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All of cowtung's Comments + Replies

Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012)
cowtung10

Thank you, I have reposted in the correct thread. Not sure why I had trouble finding it. I think what I'm on about with regard to "deserve" could be described as simply Tabooing "deserve" ala http://lesswrong.com/lw/nu/taboo_your_words/ I'm still working my way through the sequences. It's fun to see the stuff I was doing in high school (20+ years ago) which made me "weird" and "obnoxious" coming back as some of the basis of rationality.

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Welcome to Less Wrong! (6th thread, July 2013)
cowtung20

I originally posted to the wrong thread: http://lesswrong.com/lw/90l/welcome_to_less_wrong_2012/b8ss?context=3 where an interesting reply had me flesh out some of my ideas about "deserve", in case you are interested. I apologize for posting twice. I searched for a more recent welcome thread for a while before giving up and posting to the old one, then a kind person pointed me here. I think the link on the about page was wrong, but it appears to have been fixed.

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Welcome to Less Wrong! (6th thread, July 2013)
cowtung30

I hope this finds you all well. Since I was young, I have independently developed rationalism appreciation brain modules, which sometimes even help me make more rational choices than I might otherwise have, such as choosing not to listen to humans about imaginary beings. The basis for my brand of rationality can be somewhat summed up as "question absolutely everything," taken to an extreme I haven't generally encountered in life, including here on LW.

I have created this account, and posted here now mainly to see if anyone here can point me at the... (read more)

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6[anonymous]
Hello and welcome to LessWrong! First, let me say I enjoyed your post. Straight to your questions, outlined your thoughts and reasons, and actively engaged me during the reading. With respect to that, I'll jump right to the links I gathered from around LW that might interest you (note: I'm not an LW deep-diver and there is much I missed. These are surface level and low-hanging fruit to start with): A Human's Guide to Words - This is a collection of posts concerning words, our attempts to communicate and rely information, and these concepts connect with objective reality. It's a discussion of (among other things) breaking down what we say to get at what we mean and exploring unknown or unacknowledge or misunderstood implications of our words. Metaethics - This collection is concerned with ethics and morals as well as what "should" and "right" mean. I think it will be very relevant to your exploration of "deserve." Evolutionary Psychology - Link is to a wiki article, but look at the bottom for the posts. This discussion of evolutionary psychology may be helpful in its attempts to break down and explore the evolutionary origins of the human mind and how that can lead to "black box" concepts (like "justice") whose origins become very difficult for humans to explore. I'd also suggest the collection of posts titled Map and Territory for some general ideas regarding exploring hard concepts and breaking difficult questions down. And as a good introduction to LW writing material. I hope these prove to be useful readings. I found your admission to being less well-read than may seem fit for an LWer to be quite refreshing. How well-read you are, though, is less important than how realistic you are, how creative you can be, how willing to face questions and find answers you are. I look forward to seeing what you contribute. Glad to have you join us! I hope to see you in the conversation.
1hairyfigment
One basic point that seems often neglected: check out Von Neumann–Morgenstern. I may have misunderstood you, but please pay special attention to the converse part of the theorem if you think "pointless simulations" are pointless in some strong objective sense and not just in reference to some utility function.
2KnaveOfAllTrades
I don't think there's stuff directly on dissolving (criminal) justice in LessWrong posts, but I think lots of LessWrongers agree or would be receptive to non-retributive/consequentialist justice and applying methods described in the Sequences to those types of policy decisions. Some of your positions are probably a bit more fringe (though maybe would still be fairly popular) relative to LW, but I agree with a lot of them. E.g. I've also been seriously considering the possibility that pain is only instrumentally bad due to ongoing mental effects, so that you can imagine situations where torture is actually neutral (except for opportunity cost). One might call this 'positive utilitarianism', in opposition to negative utilitarianism. The Fun Theory Sequence might be of interest to you if you haven't read it yet. But anyway, awesome introduction comment! Welcome to LessWrong; I'm looking forward to hearing more of your ideas!
2cowtung
I originally posted to the wrong thread: http://lesswrong.com/lw/90l/welcome_to_less_wrong_2012/b8ss?context=3 where an interesting reply had me flesh out some of my ideas about "deserve", in case you are interested. I apologize for posting twice. I searched for a more recent welcome thread for a while before giving up and posting to the old one, then a kind person pointed me here. I think the link on the about page was wrong, but it appears to have been fixed.
Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012)
cowtung20

Can you describe a situation where the whole of the ends don't justify the whole of the means where an optimal outcome is achieved, where "optimal" is defined as maximizing utility along multiple (or all salient) weighted metrics? I would never advocate a myopic definition of "optimal" that disregards all but one metric. Even if my goal is as simple as "flip that switch with minimal action taken on my part", I could maybe shoot the light switch with a gun that happens to be nearby, maximizing the given success criteria, but ... (read more)

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0CCC
Easily, as long as I'm permitted to choose poor metrics, or to choose metrics that don't align with my values. But then the problem with the example would be poor choice of metrics... Ah, that's important. By selecting the right values, and assigning weights to them carefully, you bring suitable consideration of the means back. ---------------------------------------- The difficulty is that choosing the right metrics is a non-trivial problem. The concept of "deserving" is a heuristic - not always accurate, but close enough to work most of the time, and far quicker to calculate than considering even possible influence on a situation. Having said that, of course, it is not always accurate. Some times, the outcome that someone deserves is not the best outcome; as with many heuristics, it's worth thinking very carefully (and possibly talking over the situation with a friend) before breaking it. But that doesn't mean that it should never be broken, and it certainly doesn't mean it should never be questioned. (Incidentally, every situation that I can work out where there appears to be some benefit to murder either comes down to killing X people in order to save Y people, where Y>X - in short, pitting the value "minimize the risk to life" against itself - or requires a near-infinite human population, which we certainly don't have yet)
Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012)
cowtung30

Am I the first person to join this site in 2014, or is this an old topic? Someone please point me in the right direction if I'm lost.

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2A1987dM
The latest welcome thread is this one; traditionally a new one is started whenever the old one gets 500 comments.
3Salivanth
Welcome to Less Wrong! This is an old topic. Note the title: Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012). I'm not sure where the new topic is, or even if it exists, but you should be able to search for it. I recommend starting with the Sequences: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences The sequence you are looking for in regards to "right" and "should" is likely the Metaethics Sequence, but said sequence assumes you've read a lot of other stuff first. I suggest starting with Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, and if you enjoy that, move on to How to Actually Change Your Mind.
Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012)
cowtung20

I hope this finds you all well. Since I was young, I have independently developed rationalism appreciation brain modules, which sometimes even help me make more rational choices than I might otherwise have, such as choosing not to listen to humans about imaginary beings. The basis for my brand of rationality can be somewhat summed up as "question absolutely everything," taken to an extreme I haven't generally encountered in life, including here on LW.

I have created this account, and posted here now mainly to see if anyone here can point me at t... (read more)

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1CCC
Hmmm. So, in short, you propose first deciding on what the best outcome will be, and then (ignoring the question of who deserves what) taking the actions that are most likely to lead to that outcome. That seems quite reasonable at first glance; but is it not the same thing as saying that the ends justify the means? That is to say, if the optimal outcome of a situation can only be reached by killing five people and an almost-as-good outcome results from not killing those five people, then would you consider it appropriate to kill those five people?
3cowtung
Am I the first person to join this site in 2014, or is this an old topic? Someone please point me in the right direction if I'm lost.