Comment author: gaverick 30 October 2007 02:32:32PM 1 point [-]
Comment author: themusicgod1 04 October 2013 03:44:20AM 0 points [-]

Your link is 404ing. Is http://spot.colorado.edu/~norcross/Comparingharms.pdf‎ the same one?

Comment author: Benquo 30 October 2007 11:49:14AM 5 points [-]

What if it were a repeatable choice?

Suppose you choose dust specks, say, 1,000,000,000 times. That's a considerable amount of torture inflicted on 3^^^3 people. I suspect that you could find the number of times equivalent to torturing each of thoes 3^^^3 people 50 years, and that number would be smaller than 3^^^3. In other words, choose the dust speck enough times, and more people would be tortured effectually for longer than if you chose the 50-year torture an equivalent number of times.

If that math is correct, I'd have to go with the torture, not the dust specks.

Comment author: themusicgod1 02 October 2013 09:29:16PM 0 points [-]

Likewise, if this was iterated 3^^^3+1 times(ie 3^^^3 plus the reader),it could easily be 50*3^^^3 (ie > 3^^^3+1) people tortured. The odds are if it's possible for you to make this choice, unless you have reason to believe otherwise they may too, making this an implicit prisoner's dilemma of sorts. On the other side, 3^^^3 specks could possibly crush you, and/or your local cluster of galaxies into a black hole, so there's that to consider if you consider the life within meaningful distance of of every one of those 3^^^3 people valuable.

Comment author: Ulysses 22 January 2011 02:44:19AM 2 points [-]

You are not entitled to assume a maximum disutility, even if you think you see a proof for it (see Confidence Levels Inside and Outside an Argument).

Comment author: themusicgod1 12 September 2013 02:31:08PM 1 point [-]

link for the lazy

Comment author: Robin_Hanson2 18 October 2007 01:42:32PM 1 point [-]

Toby, here is a correlation study.

Comment author: themusicgod1 10 September 2013 10:01:53AM *  0 points [-]

Sadly, your link is broken. Do you have a copy of this one?

edit : nevermind internet archive comes through.

In response to Radical Honesty
Comment author: themusicgod1 25 July 2013 01:51:59PM *  0 points [-]

A few thoughts:

Whether this is a good idea or not might very well be something you have to try for yourself to know; but on the flip side we are fairly different people, 20 years after any particular decision. While some decisions may be final, especially in an age where we can display attributes of ourself very publicly it might make more sense to have a publicly accessible Crocker's Flag somewhere that might be unset perhaps 20 years down the line so that you don't damn your future self to a life of shameful feelings beyond necessary.

Secondly, 'none of your business' is neither radically honest, and with the possible exception of the person hiding from the secret police, I've long maintained that since MAD/nuclear weapons became a possibility that there is no such thing as 'none of your business'; we all have a vested interest in the emotional situation and financial incentives of those in the global village. Should a veil of secrecy exist, it may very well cover that which will undo us all.

edit 2013-me did not understand the full consequences of global surveillance. While it's true that what's covered by a veil of secrecy would doubtless cover the seeds of our destruction, we are all hiding from the secret police, post 2013. Proceed with caution

Comment author: James_Bach 03 September 2007 10:05:27PM 2 points [-]

Hey Brandon, I hear you. I think you'll find is fascination to see this Google Video Presentation by Thomas Metzinger:

"Being No One: Consciousness, The Phenomenal Self, and First-Person Perspective"

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3658963188758918426

He tries to do exactly what you suggest. He reviews what we know empirically about self-awareness, and constructs a philosophical model of self that accounts for those phenomena. I got a lot out of it.

He even complains about certain Kantians who have taken the bold step of denying certain kinds of mental illness, because their world view can't account for them.

Comment author: themusicgod1 18 July 2013 12:02:54PM 0 points [-]

This link is broken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mthDxnFXs9k looks like it might be the same video though.

Comment author: themusicgod1 09 March 2013 04:05:01PM 0 points [-]

Earlier on in internet history there was a movement to make 'tse' a gender-neutral pronoun. It didn't take, but I still use it.

Comment author: themusicgod1 11 March 2013 03:57:46AM *  -1 points [-]

Or alternatively you could go more recent & use the Baltimore dialect and use 'Yo' as a gender-neutral pronoun.

(ref: Stotko, E. and Troyer, M. "A new gender-neutral pronoun in Baltimore, Maryland: A preliminary study." American Speech, Vol. 82. No. 3, Fall 2007, p. 262.)

Comment author: conchis 07 May 2007 08:34:34PM 0 points [-]

Jeremy: I clearly misunderstood what you meant by "an internalised sense of morality". Though I still suspect you're wrong about the contradiction, that could be because I still don't really understand the way in which you're using the phrase. In any event, it's clear that my "cheap shot" call was way off, and I apologise.

Michael V: Depends whether TGGP is making an epistemic claim about his/her personal knowledge of morality, or whether he/she is claiming that that moral statements are not true in general. In the latter case, I think it would be standard to say he/she doesn't believe in morality.

Anyone else want to spearhead a movement to come up with a gender neutral pronoun?

Comment author: themusicgod1 09 March 2013 04:05:01PM 0 points [-]

Earlier on in internet history there was a movement to make 'tse' a gender-neutral pronoun. It didn't take, but I still use it.

Comment author: themusicgod1 25 February 2013 09:29:15PM *  0 points [-]

"No results found for \" expert moral system \"."

-google.

Remember: it doesn't have to be perfect, just better than us.

edit google was misinformed - this has been discussed. Nevertheless the point stands -- unless there's a particular reason why we think that we would perform better than an expert system in this topic I am skeptical that acting except insofar as to create one is anything but short-term context dependent moral.

Comment author: themusicgod1 31 January 2013 02:23:42PM *  1 point [-]

I would explain the concepts of the craziest, most non-obvious ideally moral ideas I've ever had [such as the idea that Nick Bostrom's Interstellar Opportunity Cost paper completely changes the nature of the pro-life debate, such that it no longer is sensible to freeze all fetuses instead of aborting them, instead, if we're serious about being pro-life we should crop humanity down to only what is needed to spread human life to other stars, and that there are economic considerations to freedom but that they are subtle and complex]. Something that is so ...off the wall might not go through directly, but it might come through as something equally out there [that the greeks should dedicate all their energies and efforts to seafaring and trade]

And in fact the further in the future I would be aiming to talk about the better. What matters about 2,000 paltry years when we're talking about post-singularity or near-singularity times? The differences between us will be minor in comparison, and not be 'smudged' by the chronophone.

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