So, a couple general thoughts.
-In the 80s/90s we were obsessing over potential atom-splitting devastation and the resulting nuclear winter. Before that there were plagues wiping out huge swaths of humanity.
-Once a technology genie is out of the bottle you can't stop it. Human nature. -In spite of the 'miracles' of science there's A LOT humanity does not know. "There are know unknowns and unknown unknowns" D.R.
-In a few billion years our sun will extinguish and all remaining life on space rock Earth will perish. All material concerns are t...
An adventure in pluralistic morality.
Sept. 18, 2002
"All models are wrong but some are useful."
--George Box
At the core of every controversial issue, institutional dysfunction and inspiring human achievement is the conspicuous influence of how well a society of people “get along”. Splitting this atom exposes the sub-particles of human nature(~proton), moral agency(~electron) and the electromagnetic tension of choice around individual belief(~neutron). The following model is an ongoing effort to assemble and refine...
6. Pre-clean as necessary to keep dishes from stinking after three days when the dishwasher will be full and can be unloaded into the sink and washed manually because said dishwasher has been broken for three weeks!
[Bonus: discovered that manually washing dishes had 'zen' value.]
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Supplemental:
"As an interesting thought experiment, invent my brutally honest slogans to make the point that most products have both an ostensible, ‘official’ function and an ulterior function. The main value of a dishwasher, I would argue, is not that it washes dirty dishes, but that it provides you with an out-of-sight place to put them."
--Rory Sutherland, Alchemy, 2021
During further research into topic of morality I discovered the following.
Per excerpt below which meshes with my current understanding, knowledge of "morality" is based on unchanging Natural Law("Ground") (essentially the Golden Rule) is restricted by who we are. Given that who we are fluctuates this adds even more variation into defining it. I'm not suggesting basic morality is relative to a person or culture but how we perceive it is. Applying basic morality to a current culture is another matter but first things first.
"In other words, ...
Thanks for adding the James link.
Lewis has long been a fav author. Abolition of Man(3rd sec.) left a lasting impression(scars?).
Re: "people have fought wars over how people should live, and still do. "
I offer in response: "they have turned to God without turning from themselves; would be alive to God before they are dead to their own nature. Now religion in the hands of self, or corrupt nature, serves only to discover vices of a worse kind than in nature left to itself. Hence are all the disorderly passions of religious men, which burn ...
"started to slide down an icy mountain and had to pull their ice picks out"
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Alive and toed was regret well spent, IMO!
Ages ago I spoke with a roofer who told me of a time he was on a steep two story roof and started to slide on some loose shingles. He quickly took our his straight claw hammer to slam it down into the plywood underneath. As he pounded the roof repeatedly while skidding to the edge he recalled having borrowed another guy's curved claw hammer that day.
He fell but lived to tell the tale!
Great article, thanks for posting!
"People who disagree about physical things can resolve their differences by reason applied to observation and experiment. Nothing of the sort seems to be available for morality."
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W. James applies the empirical method to various belief systems in presentation to a seemingly skeptical audience. The test for all are the resulting behavior. Not even the saints remain unscathed!
"Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought. When we survey the whole field of religion, we...
"Moral progress" is first and foremost what it takes for people to get along. An ongoing process at the individual and group levels.
"a lot of problems rarely discussed among EAs."
While I'm floored by the civil, intelligent and sincere discussion I've recently found here at LW , the rootier problem to what is discussed often is, IMO, that no person seems immune to the avoidance of self-regulation. The imperative to do so noted in B. Russell's Nobel Prize acceptance speech "The Four Desires Driving All Human Behavior"(1950) in which he describes univer...
"Some people7 call it a cult"
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In distinguishing between a cult and something better:
"And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to ...
"Once a technology genie is out of the bottle you can't stop it"
Bloomberg, Feb 1st, 2023: ChatGPT Unleashes Stock Trader Stampede for Everything AI
The stock-market euphoria around AI is reminding traders of past bubbles like 2017’s blockchain frenzy.
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It's be fine. Try to figure out the right( or less wrong) thing to do and then make an effort to do it.
As always.