Thanks Patrick. As it looks like turning out, I think my 3rd is going to be completely taken up anyway. Maybe next time.
Apologies from me. My October 2nd is already booked for another party. (Not that I attend a lot of parties.)
Hi. I was an occasional contributor on OB and have posted a few comments on LW. I've dropped back to lurking for about a year now. I find most of the posts stimulating -- some stimulating enough to make me want to comment -- but my recent habit of catching up in bursts means that the conversations are often several weeks old and a lot of what needs to be argued about them has already been said.
The last post that almost prompted me to comment was ata's mathematical universe / map=territory post. It forced me to think for some time about the reification of ...
Morality is then the problem of developing a framework for resolving conflicts of interest in such a way that all the agents can accept the conflict resolution process as optimal.
I think we're in agreement here.
For me the difficult questions arise when we try to take one universalizable moral principle and try to apply it at every level of organization, from the personal "what should I be doing with my time and energy at this moment?" to the public "what should person A be permitted/obliged to do?"
I was thinking about raising the q...
It's fairly clear that most people do in fact put greater weight on the utility of their family and friends than on that of strangers. I believe that is perfectly ethical and moral but it conflicts with a conception of utilitarianism that requires equal weights for all humans. If weights are not equal then utility is not universal and so utilitarianism does not provide a unique 'right' answer in the face of any ethical dilemma and so seems to me to be of limited value.
If you choose to reject any system that doesn't provide a "unique 'right' answer&...
Your intuitions will be biased to favoring a sibling over a stranger. Evolution has seen to that, i.e. kin selection.
Utilitarianism tries to maximize utility for all, regardless of relatedness. Even if you adjust the weightings for individuals based on likelihood of particular individuals having a greater impact on overall utility, you don't (in general) get weightings that will match your intuitions.
I think it is unreasonable to expect your moral intuitions to ever approximate utilitarianism (or vice versa) unless you are making moral decisions about peop...
I've noticed strong female representation (where I least expected to find it) in The Skeptic Zone,an Australian skeptics group. The feeling I get of that community (even just as a podcast lurker) is that it's much more lighthearted than LW/OB. Whether that makes any difference to sex ratios, I don't know.
For most of the time I've listened to the podcast, there's been regular strong contributions from females. My gut feel would have been that having good female role models would encourage more female participation, however I just did a quick eyeballing of the Skeptic Zone's FaceBook fans and it looks typically about 5:1 biased to males.
Melbourne, Australia
Or what thoughts do you have regarding Michael Vassar's suggestion to practice lying?
(Reusing an old joke) Q: What's the difference between a creationist preacher and a rationalist? A: The rationalist knows when he's lying.
I'm having trouble resolving 2a and 3b.
...2a. Hyper-vigilant honesty. Take care never to say anything but what is best supported by the evidence, aloud or to yourself, lest you come to believe it. 3b. Build emotional comfort with lying, so you won’t be tempted to rationalize your last week’s false claim, or your next week’s politi
Undramatic for me too.
If you've got a talent that keeps you very popular within a group, it's very easy to get sucked into being what those admiring people want you to be. Being bright, clear-thinking, eloquent, confident (and a musician) moves you very easily into a leadership position, and builds the feeling of responsibility for the welfare of the group.
It took me too long to commit to acknowledging my accumulated doubts and misgivings and examine them in anything other than a pro-Christian light. I had enough religious cached thoughts in an interconne... (read more)