[rwnspace]

He has some great essays and research pieces and has fostered a generally nice community of people who grew out of LessWrong. There aren't many places online to talk about those things in a certain way without it devolving rapidly.

[throwanem]

Strangely, a popular formulation of utilitarian ethics attracts utilitarian ethicists, some of whom were eugenicists and the like already by inclination, the rest merely having become so under the suasion of this fringe theory's false axioms.

When your scheme of rules for how human societies should run does nothing to exclude or even discourage the worst atrocities of human history - when that scheme is fairly evaluable on its own terms as declaring those atrocities insufficient! - you've already made a catastrophically terrible mistake. To advocate it thereafter through persuasion rhetorical and otherwise is contemptible, but unsurprising.

[rwnspace]

As it happens I'm neither an EA nor much of a utilitarian, in the traditional sense, probably closer to a Christian "post-rat". I'd be hard pressed to say that it's worth killing a bunch of people to say, save the universe. I still have had a good time reading Scott and occasionally engaging with other people in the community.

[throwanem]

> I'd be hard pressed to say that it's worth killing a bunch of people to say, save the universe.

Well, thank God for that, at least. Do you honestly not realize how you sound? That's a genuine question, if not an especially friendly one. You can answer it out loud if you like, but no one really needs you to.

I strongly suspect we agree on nearly nothing, including the moral value of your desiderata. But it makes some sense out of how people in this community go dangerous, if that's the sort of "architecture astronaut" philosophy you people are pairing with the assumption you can think yourselves out of anything and everything including human imperfection and emotion. The lack of oxygen up there has gone to your head.

[rwnspace]

Right, it's not like such "do this awful thing or do that awful thing" scenarios are constantly relevant in medical, the government, or dare I say, military decisions.

You need to start actually having conversations with real individuals, I was giving you a chance, but I'm not bothering with it any more, except to say this: I am not "you people", I am not whatever you are projecting me to be, at all, least of all someone with a lack of moral disgust. Because I am capable of engaging in deliberate thought about awful things does not make me awful too, and I have no idea why you think that Scott Alexander is somehow the boogieman in the current ethico-political landscape, go look at Curtis Yarvin.

[throwanem]

> medical, the government, or dare I say, military decisions

Which of these are you making?

> Because I am capable of engaging in deliberate thought about awful things does not make me awful too

Are you sure? Being able to entertain ideas you don't agree with is necessary, but there is a sting in the tail. There was an old warning about that, something about how it looks back. I don't believe people nearly often enough understand what was meant. I don't believe you do.

> I have no idea why you think that Scott Alexander is somehow the boogieman in the current ethico-political landscape, go look at Curtis Yarvin.

Yarvin's never been anything but a jackoff wannabe who dresses up in big bro's old rocker drag to indulge his humiliation kink on stage, and reliably struggles to achieve even that much.

I'm more interested in people capable of being taken seriously, and "Alexander's" whole schtick is making the implausible, nonsensical, and unconscionable go down easy. Eugenics is one example. I don't hold against him that he's justified it once long ago; anyone in their 20s or early 30s is likely to say dumb shit occasionally. It's just that I see no compelling evidence he has in the interim developed an understanding of what was wrong with his prior thinking, only learned in the manner of an incompletely socialized child what makes people angry to hear talked about. Unfortunately, he is no child; like anyone his actions have consequences in the world, all the more in his case for his outsized profile and persuasive qualities. That makes him a somewhat dangerous person in his own right, and as anyone else's 'useful idiot' potentially a good bit more so. As such he merits interest, which as a public figure he also recruits. And, of course, it is always interesting to observe who lately seems to be recruiting him, which appears pretty simple to do.

What a shame. As an author of fiction the man has a genuine gift, I think, yet he will always in the end be "better known for other work."

[rwnspace]

Again you speak completely arrogantly, you have no idea what decisions I've taken in my life, no, none of the list, and yes, ones that involve significant threat to life. I specifically did not use the word "entertain" for those ideas because I have firsthand experience of the aforementioned sting. There's a reason I described myself as "post-rat". Yarvin was taken seriously for quite a time and is far more well-aligned with the sorts of people and views you're alluding to. Scott's Jewish, for god's sake.

I can only conclude you're a troll with far too much time on your hands. Goodbye.

[rwnspace]

While I'm detecting you feel strongly about trolley problems, I think it's fine to discuss them, and I really don't see why you need to try and shame me for providing an example of where I tend to sit on them.

[klipt]

Anything that causes huge suffering, like forcing eugenics on people, is obviously not utilitarian because suffering has negative utility.

Unless you mean things like parents choosing to screen for Down syndrome, which is not what most people call "eugenics" since it's completely voluntary.

[throwanem]

That's just, like, your utility function, maaaaaaan.

I joke, but that actually is the problem. I mean, look at you! Even trying to disclaim eugenics you can't manage not to espouse it, just in the "positive" or "voluntary" or "new eugenics" or "liberal eugenics" variety that bothers people less than all the others.

I mean, I get why a programmable system of ethics appeals to programmers, just as a mathematical one to mathematicians, and for like cause in both cases. But you are required to acknowledge reality has the permanent right of veto, not merely pay lip service to the concept of it possibly for the moment holding that privilege.

[klipt]

So you're saying it should be illegal to test for Down syndrome in utero?

Because that's a common practice in most developed countries. And it hasn't led to Nazi Germany in those countries.

[throwanem]

I'm saying you should own yourself a eugenicist and at least be honest about that, rather than strive to advance a heterodox and unappealing, actually rather amoral and inhuman, ideology through instrumental deceit. You certainly should not do so on the backs of parents facing what I understand can be one of a lifetime's more difficult decisions.

You know as well as I do suffering under utilitarianism has exactly the value the advocate of the moment cares to give it at the moment, whether that be negative, neutral, or vastly to the greater good. Why even attempt such a trivially obvious lie?

[klipt]

> parents facing what I understand can be one of a lifetime's more difficult decisions.

Do you believe that parents who choose to terminate a downs fetus are evil/utilitarian?

Or are the doctors who perform the testing/abortion the evil/utilitarian ones?

Or the lawmakers who allow such testing/abortion to be legal?

Where exactly is the responsibility for being evil/utilitarian in your mind?