Dave Scotese
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Dave Scotese has not written any posts yet.
Dave Scotese has not written any posts yet.
First, I wanted to suggest a revision to 3^^^3 people getting duct in their eyes: Everyone alive today and everyone who is ever born henceforth, as well as all their pets, will get the speck. That just makes it easier to conceive.
In any case, I would choose the speck simply on behalf of the rando who would otherwise get torture. I'd want to let everyone know that I had to choose and so we all get a remarkably minor annoyance in order to avoid "one person" (assuming no one can know who it will be) getting tortured. This would happen only if there were a strong motivation to stop. The best option is not presented: collect more information.
I have read the condensed version of "The Sequences" in order and this is my favorite one so far. It motivates me to deepen the emphasis I put on how the discomfort of the possibility of being proven wrong contributes to the comfort of feeling that I'm probably right. Updating working assumptions can give us a very pleasant experience after a while because we start to see that we rarely have to do it, but that only works if we create a lot situations in which we might have to do it.
Cancer is an other. A cold is an other. An allergy is an other. Unwanted thoughts are an other. A tremor is an other. There are so many biological processes that are Other that it is easy for me to view bears and AI as part of me just like all those processes are. I have some influence. There is some value to loving the malfunctioning systems and parts of our bodies, appreciating them for what they can do for us when they work "properly", and embellishing the "good" feelings. This salve for the fear of dealing with Other, whether it's AI or bears or groups of people or disease, is just... (read more)
I am aware of the existence of people more rational than I am. As far as I can tell, they aren't doing anything I don't want them to do. Most of the people who do things I don't want them to do seem to me to be less rational and less intelligent than I am. I'm talking about people instead of AI because I don't think it matters whether something "out there", is human or not. The important question is: Can it (whether or not human) be constrained somehow by whatever or whoever creates it, or by the rest of society so that we are "safe"? The evidence in the world tells... (read more)