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Notes -
I was not making the stronger psychology claim that a good model of human behaviour is to assume that everyone is maximising E[u] for some personal utility function (but I am claiming that this would be the best way for an agent to operate if it had oo computational power)
When I spoke of the utility numbers, I was referring to them existing as an abstract concept, which may be totally unknown to any human mind (similarly, the 10^100th digit of pi also exists) - it's just that they can, in principle, be calculated.
Your example of people "having" preference loops (scare quotes because it might just be self-deception) just falls under humans sometimes being wrong about stuff. We don't need to reject arithmetic because I said "2+2=5".
Do you agree that utility functions exist in the abstract? (I agree they are often unhelpful to reason about things in practice, and sometimes they can be an intentional overcomplication to trick people)
I think you're right - and I didn't consider this initially since, in my case, I don't think I have anyone in my community who would reward such behaviour. But if you do have strong bonds with precommiters, it makes sense for you to act this way.
They don't have an assurance, but in my experience interacting with people, being nice and apologetic (even if the other person is in the wrong) can only make them less mad (even if they are still mad) - I would apologise to the king because maybe he would be content with having humiliated me and leave me alone (or maybe he might just kill me without being tortured - which I would value massively)
Well, this is kind of my problem with this Hylynkian philosophy. As I conceded, it makes sense for you to adopt this kind of attitude as a shared culture with your ingroup. You should stand up to unfairness because otherwise you'll be seen as cowardly.
But on an individual level (my friends are also non-Hlynkians) - if I keep spiting the various kings I encounter in life, I'll just keep running into trouble and it will add up and make my life worse than it would be otherwise. Isn't it better to focus on our own happiness than to try and punish people who do bad things? If I literally had no control over anything else, I would want to spite the king, but in practice (even in this example as I said above) - we can usually significantly lessen the chance of us getting in trouble if we just swallow our pride (e.g. when someone in real life who isn't a close friend or family says that what I just said is offensive, I just apologise instead of pushing the point)
I fully understand this impulse (and have felt it myself!), but I think this is an immoral view to hold, and we should try and repress this desire. I will elaborate.
I think that suffering is always a bad thing, no matter how bad the entity is that is suffering. Of course in practice, for instance with criminals, we sometimes have to make them suffer (to alleviate the suffering of their future victims), and since they can so easily opt out of the suffering the state imposes on them by not comitting crimes, I am okay with making them suffer prison/execution (and I don't advocate for making jail cells into fancy hotel rooms, because if there is the money to do that - it should be spent on the non-criminal public)
But if we weren't constrained by resources (or we were in a situation as you describe, where the suffering is not a means to an end, but the end itself) - I would not want anyone to suffer. In this story (it's a lot longer than Heather Ale, but I think it helps convey the "emotion" behind the "suffering is always bad" worldview, like HA does for precomittment), I find the serial killer sickening, and it feels like he should atone for his wrong-doing... but why? His victims are already dead, and no one will see what happens to him, so there is no use in "making an example" - isn't it just "better" if he goes to heaven? (And then you feel even more sick when you imagine if you were one of the victims, but the logic still holds!)
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