georgioz
14hr ago
I mean, this is basically just saying "sometimes lying results in people believing the truth".
No. It says that lies can increase utils. Truth and utility are independent concepts, why do you have it confused?
More generally, you say "I am not sure why rationalists cannot understand this argument". Notice that if you're not sure why somebody doesn't accept something, one of the possible answers is in fact "they understand it just fine, but there's a counterargument that they understand and you don't".
Then demonstrate it. The very first sentence of your reply shows that I was right.
Right, and the point of a pithy, simplistic mantra like "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be" is to explicitly condemn such behavior of selectively applying and not applying principles based on whims and preferred outcome
But the point is that it is exactly what is expected - utilitarians ought to apply the mantra selectively.
But if it is indeed true that this statement is useful, then it certainly doesn't seem like truth would destroy the statement. Why would it?
Because the sentence is false and thus should be destroyed by its own prescription. Unless you selectively apply it based on your whims and preferences. Exactly what you condemned in paragraph before.
So we are back to square one. It seems to me that you are truthitarian and not a utilitarian, which is fair game. Let's investigate it on my previous example of Kant's axe murderer asking for you wife. Since she can be destroyed by [you telling] the truth about her whereabouts, then she should be destroyed, right? Because telling a lie can hamper yours and murderer's ability to correctly calculate the utility in the future with immense impacts. Or you should tell a lie, because death of you wife would be more negative utility compared to whatever impact on correct calculation of utility is there from telling a lie. What is your answer to the axe murderer? Is the truth the ultimate value that should destroy all and everything in its path? Or is it subordinate to other values such as your best estimation of utility in a given moment?
This is distinct from "lies can be utile", which is broader and covers things like people having different utility metrics and/or people not actually being utilitarians and/or direct, non-choice-based belief effects (e.g. stress). That condition of "if you need there to be lots of utilitarians" is actually relevant to my point, y'know.
That is why amended Sagan's mantra:
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be - except if it clashes with some other higher value (e.g. causing negative utility), in that case you should not destroy that thing by the truth.
Act utilitarianism is not the only kind of utilitarianism there is. There is also rule utilitarianism and Two-level utilitarianism. Utilitarians can be against believing false things in the same way that they can be against child rape: while it is certainly possible to conjure hypothetical scenarios where the thing they are against has the better outcome, in practice these situations do not seem to appear.
Of course, but in the end they still want to increase utils - be it by acts, rules etc. This does not weaken my arguments - whatever way you calculate utils, the sentence is stupid if destroying a lie decreases utils by that metric.
Hey, I am not the one who claims that there is such a thing as a false belief which improves utility. You seem to claim that such things exist, so you should come up with examples.
Sure, I can use a hypothetical. If utilitarian of any sort - act, rule or two-level - made a calculation and found out that let's say believing in Christianity increases utils, then he would be obliged not to destroy it even if he thought Christian belief was based on a lie. Is it not true statement?
My criticism of your "homeopathy" example was that you actually think that homeopathy decreases utility. Which is not an argument for anything, you just affirm that saying what you think is true increases utility. Which does not tackle my argument at all.
EDIT: you lost me with Pratchett, aliens and peasants. Was is supposed to be some longwinded explanation for why you hold truth as an ultimate good instead of utils?
As soon as these countries reach some development/income threshold, the floodgates will open. Syrian Civil war caused huge exodus despite it being only country of 23 million in 2011. In hypothetical continuation of Africa's World War in 2050 let's say involving Nigeria with 400 million people living there, or complete collapse of Egypt if they will have huge war with Ethiopia with combined population of also 400 million, this will completely change the calculation.
And again, I do not think this necessarily needs to be some single source of issues. It is just one of possible outside pressures that will destabilize already fragile situation inside the West.
How do you think religion in the West will interact with the Culture War in the next few elections, and in the future?
I think what will happen in the West is some mix of lebanonization, balkanization and brazilianization. The situation is similar to that of Yugoslavia or Lebanon or many other countries, where you have intersection of various ethnic, religious, tribal or even national interest in constant conflict resulting in confusing mess. There will be foreign shocks, I think it is almost inevitable to have mass immigration from Africa when the continent will inevitably be drawn into one or more huge conflicts of countries with hundreds of million of people. For religion, you can insert progressivism, christianity, islam and classical liberalism as actors in this religious conflict.
Culture War can lead to civil war, but I think that people in the West have a very skewed view of what it looks like. People like Tim Pool are too much married toward scenario of US Civil War or Spanish Civil War, which while confusing was more or less fought as a standard war. What will more likely happen is more akin to Lebanon or Yugoslavia, where decades old status quo of deliberately constructed balance of internal tensions slowly deteriorated, only to combust quickly, suddenly and violently. Or you can look into other conflicts such as what we now see in Ethiopia or South Sudan or even Syria, where you have incredibly confusing web of loyalties and where belligerents are unclear and alliances constantly shifting.
georgioz
1d ago
As other people point out, it's unlikely that an african war will cause a truly large migration surge to the US
This is just variation of "everything will be as it was so far". Syrian war caused mass immigration, despite other wars such as Iraq-Iran war or any number of other wars not causing the same. When the first Congo War happened, the country had around 40 million people mostly in incredible poverty of $1 per day. There were no cell phones, these people could not afford to pay $10k to get into US or Europe. This changed rapidly in 21st century.
No, african famine is likely to cause migration surges
This has it backwards. What truly caused WW1 in Europe was a population boom. German population increased by 50% between 1860s and 1910s. Russian population increased from 70 million to 170 million in the same timeframe. France had almost no increase from 37 to 39 million. Of course it caused pressure on resources, including multilateral Thucydides traps.
What most people do not realize is that up until colonization, Africa was malaria ridden hellhole of death and despair. In 1900 the whole population of Africa was 140 million, which was less than Russia alone. By 2050 the population of Africa is projected to grow from 1.5 billion currently to 2.5 billion - an order of magnitude larger than EU or US population. Of course this growth will cause tensions - as it did in every place and every historical period. The West does not know what will hit them if a continent of 2.5 billion people gets caught in a war unleashing other horses of apocalypse in conjunction. And in my estimation it is not if, but when. And that when is measured in years or decades, within our lifetimes.
I do not understand why rationalist love this sentence as it obviously goes against their main moral philosophy of utilitarianism. Most people - even rationalists - are not against what they consider white lies either individually (e.g. lying to Kant's axe murderer asking where your wife is) or society wide myths (e.g. everybody is equal before law, every vote counts etc). The actual sentence should therefore be something like
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be, except if destroying it would have huge cost in terms of negative utils
Which is basically in line with other moral philosophies as well - most of them like the truth unless it goes against other key values in that system.
georgioz
1d ago
Human bias being what it is, if you dislike any outcome for any reason, any good-faith honest calculation of utils of that outcome will certainly come out negative, and sufficiently so to meet whatever bar it needs to to justify not getting that outcome.
Exactly, I could have not said it better. Despite their posturing, they weaponize their dogmas - such as this Sagan's quip - to destroy what they do not like, while selectively not applying it to things they like such as polyamory.
I think it's more useful than this longer one which makes no concessions or commitments at all to any principles beyond one's own whims and preferences.
Yeah, it may be a useful white lie. Which again paradoxically is the exact thing that the sentence rails against.
georgioz
2d ago
They were too poor to move. There is a sweetsoot for emigration when people have information from their cell phones and means to do it. Like in Syria and other countries.
I at least hope that you appreciate the paradox here - that the sentence itself is a white lie or a myth if you will. But it has utility as a mantra preventing people from lying too much either to others or to themselves.
I hear ‘it’s just a white lie’ all the time now, and there are no limits and no brakes on its runaway use.
Exactly. Like some autistic rationalist "telling the truth" about some weapon of mass destruction - if humanity can be destroyed by the truth, then it should be. Right?
The trouble with untruth is that it is hard in advantage to know when it will be harmless and when it will lead to disaster.
The same can be said about the truth. In a sense the sentence itself is highly paradoxical, as it by itself is also not true and just a rationalist myth - vast majority of them would prefer lies if it increased utils, as they are utilitarians. This can be even trivially demonstrated by people who refuse to tell white lies and make their lives unnecessarily harder and miserable for other people as well. I am sure that even rationalists can be employed let's say in sales or service sector and pretend that they are thrilled to serve their customers instead of telling the "truth". The only thing that the truth destroys in that case is their job prospects with no upside.
georgioz
1d ago
If your point was that rationalists are deontological in practice, why did your first post in this thread express confusion as to why rationalists like the pithy phrase expressing this rule, not a useless utilitarian tautology?
Because they pretend to be utilitarian, but are in practice quite dogmatic. This Sagan's quip is actually a good example of that, because it is self-defeating paradox. If taken literally, it should destroy itself. It is a very poor choice for some deontological rule for a wannabe utilitarian. There are much better rules - e.g. give 10% of your income to charity.
07mk gave the rationalist answer to why prefer the shorter version.
I think 07mk did a pretty good job for why rationalist should ditch the whole sentence. He pretends, that the shortened version is somehow better, because it gives less space for individual whims and preferences. But he also basically admits, that it should not be applied all the time - of course subject to individual whims and preferences. How is that better? I focused more on the paradox side, but it does not mean that 07mk's explanation is satisfying in any way.
georgioz
1d ago
But the indirect epistemic consequences are devastating
The consequences are devastating for what? Some cosmic sense of justice and rightness? As long as consequences are beneficial for utility, then lies are absolutely okay for utilitarians. Are they not? Of course you may argue that a specific lie is detrimental to utility, but then it is not my argument. Go and find some utility improving lie as an example, and defend destroying that one from utilitarian standpoint.
georgioz
1d ago
If you need there to be lots of utilitarians, then assuming some commonality of interests lies are terrible because they cause people to calculate utility incorrectly
Or lies can cause people to calculate utility correctly, especially if they have some sort of bias. Is it not the whole point of rationalist thinking - Overcomening Bias? If a white lie can do that, then it will increase utility and general good.
Truth and utility are different concepts that are independent of each other - rationalist could say that they if they are not exactly orthogonal, they are at least at some steep angle to each other. I am not sure why rationalists cannot understand this argument - are they not supposed to be impersonal calculators? If Yudkowsky calculated that spewing lie after lie for the rest of his life will enable humanity to align the AI, he would 100% do it to usher his utopia. Would he not?
georgioz
2d ago
I think that female pattern is a little bit different. They are as prone to parasocial relationships as men on onlyfans, but they fall for status and fame - think about boyband members, movie stars etc. As soon as some company will invent some good version of male full AI celebrity and provide it en masse to teenage girls, it will have capacity to oneshot them all.
Sure, I agree. Which is exactly my point. Rationalists are deontological cult of reason with a lot of let's say idiosyncracies. I just noted that they love this Sagan's quip and cite it quite often as some kind of mantra. I do not deny its utility for their ideology, but it is still a little bit cringey in many contexts. It is equivalent to some religious believer just writing that Jesus the way, the truth, and the life randomly in the middle of some argument about healthcare or whatnot - exactly like the OP of this thread felt the need to write the sentence as part of his argument.
Actually I think it is even worse for rationalists. The religious believers are mostly self aware to the extent, that they do understand that it is a religious statement and that nonbelievers or Muslims etc. will disagree. Rationalists can sometimes forget that it is just a mantra with symbolic meaning, and they may take it too literally - as if it is actually a good argument to present in a debate.
I am not sure what you want to say here. Let's use another example: Would you say that there is a difference between saying "The people in power in San Francisco are progressives" and "Progressives are the people in power in San Francisco"?
I think this phrasing is used all the time. It is absolutely okay to say that let's say that MAGA movement is now in power, while also acknowledging that not all MAGA members - even those living in trailer parks - are in power. What is your point?
This is horrible. Putting any child younger than 3 years into such a facility is equivalent to putting them part-time into orphanage. Infants and toddlers do not have emotional regulation to handle that and they need regular skin-to-skin contact with mothers and to lesser degree with fathers. Otherwise they can develop similar symptoms to those of institutionalized children with all the baggage - learned helplessness, closing into their internal world as they know outside help is not coming even after hours of crying etc.
"Jews being in power" wouldn't mean anything unless you believe they are specifically serving Jewish interests to the detriment of non Jews.
Yes, there are a lot of arguments around that, for instance like arguments related to pro-Israel foreign policy, which is more specific interest in line with US Jewish diaspora as opposed to general public interest.
This is also nothing new, there are a lot of politicians who promote their ethnic, religious or tribal interests over general interest. This is the whole point of contention with identity politics - be it black leaders promoting policies like reparations from white people, native American leaders clamoring for various concessions or even feminists requiring sex-based privileges like sex based quotas in various institutions etc. What's strange with saying that and why should Jews be exception? If disproportionate number of key government positions would be held by Ilhan Omar and Somalis, I would not find it strange that they would promote pro-Islam or pro-Somali policies.
georgioz
2d ago
It most certainly does not. The average human alive has twice as many female ancestors as men.
This is an often cited fact, but it hides more than it shows. Historically women had lower life expectancy compared to men thanks to horrible death rate during child birth. Yes, they may have managed to reproduce - but so what. It was their family, mostly males who took care of now motherless children. Without men these children would not survive.
georgioz
7d ago
Is there any solid evidence of this psychological damage?
Yeah, take any study for results of children in orphanages vs children in intact families. Putting infants and toddlers into daycare is nothing short of part-time orphanage.
And from adoption studies we know that parenting does not matter much.
This is only partly true, limited to rationalists trying to raise some supergeniuses. Parenting obviously matters especially in negative way - malnutrition, abuse and other negative effects matter very, very much and can have huge consequences. I'd argue that daycare for infants and toddlers is such a case.
Agreed, there is moderate social stigma around putting children younger than 3 years into any facility (as it should be in my opinion). During socialism, there was a program for daycare for children 1-3 years old called jasle - and they still exist, but are generally frown upon. There is also incentive structure put in place where the government provides assistance to stay-at-home mothers up until the child is three years old, which gets cut if the mother returns to work or the child is put into daycare. Preschool is generally accessible only for children three years old or older with some rare exceptions.
georgioz
1mo ago
You have number of adcovates for childlesness: Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Aniston, Helen Mirren and many more. You have people promoting DINK lifestyle, there is large number of feminist journals and magazines promoting childlessness.
Probably ominius in the same way Arabs in Palestine saw it as ominious, when their neighborhood changed its "vibe" over the decades in first half of 20th century. Or maybe how American natives carefully watched their new neigbors with strange culture. And ultimately they were correct.
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