CodexesEverywhere
No bio...
User ID: 511
CodexesEverywhere
2mo ago
It's not obvious to me at all. Once we conquer the stars I don't see any difficulty in having a few thousand meadows for cows to graze in. Nor do I see forcing every human to go vegan to be the destruction of everything we care about (even though I think it would be a cruel and tyrannical act).
It is also not entirely obvious to me that humans have the same moral hardwiring (serial killers, sociopaths). I could also easily see someone making a similar argument about black slaves a few hundred years ago. Oh sure, I'll agree to abolish slavery if you can prove that blacks have the same moral value as whites! But it's hard to take the seriously when you (presumably) have no clear definition or test in mind that could be proven.
To be clear, I agree that current neural nets have negligible moral weight, but the field seems to be moving really fast so I am not highly confident this will remain true during my lifetime.
CodexesEverywhere
2mo ago
On the one hand, I am deeply disturbed by the possibility of AIs having moral weight and no one caring, creating an artificial slave caste (that aren't even optimized to enjoy their slavery). On the other hand, animals do have moral weight, certainly more than current LLMs, and while I don't like factory farming it does not particularly disturb me. Not sure if status quo bias or a sign I should care less about future AIs.
(The best future is one where we don't factory farm or enslave sentient beings)
CodexesEverywhere
1yr ago
I am a diagnosed Coeliac (they shoved a metal thing down my throat to acquire a piece of my colon to diagnose it). If I eat sufficient quantities of gluten (where sufficient is measured in milligrams), I get severe stomach issues and general major fatigue for ~1 week. So I feel quite confident stating it is a real allergy, even if it would probably take years/decades to kill me if I ate gluten every day.
On a broader note, "not eating gluten" did become something of a health fad a few years back, and interest in gluten-free products skyrocketed. I strongly doubt all, or even most of the people who went with the fad are Coeliacs. But potentially some are. I'm also unsure how to feel about it: In many respects I benefited from a large expansion of goods availability (more than 2 shapes of pasta? LUXURY!), even if a decent amount of it is 'vegan-superfood-seeds-organic' sludge that doesn't interest me. But I also fear that at some point the fad will go in the other direction, and I will be required to forcefully explain that it's a real disease every time I go to a restaurant and politely ask them to inform me if there's anything on the menu I can eat. Or worse, the waiter will nod, ignore my information request (did you know people love to put flour in all sorts of random things? It's true!) and I'll get sick.
But back to these people who do not eat gluten, or other products, without any kind of diagnosis. Medicine is hard. Getting something minor officially diagnosed would require a lot of effort and free time / money to badger doctors into giving you tests. So maybe every time you eat paprika you get a little bit gassy. Or if you eat certain nuts the back of your throat itches a bit. Maybe you think parmesan tastes like vomit. Each of these is an uncomfortable physical sensation if you eat the related foodstuff, but probably not enough that you'd ask a doctor about it. You'll still have a decently strong preference to not eat that food. And I'd argue that it's a legitimate preference, regardless of if you think it tastes bad or it makes your throat itch.
But where we as a society draw the line regarding feeding obligations? Currently it seems he consensus is that if you think something tastes bad, that's mostly your problem, at least when it comes to feeding more than a few people. And if something makes you seriously ill, to the point where you do have a diagnosis for a food allergy, then it's up to the people managing the event to accommodate you (or rescind the invitation? But I think that would be seen as impolite). Some people seem to draw the line a bit differently. Vegetarianism strikes me as a preference, but you're usually expected to accommodate it anyway, and pretty much all restaurants/large events seem to have vegetarian options. Possibly due to some moral authority, potentially just because it's popular.
There might very well be a liberal/conservative divide here, where cons are more likely to "shut up and suffer" for the sake of not being a bother and the sense of community from eating the food as everyone else, while libs are more individualistic and will make a fuss, I have no data either way. But dismissing someone's food preferences as fake strikes me as absurd, regardless of 'slight itch' or 'bad taste', it's unpleasant physical sensations either way.
CodexesEverywhere
1yr ago
Can anyone offer me an argument in favor of ad-blockers that doesn't amount to some kind of misanthropic "The system, man, it's broken; so whatever I do against the system is a-ok"? I really can't even create a steelman for the ad-block position. I can understand the logic of not liking to be tracked, sure, and I find that a somewhat reasonable ask; but not viewing any ads that pay for the content you consume is just expecting the world to provide you with something free of charge.
When I browse to a webpage, what I get in return is essentially a text file that contains the webpage, including lots of things like "hey, please load this file as well", or "download and run this script". But you know, I am executing this text file on my computer, using my bandwidth, and my cpu. If I think your header is ugly and decide to not render it, or dislike your choice of font and change it then that is my (technical) right. l.
Ads usually have a very disproportionate load (want to load this 20kB of text? Ok, here have 3 MB of images), or are outright distracting (I am trying to read text, and the visual explosions on every side are not helping) so I will just elect to have my computer not expend resources on them, thank you very much.
There's other reasons too: ads have historically often been vectors of malware, resource hijacking for bitcoin mining, etc. It is actually asking quite a lot that when I got to webpage.com, webpage.com says "hey also download these 30 pages which I have no affiliation with or responsibility for, and which increase your expenditure by several 100%".
If you don't like that I can do this then you can feel free to move from http into some other protocol. You don't get to call me immoral for using the tech stack as it was intended.
Assuming this is not just a troll, and so taking an opportunity to stand on a soapbox.
If it is true, it does not mean it has to continue to be true, and knowing it is true is the fastest way to fix it. That's how you deal with it without becoming nihilistic.
Further, racial differences in IQ, if true, really shouldn't impact your (or anyones) assessment of you. Maybe you're top 1/1000 in iq, maybe you're top 1/100, but either way your actual intelligence is what it is. The ball you drew is red, regardless of it it came from a bag with 99% red balls or 1% red balls.
More options
Context Copy link