 30 years.
Vehicles will still need humans to gas, service, deal with theft and breakdowns, etc. It will likely start with truckers being able to sleep during trips, still one trucker per vehicle which decreases the down time of cargo by 30%. Then there will likely be one trucker per several vehicles travelling in a convoy. Potentially there could be "truckers" based in areas that handle vehicles as they pass through, rather than travelling with them.
Of course, as the costs of trucking goes down, the attractiveness goes up, so while it may take 1/4 of the manpower to handle the same cargo, the amount of cargo will increase.
I'm estimating a 50% decrease in trucking employment in the next 30 years, even as the amount of cargo doubles.
The US government has listed some trends here: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_203.htm
Manufacturing is clearly out. Services that involve interacting with other humans (health care, teaching) are in.
Personally, I think we've plucked a lot of low hanging fruit. I predict the maturation of some technologies that will make a few fields move towards obsolescence. I expect at major ( >%50) decline in employment for long haul truckers and tax preparers under that maturation. Retail sales will decline in favor of ship-to-home, and obviously some jobs are clearly disappearing altogether ( running a newspaper printing press,camera loader on a movie set, working at a video rental store, telephone line repairman).
It's easier to predict what will decline rather than what will thrive. Engineering is generally a safe bet though.
Thanks all for the comments. I didn't actually mean to post this yet (my first original post). I thought I had saved it as a draft and was coming back to flesh it out...and there it was with comments and all.
Despite (or because of??) the terseness of my original post, I received many excellent upvotable replies.
I was going to expound a little more on the two points.
How do I go about defining and achieving realistic goals of parenting? This is the bigger question of the two since I feel more at sea with my 5 year old (also have a 2 year old, who's much "easier"). Some of the resources listed look like good places to start.
How do I encourage my children have a rationalistic worldview? That's something I'm more comfortable with but not really sure if I'm doing a great job.
Anyway, thanks again.
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Values (utilities, goals, etc) are arational. Rationality, LW or otherwise, has nothing to say about "correctness" of terminal values. (Epistemic rationality - the study of how to discover objective truth - is valuable for most actual values which reference the objective, real world; but it is still only a tool, not necessarily valued for itself.)
Many LW posters and readers share some values, including human life; so we find it productive to discuss it. But no-one can or will tell you that you should or ought to have that value, or any other value - except as an instrumental sub-goal of another value you already have.
Your expression, "inherent values", is at best confusing. Values cannot be attributes purely of the valued things; they are always attributes of the tuple (valued thing, valuing agent). It doesn't make sense to say they are "inherent" in just one of those two parts.
Now, if you ask why many people here share this value, the answers are going to be of two kinds. First, why people in general have a high likelihood of holding this value. And second, whether this site tends to filter or select people based on their holding this value, and if so how and why it does that. These are important, deep, interesting questions that may allow for many complex answers, which I'm not going to try to summarize here. (A brief version, however, is that people care more about other people than about paperclips, because other people supply or influence almost all that a person tends to need or want in life, while paperclips give the average person little joy. I doubt that's what you're asking about.)
I've been trying to work through Torture versus Dustspecks and The Intuitions Behind Utilitarianism and getting stuck...
It seems Values are arational, but there can be an irrational difference between what we believe our values are and what they really are.