ccc
1yr ago
EA is the subset of rationalism that takes utilitarianism Very Seriously.
There's much less overlap with TheMotte specifically, which seems pretty critical of utilitarianism. One of the main criticisms is this exact failure mode: because the numbers are all made up, a smart enough person can justify doing whatever it is they wanted to do anyway. "Why yes, of course I'm defrauding thousands of people, because I can better direct their money towards things which satisfy my utility function such as..."
ccc
1yr ago
The bluecheck and the bluecheck privileges (priority in replies, bluecheck only feed, etc) should be separated. Have the former require a large, one-time fee to cover the cost of Twitter doing some due diligence, and have the latter be the subscription fee.
Verification being a recurring payment is so absurd on its face that it makes me think Musk is not as interested in making money from bluechecks as he is in destroying the bluecheck class.
ccc
1yr ago
This doesn't really feel all that reassuring. MacAskill's "in the vast majority of cases" and Eliezer's "(For Humans)" are explicit caveats. Scott doesn't even bother making more concessions than "well shucks you can't do much good if you've made all the deontologists mad enough that they get in your way".
For all of them there's still an implicit out, that lying/cheat/stealing for the greater good is okay if you can get away with it. Eliezer goes the furthest to emphasize that, no, really, you won't get away with it, but he still leaves that out there. He has to.
So all it takes is a little narcissism for a 140 IQ altruist to rationalize that he can in fact part the 90 IQ rubes from their money and have them be none the wiser. Sure, amongst humans such a thing is unthinkable, but are those two even really the same species?
ccc
1yr ago
You're putting on a pretty high pedestal a girl who's stuck sitting around for hours on her phone.
Humanize her a bit and it's probably less likely she's made a rational calculation with ho logic to ignore the LVM than it is that she's neurotic and antisocial.
ccc
1yr ago
People with no care for morality are not in question. Of course it doesn't matter to them. They simply do as they will.
The people in question aren't ignoring any moral axioms of utilitarianism. Ends justify the means is fundamental to it. You can thus be a committed utilitarian and do evil simply via bad calculations.
Other moral systems fail in other ways. But a strict deontologist is not going to rob Peter to pay Paul.
ccc
1yr ago
ccc
1yr ago
This does sound like a neat rejection of Scott's deontology in the streets, utilitarianism in the sheets approach.
But I can't think of a coherent way for one to hot swap morality. For anyone's system to be coherent there must ultimately be some moral facts or axioms underlying it that reigns supreme in the meta-morality calculus.
People who think they're doing this are probably just utilitarians who think deontology is nothing more than rule utilitarianism by heuristic.
Committed theists don't have a backup morality for when God tells them to do evil. They either go whole hog or come up with biblical copes.
People who want the hodge podge pick virtue ethics.
ccc
1yr ago
We already have the horny gene. But we could have higher time preference or a stronger paternal love for children or greater disgust for gamers and wine aunts. Or maybe just a stronger proclivity to religious thinking.
The selection process can be cultural too, e.g. subpopulations with memes resisting modern anti-fertility technology, such as the Amish or fundamentalist Christians/Jews/Muslims out breeding all the atheists and feminists.
Building consumer desktops is more tedious and time consuming than it is a tremendous headache. If you can't figure out how to put together silicon LEGO then you're the perfect market for the local computer shop's services. They're not seedy but they are more or less charging an idiot tax. If your ego or wallet can't handle paying that then spend a few hours on /r/buildapc to figure it out.
Also it doesn't even sound like you have any reason to upgrade. Is any game you're playing not running at smooth 60fps?
ccc
1yr ago
There's a meme in software eng of the 10x programmer who does the work of 10 normal ones. In my experience, these people exist. But the 10x is more that the average programmer is lazy to a fault, i.e. the 1x is such a low standard that 10x isn't really all that.
So the answer is that the 10x are grossly underpaid while all the 1x are overpaid. And there's a lot more of the latter.
ccc
1yr ago
Specialization is of course good, but all the things you've listed (except changing oil) are much more complicated and take longer to learn than building a PC.
If you're so rich that you can call it a convenience tax rather than an idiot tax, then sure call it that instead. But if your time really is that valuable one wonders why you asked here in the first place.
You don't need a secondary market for that. Even if the cards only have collectible or play value, it's still gambling. You pay money for the chance to get what you want.
It's always weird when people excuse gambling schemes targeted at kids by pointing at Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh! booster packs: Those were never okay either.
ccc
1yr ago
ccc
1yr ago
Whether or not the woman is willing to stick it out is clearly going to be influenced by how good the alternative seems.
Almost everyone at some point in a relationship has niggling doubts and frustrations, and handing out a golden parachute is a clear incentive to turn small issues that could've been resolved into divorces. Sure you can dream up a fantasy world where cultural forces overpower economic ones, but why not grab at every weapon you can?
ccc
1yr ago
You know the answer. The trans condition is mired in insecurity. They don't need permission. They need validation.
ccc
1yr ago
The resentment may be visible, but you reverse cause and effect. All babies are born starry eyed and optimistic, full of love and joy. Only after being burned does the imp come out. Perhaps by then all hope is lost. But you have to answer why that happened.
ccc
1yr ago
This is politician tier reasoning. There was a mistake! There should never be mistakes! If they were just a little more careful, this wouldn't happen!
An engineer vetting Redis for concurrency bugs is not an effective use of their time.
ccc
1yr ago
But what can you do with that information
Refute the presumption that difference in outcome is evidence of discrimination.
ccc
1yr ago
I dislike utilitarians in large part because of this very line of thinking. Those questions are far too hard to answer. You presume to know the answer, that the world would necessarily be worse, and then use that assumption to justify elite control.
ccc
1yr ago
In deontology, there is no justifying or downplaying the noble lie. In utilitarianism there is. That is the difference.
More broadly, you can permit evil so long as you think it'll work out in the end. Dangerous way to think when predicting the future is as hard as it is.
ccc
1yr ago
Anecdotally, 2 out of about 7-8 people I know in their twenties who vape have gone on to smoke cigarettes. I also thought the gateway drug idea was ridiculous until I saw it happen.
A lot the drugs athletes take under PED bans right now are just testosterone but re-synthesized to avoid detection. There's a lot of ways to get T levels up, and the safest ways to do it are also the most studied and easiest to detect. In this way, PED bans actually incentivize athletes to take riskier drugs.
People like the narrative idea of a Faustian bargain so much they assume it's always true that there's one on offer. But it's possible if under a scheme where PED's are allowed that the rational choice for athletes is sticking to basic steroid cycles and blood doping that gets them 95% of the way there and avoid the riskier experimental stuff that might not even help.
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