[Zababa]

Yeah but like:

>Writing in Asterisk, a magazine related to effective altruism, Ozy Brennan criticized Gebru's and Torres's grouping of different philosophies as if they were a "monolithic" movement. Brennan argues Torres has misunderstood these different philosophies, and has taken philosophical thought experiments out of context.[21] Similarly, Oliver Habryka of LessWrong has criticized the concept, saying: "I've never in my life met a cosmist; apparently I'm great friends with them. Apparently, I'm like in cahoots [with them]."

The people that coined TESCREAL seem to not really be related to rationalists, and seem to have coined a term for "those vaguely related ideas from people that do some stuff we consider wrong and we consider bad". "Evil people from San Francisco" could work just as well I think.

And wait, shouldn't I beware arguments for utilitarianism rather than against? If that's what you meant yeah I agree, especially pushed to the extreme it leads you in very weird places.

[SmirkingRevenge]

I'm not sure what the parent meant by "beware arguments against utilitarianism" - there is nothing wrong with arguing for or against utilitarianism. It's a popular moral philosophy.

You should beware of bad utilitarian arguments though, which is where you often get the real "gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette" kind of arguments that justify all manners of atrocity in service of some narrow hypothetical future good.

Like when Marc Andreessen says we should consider anyone who would do something to slow down or regulate AI advancement murderers of future humans. Bad utilitarianism right there.

Proper utilitarians are concerned with the net difference between all positive and negative consequences of actions.

[tasty_freeze]

People often think they have mic-dropped utilitarianism by saying things like, "Oh, so if two people get a lot of joy by beating up a third person, that is ethical because it is overall net positive?"

A few things wrong with that. First is there is no net happiness formula which utilitarians are proposing. Peter Singer has said more than once that he weights suffering far, far higher than happiness.

Second is that every ethical system has screw cases which make the system look messed up. "Do unto others..." it terrible if you are talking about masochists.

[tasty_freeze]

I know nothing about the drama, but treating "utilitarianism" as if it is one thing or that a particular person or group's position is identical to utilitarianism seems ironic in the context. It is like claiming all pizza is bad because I went to dominoes and didn't like the experience.

[kreyenborgi]

I meant to write "be aware of arguments against". I think the asker will find enough arguments for utilitarianism in those blogs ;)