All of Slapstick's Comments + Replies

Thanks! No pressure to respond

I don't understand why you think suffering is primary outside of particular brain/mind wiring. I hope I'm misunderstanding you. That seems wildly unlikely to me, and like a very negative view of the world.

Basically I think within the space of all possible varieties and extents of conscious experience, suffering starts to become less and less Commensurable with positive experience the further you go towards the extremes.

If option (A) is to experience the worst possible suffering for 100 years, prior to experiencing the grea... (read more)

I appreciate the thoughtful response and that you seem to take the ideas seriously.

That is a fundamental aspect of how experience works now. That's also a result of evolution wiring us to pay more attention to bad things than good things.

I do think it's a fundamental aspect of how experience works, independently of how our brains are disposed to thinking about it, however I definitely think it's possible to prophylactically shield or consciousness against the depths of suffering by modifying the substrate. I can't tell whether we're disagreeing or not.... (read more)

Does this assume there is some symmetry between the unimaginably bad outcomes and the unimaginably good outcomes?

It seems very clear to me that the worst outcomes are just so much more negative than the best outcomes are positive. I think that is just a fundamental aspect of how experience works.

Would you be able to specify a scenario in which the general term for love would lead to dysfunction?

I think generally if people want to signal how they feel about someone they're typically able to do so.

A lot of dysfunction is caused by people being intentionally ambiguous about the extent and quality and conditions of their feelings. In that way people may hide behind the ambiguity of the word love. Communication helps but I'm not sure if the imprecise nature of the word love is a significant barrier to communication.

Have you ever used Obsidian? Sounds similar to the method you're describing. If so, what do you think of it? Especially with respect to your preferred workflow?

On the lab grown meat section

For those who are instead principled libertarians who genuinely wouldn’t turn this around on a moment’s notice, well, I am sorry that others have ruined this and so many other principled stands.

I am not sure if I understand what is meant by this, but I'm interpreting it to imply that principled libertarians should be against a ban on meat derived from animals.

I think anyone claiming that ought to also provide a justification as to why non-human animals shouldn't be afforded some basic negative rights within libertarian prin... (read more)

It's my understanding that the controversy is mostly manufactured by industries with large financial interests in selling foods with added sodium. They pay for misleading/inaccurate studies to be done in order to introduce uncertainty and doubt. Whereas it's my understanding there is a near consensus towards low sodium amongst scientists without direct/indirect industry ties.

I do think there are probably some cases where increasing salt beyond natural levels can be the healthier thing to do given specific health concerns.

That one sounds good!

It wouldn't work for me personally because I have a pathological relationship with refined sugar so the only equilibrium which works for me is cutting it out entirely (which has been successful and rewarding though initially very difficult).

Thanks!

Oh that's a good one! I mostly follow that one already although I do find value in some unsweetened teas and smoothies. I find personally that the immediate trade-offs to consuming alcohol are enough to ensure I only really drink when it's actually aligned with my interests.

Although I do have a rule for alcohol which is "don't consume any alcohol unless people who you're currently being social with are already drinking," I'm not sure exactly how much that rule has helped me because I've followed it all my life and I don't really like alcohol that much, but... (read more)

Very interesting post! I enjoyed it! Just had some thoughts about the poly section.

If you are polyamorous, and you meet someone plausibly 25% better, or even someone 0% better (I mean the person you are with is pretty good, no?) you are honor bound to try and make it happen.

I'm not sure why you'd be honour bound to make that work. Maybe the phrasing is just being hyperbolic but I don't think refraining from pursuing a romantic relationship damages your poly honour.

Most people are not hyper-skilled in anything. Certainly they are not hyper-skilled in

If you only eat potatoes you wouldn't die from lack of sodium, the average person would probably become healthier only eating potatoes, it's been done, though I'm not endorsing that. Potatoes and water already have sodium in them, maybe not quite at the ideal ratio per average calorie but it's pretty close or maybe in that range depending on the person.

We certainly need some sodium/salt but I think the extent to which most people crave salt is a result of miscalibration due to overexposure and adaptations which aren't aligned with our current environment.

I... (read more)

I agree that seed oils should be avoided yes. I am skeptical of explanations pointing to some element particular to seed oils that is the main source of obesity and health problems, and I'd be worried this might lead people to be less concerned about consuming other unhealthy things.

I'm unsure exactly what points you're making.

I'm saying the idea that it's healthiest to avoid virtually any refined oil is mainstream nutritional understanding. Do you dispute this? I'm not making a point about which refined oils/fats are better than others. I haven't seen anything that has convinced me mainstream nutrition is wrong about that, but I don't think its particularly important when they can all be avoided.

Typical doctors are not particularly reliable nutritional authorities. They have almost no nutrition training.

MacDonalds fries are clearly v... (read more)

I am confused by this sort of reasoning. As far as I'm aware, mainstream nutritional science/understanding already points towards avoiding refined oils (and refined sugars).

There's already explainations for why cutting out refined oil is be beneficial.

There are already reasonable explainations for why all of those diets might be reported to work, at least in the short term.

I would consider most bread sold in stores to be processed or ultra processed and I think that's a pretty standard view but it's true there might be some confusion.

Or take traditional soy sauce or cheese or beer or cured meats

I would consider all of those to be processed and unhealthy and I think thats a pretty standard view, but fair enough if there's some confusion around those things.

So as a natural category "ultra processed" is mostly hogwash.

I guess my view is that it's mostly not hogwash?

The least healthy things are clearly and broadly much more processed than the healthiest things.

I typically consume my greens with ground flax seeds in a smoothie.

I feel very confident that adding refined oil to vegetables shouldn't be considered healthy, in the sense that the opportunity cost of 1 Tablespoon of olive oil is 120 calories, which is over a pound of spinach for example. Certainly it's difficult to eat that much spinach and it's probably unwise, but I just say that to illustrate that you can get a lot more nutrition from 120 calories than the oil will be adding, even if it makes the greens more bioavailable.

That said "healthy" is a complicated concept. If adding some oil to greens helps something eat greens they otherwise wouldn't eat for example, that's great.

I am perhaps not speaking as precisely as I should be. I appreciate your comments.

I believe it's correct to say that if you consider all of the food/energy we consumed in the past 50+ million years, it's virtually all plants.

The past 2-2.5 million years had us introducing more animal products to greater or lesser extents. Some were able to subsist on mostly animal products. Some consumed them very rarely.

In that sense it is a relatively recent introduction. My main point is that given our evolutionary history, the idea that plants would be healthier for us... (read more)

I would consider adding salt to something to be making that thing less healthy. If adding salt is essential to making something edible, I think it would be healthier to opt for something that doesn't require added salt. That's speaking generally though, someone might not be getting enough sodium, but typically there is adequate sodium in a diet of whole foods.

We often combine foods to make nutrients more accessible, like adding oil to greens with fat-soluble vitamins.

I would disagree that adding refined oil to greens would be healthy overall.

Not sure h... (read more)

I think we're pretty confident that refined oils are unhealthy (especially in larger quantities) , I believe there's just controversy about the magnitude of explanatory power given to seed oils.

There's some simple processes that make it easier/possible to digest whole foods that would otherwise be difficult/impossible to healthily digest, but I don't really think there's meaningful confusion as to whether that's being referred to by the term processed foods.

Could you offer some examples of healthy foods /better for us foods that are processed such that there would be meaningful confusion surrounding the idea of it being healthy to avoid processed foods, according to how that term is typically used?

I can think of some, but definitely not anything of enough consequence to help me to understand why people here seem so critical of the concept of reducing processed foods as a health guideline.

I had just searched on google about ways to make olives edible and got some mixed results. The point I was trying to make was that the way that olives are typically processed to make them edible results in a product that isn't particularly healthy at least relatively speaking, due to having isolated chemical(s) added to it in its processing.

The main thing I'm trying to say is that eating an isolated component of something we're best adapted to eat, and/or adding isolated/refined components to that food, will generally make that food less healthy than it wo... (read more)

I don't know enough to dispute the ratios of animal products eaten by people in the paleolithic era, but it's still certainly true that throughout our evolutionary history plants made up the vast majority of our diets. The introduction of animal products representing a significant part of our diet is relatively recent thing.

The fact that fairly recently in our evolutionary history humans adapted to be able to exploit the energy and nutrition content of animal products well enough to get past reproductive age, is by no means overwhelming evidence that satur... (read more)

A cooked food could technically be called a processed food but I don't think that adds much meaningful confusion. I would say the same about soaking something in water.

Olives can be made edible by soaking them in water. If they're made edible by soaking in a salty brine (an isolated component that can be found in whole foods in more suitable quantities) then they're generally less healthy.

Local populations might adapt by finding things that can be heavily processed into edible foods which can allow them to survive, but these foods aren't necessarily ones which would be considered healthy in a wider context.

It seems pretty straightforward to me but maybe I'm missing something in what you're saying or thinking about it differently.

Our bodies evolved to digest and utilize foods consisting of certain combinations/ratios of component parts.

Processed food typically refers to food that has been changed to have certain parts taken out of it, and/or isolated parts of other foods added to it (or more complex versions of that). Digesting sugar has very different impacts depending on what it's digested alongside with. Generally the more processed something is, the more ... (read more)

How can saturated fats, the main ingredients in breast milk and animal products, be bad for humans (an apex predator)? Was eating animals really giving our hunter gatherer ancestors heart attacks left and right?

I think there's a few issues with this reasoning.

For one thing, evolution wasn't really optimizing for the health of people around the age where people usually start having heart attacks. There wasn't a lot of selection pressure to make tradeoffs ensuring the health of people 20+ years after sexual maturity.

Another point is that animal sources of... (read more)

I'm not sure I understand why the experience you're describing gives an update towards these seed oil theories when it seems generally consistent with already understood health and nutrition knowledge.

Is it particularly surprising that someone experiences some health problems after switching from a diet low in refined/processed ingredients to one high in those ingredients, while also undergoing the stress of being drafted into the military? (I would be very stressed though I shouldn't assume)

Standard nutrition might be insufficient to explain the extent an... (read more)

I am sceptical about the role of alcohol you describe and dynamics around it as a form of lie detector, but I know there's a range of social dynamics I haven't necessarily been exposed to in my culture.

I have been in various groups that heavily drink on occasion, but I've never seen any evidence of people being viewed as having something to hide were they not to drink.

I think alcohol might make people more honest but I think it's usually things they already wanted to divulge but for lack of some courage or sense of emotional intimacy that alcohol can provi... (read more)

high-trust friend groups

I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario in which I would find this valuable in my friend groups. If I were ever unsure whether I could trust the word of a friend on an important matter, I'd think that would represent deeper issues than a mere lack of information a scan of their brain could provide. Perhaps I'm nieve or particular in some way in how I filter people.

Do you have examples for how this would aid friendships? Or the other domains you mentioned?

I could see it being very valuable but I also find the idea very frightening, and I am not someone who lies.

And it says something about EITHER the unreliability of intuitions beyond run-of-the-mill situations, or about the insane variance in utility functions across people (and likely time)

I don't think it's really all that complicated, I suspect that you haven't experienced a certain extent of negative valence which would be sufficient to update you towards understanding how bad suffering can get.

It would be like if you've never smelled anything worse than a fart, and you're trying to gauge the mass of value of positive smells against the mass of value of ne... (read more)

I think one reason I don't like that sort of thing is there's more ambiguity in "what it took to win the game"

It's hard to know whether an artificial advantage is proportional to the skill gap. If I win, I won't know the extent to which I should attribute that win to good play (that I ought to be proud of, and that will impress others), VS attributing the win to a potentially greater than 1/N chance of winning(that I came by artificially).

If the greater skill is the absolute advantage that leads me to a win , I will discount the achievement on account of h... (read more)

Interesting. It is an abstract hypothetical, but I do think it's useful, and it reveals something about how far apart we are in our intuitions/priors.

I wouldn't choose to live a year in the worst possible hell for 1000 years in the greatest possible heaven. I don't think I would even take the deal in exchange for an infinite amount of time in the greatest possible heaven.

I would conclude that the experience of certain kinds of suffering reveals something significant about the nature of consciousness that can't be easily inferred, if it can be inferred at a... (read more)

Would you spend a year in the worst possible hell in exchange for a year in the greatest possible heaven?

I think this is a good summary of a lot of the arguments for increased population, even if my view is different.

I think most of the benefits you're describing flow from a very tiny fraction of all humans.

Given the returns to specialization, traditionally populations must grow in order to support the efforts of that tiny fraction. However it's not necessarily the case that in the coming years increasing population is the only way to increase the amount of specialized individuals producing massive value.

Automation will make it easier to specialize.

The rate of suicide is really quite low. You ARE being offered the choice between an unknown length of continued experiences, and cessation of such.

I think the expected value of the rest of my life is positive (I am currently pretty happy), especially considering impacts external to my own consciousness. If that stops being the case, I have the option.

There's also strong evolutionary reasons to expect suicide rates to not properly reflect the balance of qualia.

As embedded agents, our views are contingent on our experiences, and there is no single tru

Thanks for answering. I would personally expect this intuition and introspection to be sensitive to contingent factors like the range of experiences you've had, would you agree?

Personally my view leans more in the other direction, although it's possible I'm losing something in misunderstanding the complexity variable.

If my life experience leads me the view that 'suffering is worse than wellbeing is good', and your life experiences lend towards the opposite view, should those two data points be given equal weight? I personally would give more weight to acco... (read more)

Why do you think/suspect that?

I think I agree with this, but I also think it's really important to avoid making too many assumptions about what people believe when they say they're religious or practice religion . People often use similar language and labels to signify a very broad range of beliefs and views.

I don't think the title of this post is consistent with your self professed epistemic status, or the general claims you make.

You seem to be stating that in your (non expert) opinion, some EA's are overconfident in the probabilities they'd assign to shrimp having the capacity to experience qualia?

If we assumed that's correct, that doesn't imply that it's okay to eat shrimp. It just means there's more uncertainty.

I don't think the thermometer is suffering.

I think it's not necessarily easy to know when something is suffering from the outside, but I still think it's the best standard.

most multicellular animals clearly have, but still we don't give them the right to copyright

I possibly should have clarified I'm moreso talking about the standard for moral consideration, I think if we ever created an AI entity capable of making art that also has the capacity for qualia states, I don't think copyright rights will be relevant anymore.

We raise and kill certain animal

But very few people seem to go along the principle of "granting privileges to humans is fine, actually".

Because you're using "it's fine to arbitrarily prioritize humans morally" as the justification for this privilege. At least that's how I'm understanding you.

If you told me it's okay to smash a statue in the shape of a human, because "it's okay to arbitrarily grant humans the privilege of not being smashed, on account of their essence of humanness, and although this statue has some human qualities, it's okay to smash it because it doesn't have the esse... (read more)

We shouldn't create it, and if we do, we should end it's existence. Or reprogram it if possible. I don't think any of those things are inconsistent with centering moral consideration around the capacity to experience suffering and wellbeing.

Well, the distinction never mattered until now, so we can't really say what have we been doing. Now it matters how we interpret our previous intent, because these two things have suddenly become distinct

Even if we assume that this is some privilege granted to humans because they're human, it doesn't make sense to debate whether a human-like process should be granted the same privilege on account of the similar process. Humans would be granted the privilege because they have an interest in what the privilege grants. An algorithmic process doesn't necessa... (read more)

AIs have some property that is "human-like", therefore, they must be treated exactly as humans

Humans aren't permitted to make inspired art because they're human, we've just decided not to consider art as plagiarized beyond a certain threshold of abstraction and inspiration.

The argument isn't that the AI is sufficiently "human-like", it's just that the process by which AI makes art is considered sufficiently similar to a process we already consider permissible.

I disagree that arbitrary moral consideration is okay, but I just don't think that issue is really that relevant here.

Why not capacity to suffer?

I would love to see some sort of integration of the pol.is system, or similar features

All else equal, a unit of animal suffering should be accorded the same moral weight as an equivalent unit of human suffering. (i.e. equal consideration for equal interests)

When trying to model your disagreement with Martin and his position, I think the best sort of analogy I can think of is that of tobacco companies employing 'fear, uncertainty, and doubt' tactics in order to prevent people from seriously considering quitting smoking.

Smokers experience cognitive dissonance when they have strong desires to smoke, coupled with knowledge that smoking is likely not in their best interest. They can supress this cognitive dissonance by changing their behaviour and quitting smoking, or by finding something that introduces sufficien... (read more)

Interesting topic

I think that unless we can find a specific causal relationship implying that the capacity to form social bonds increases overall well-being capacity, we should assume that attaching special importance to this capacity is merely a product of human bias.

Humans typically assign an animal's capacity for wellbeing and meaningful experience based on a perceived overlap, or shared experience. As though humans are this circle in a Ven diagram, and the extent to which our circle overlaps with an iguana's circle is the extent to which that iguana ha... (read more)