This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Don't know why I'm stumbling on this post from /u/satirizedoor now a year later and nearly two years after the original post that I made. I still call myself vegan, but I do eat oysters now. I have come to find most vegans, including my past self, as annoying as you: there is a lack of real reflection as to what the goals of the movement are, and if the individual actions that vegans advocate are actually effective at accomplishing those goals. Total cessation of animal suffering is as impossible as it would be totalitarian (some vegans advocate for GMOing away all predators). Some amount of meat eating will always be part of human culture, and is frankly, indistinguishable and perhaps better than what goes on in the wild. My problem in reality is with industrial factory farming. It would be far better for these animals and the planet if we merely advocated for reduction in meat consumption, but that position isn't really justifiable outside of utilitarianism. Most people are not utilitarian I think, which makes it difficult to advocate for a position that fails on consequentialist/deontological grounds. The fact is that some people don't think animals have moral worth, while others do. There's very little ability to reason across that line, despite pretty good scientific evidence that most farm animals do have some rudimentary reasoning and emotional abilities equivalent to that of a small child. To vegans like myself, this evidence is helpful but rather superfluous. My beliefs about animal consciousness come from personal interactions I've had with animals. For those who aren't vegan, evidence of reasoning and/emotional reactions isn't sufficient evidence of consciousness or moral worth. Being able to solve puzzles or display emotions isn't very good evidence that there's something going on inside of another creature.
I'm still convinced that veganism isn't harmful for performance, at least in endurance sports. Plenty of endurance athletes at the highest levels are at least mostly vegan. However, I think that performance enhancement is a different question that I don't think has really been settled scientifically. There are without a doubt certain plant-based substances that are performance enhancers (beet juice), but I don't think this says anything about the efficacy of the diet as a whole. A cycling YouTuber that I vaguely follow, Dylan Johnson is vegan for recovery reasons, as plant-based diets are apparently much less pro-inflammatory than meat-based diets. I can't say I'm fully convinced by this: I think the real culprit in inflammation may be macronutrient ratios. Diets high in fat, which many vegans also have, seem to be particularly pro-inflammatory, at least in animal models. There's also good evidence that high protein consumption is linked to decreases in lifespan, but again this isn't exclusive to meat-eating populations.
I am more shocked by how skewed most user's idea of a healthy body weight is. I'm closer to 160 now, but a 150 with a height of 6' put me at a very normal BMI of 20. I recognize that this weight makes it very difficult to be a strongman, but that's not my goal, nor the goal of most Americans. It is an absurd position to tell me that I am a twig or emaciated at that weight when I am well within the bounds of a healthy BMI.
I'm going to take this as an invitation to go off on a tangent, I think.
I have run into reflections on the idea of using genetic engineering to eliminate predation in the past. Predation plausibly causes suffering, at least for prey animals. If you could modify all carnivores to become herbivores, should you do it?
There's an interesting tension I see sometimes around what the goal of environmental conservation should be. In many cases we seem to instinctively idealise 'the wild' or natural conditions. The goal of conservation is to minimise human impact on the environment and return animals to something as much like their natural environment as possible. But as with vegans, or some EA types, we sometimes see a different idea - that the most ethical goal is rather to minimise suffering, including animal suffering.
These two goals seem in tension. The wild includes quite a lot of suffering. Which goal should win out?
I was recently watching a documentary about a wildlife rescue in Tasmania. The hosts visited a man who runs a sanctuary that rescues, raises, and breeds injured or endangered animals. He releases some of those animals back into the wild, while some stay in the sanctuary for all their lives. It occurs to me to wonder what some of those animals would have preferred. It seems plausible that, if a Tasmanian devil could talk, it might prefer to stay in the sanctuary, where it has safe and clean places to sleep, has food provided at regular intervals for minimal effort on its part, and even has breeding opportunities orchestrated for it. If it makes sense to talk about a Tasmanian devil's quality of life, this devil's quality of life seemed to go down as a result of being released into the wild. So, having built animal-utopia, should we push animals out of it? Why?
Well, we might cite lots of instrumental reasons, like wanting these animals as part of the wild ecosystem long-term, or even practical ones, like not having the resources to look after all animals all the time and wanting instead to rotate animals through care on the basis of need. However, in practice I think we have some sort of teleological belief. It is right for Tasmanian devils to hunt on their own and make their lives independently in the wild. It is, for lack of a better term, their nature. It is thus in many circumstances morally better that a creature be exposed to risk and suffering than that it not be.
And if we embrace that conclusion, does that tell us anything about what we think about morality for human beings? You may, if you wish, insert some science-fictional speculation here about whether it would be good for humans to be pampered by more powerful beings, perhaps artificial intelligence, in the way that we have the capacity to pamper rescued animals. Is our own case different from that of the animals?
I think it would be great to have nigh limitless wealth and power. If I want adventure, excitement and risk, there would be all kinds of ways to enjoy myself with elaborate, exotic video games. I think that an aesthetic critique of a post-singularitarian future has crept into people's conceptions, people imagining a kind of skinnyfat, sedentary, drooling heroin addict with tubes in his arm and a VR-headset fused to his skull in a perpetual high. Or a glorified pet micromanaged by Windows pop-ups.
That need not be the case. If it goes well (a very big if), it could be the exact opposite. Perfect, posthuman fitness. Motion and energy beyond anything anyone has ever experienced, variety of experiences beyond our conception. Pure organic joy. Reality remade physically as if it were mere code. De facto deities with ever-shrinking limitations.
The difference between a Tasmanian devil and a human is that the latter is worth more and provides. Humans contribute to humanity whereas most animals do not. There's no obligation to defang lions for the sake of deer because deer aren't doing anything for us. I think that real morality is about reciprocity and potential reciprocity rather than suffering.
I don't think many people would disagree with the idea that it would be great to have all sorts of power, but I'm not sure I see that as addressing the issue raised? The question isn't so much about raw ability as it is about the sorts of life-contexts that make those lives morally worthwhile.
As empowered posthumans we probably could entertain ourselves endlessly with exotic video games, but then, today people are entirely capable of entertaining themselves endlessly with video games. Posthumanity adds nothing to the moral question. Is it a good life if you dedicate your life to video games? On what terms could such a life be considered good? Does it make a difference whether we're talking about gaming as competition (i.e. devoting your life to pro gaming, to excellence in a particular competitive endeavour), gaming as entertainment (i.e. something like a streamer, the gamer as professional entertainer for an audience), or just gaming for pure private enjoyment? I think the moral questions one asks there are the same regardless of whether we're talking about you or I today or whether we're talking about superpowerful virtual demi-gods.
Depends on how good the game is. A posthuman game might well be more complex, dynamic and interesting than our lives.
The most popular games today like fortnite or LoL are closer to the skinner-box, dopamine VR-headset future. They have to be cheap to run so they're not going to be that fantastic.
Whether it's competition, entertainment of others or enjoyment I see greater complexity and resources as an unalloyed good in terms of video-game value. At minimum it should be better than 'sit in an office and do various manipulations of text.'
That's an interesting, because it is very alien to my intuitions. Is a pleasure more morally worthy if it is more subtle or complex, or takes more intellectual capacity to appreciate? That doesn't seem obvious, to me. That would imply that, for instance, a young child's pleasure at a bowl of ice cream for dessert is among the unworthiest of all pleasures. Or that my pleasure at a fresh breeze on a beautiful day is particularly contemptible. It seems to be that the complexity or subtlety of a pleasure does not reliably correlate with its moral worthiness. There are some very simple, even child-like pleasures that strike me as paradigmatically worthy (a beautiful sunset, a tasty meal, a smile from someone you love), and some very complex pleasures that strike me as worthy (contemplating advanced mathematics, stellar physics), and some that I struggle to rank (meditating on the nature of God, say). Likewise, however, I can think of very simple pleasures that seem obviously unworthy (wireheading is the classic example), as well as complex pleasures that seem unworthy (anything you've ever been tempted to call intellectual masturbation).
When I judge particular pleasures or joys as worthy or unworthy, my intuitions do not seem to clearly correlate with its complexity, or the intelligence required to enjoy it. It seems like other criteria are involved.
More important than that, though, is the question of, regardless of the quality of the pleasure sought, whether pleasure-seeking by itself is sufficient to make a life morally good. Enjoying pleasures is definitionally going to be more pleasant than doing boring office-work, but the defence of office-work would presumably be in terms of its flow-on effects. Office-work, assuming it's a real job and not just make-work, is aimed at in some way serving others or producing something for others - self-gratification is not the goal, as it is with entertainment. Does that make a difference? We might also ask about character formation. Filling in expenses reports may not be as fun as playing your favourite game, but it may have different impacts on one's character.
Ultimately my position is not that pleasure is inherently unworthy or bad to experience, or that humans should not enjoy pleasurable activities, but it is that a life dedicated wholly to seeking pleasures is morally empty and contemptible. It even strikes me as something unlikely to successfully produce great pleasures, in many cases; I tend more to the school of thought that says that pleasures come alongside or as the byproducts of other endeavours, which must be sought for their own sake. I wouldn't want to follow that principle off a cliff - I don't think there's anything wrong with, say, going to see a film because you want to enjoy yourself - but in terms of the overall direction of a person's life, I think it is helpful.
Well eating ice cream all day gets boring fast.
Eating ice cream as a self-reward after achieving something is better, now we're adding more complexity to the experience as a whole which is broadened beyond just ice cream. Songs are good but songs played at the right time in the film are better. The smile from someone you love is another example, it's more than just a smile because of that added background and context.
Likewise with video games. There's some value in Pong but the simplicity really limits it. You're doing the same thing again and again. If you were doing more and different things at a greater level of depth, without skinner box mechanics to trick the brain into coming back...
Wouldn't it be worse for an incompetent to be sticking his nose into a well-running machine earnestly trying to help yet only ever causing more problems? That activates my sense of aversion and cringe. In a world of strong and benign superintelligences, there will probably be nothing that a once-human can do to produce any kind of wealth or benefit. The astrophysics-specialist bots will do all the pondering of the stars at a massively superhuman level, the poetry bots will make poems better than any human or machine could, the engineer-bots will do all the engineering. They were purpose designed to be the absolute best at those things. One could imagine a loverengineer-bot too that spins up a perfect partner specifically for you. If you want a challenge and excitement, there's challenges, reverses, drama...
Having one's heritage be an ape generalist is probably a structural deficiency when it comes to 'ability to do things'.
Our idle pleasure seeker in a post-singularitarian reality would still be a great mind and capable of great feats by our standards but there'd be nothing to contribute. I just don't see how this can be a bad ending if everything you want is on tap, including all the best human experiences and post-human experiences that are even better.
I'd tend to think that any pleasure endlessly reiterated would become contemptible. There is something disconcerting or even pathetic about obsessive repetition. That's part of why we find the Skinner box so repulsive.
I would agree that it would be bad for a person to be incompetently trying to interfere with work done by a superior, though for me I don't find the superintelligence hypothetical particularly illuminating. The world is already full of examples of competent and incompetent people. It would be absurd for me to try to insert myself into, say, the cockpit of an aeroplane - I know nothing about piloting and the attempt would only embarrass me.
What would constitute a good life in a world where there is genuinely nothing that needs to be accomplished? I'm not particularly sure. I do not expect such a world to ever occur in this life - sorry, I'm pessimistic about artificial superintelligences - so for me that question seems most relevant as a question about heaven, and there I'm happy to admit to ignorance. Right now I'm not so much pushing for any particular answer as just saying that endless self-pleasure seems insufficient, as an answer, to me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Uh, I hope posthumans wouldn't be aging or dying, for one. I think that's a pretty big deal, every hour I play of a video game becomes a painful tradeoff as my life expectancy becomes ever shorter. Leaving aside everything else, it would be very nice not have thanatochrony be an issue.
We could be much smarter, and thus able to enjoy far more complex and strategic games. I don't think someone with mental retardation would enjoy Crusader Kings of Civ, even at the baby difficulties.
We could be faster, be it mentally or when it comes to physical reflexes. That would make games that rely on that more enjoyable.
We could have immense amounts of computing power, such that the lines between virtual and real become blurry, and you could live a billion years doing whatever your heart desires, without being able to tell your experience apart from reality.
We could be more physically durable, so that Airsoft with real guns might be on the cards. We could back ourselves up to external storage, such that we could play recreational nuclear warfare with H-bombs. (Someone will make nuclear tennis from Infinite Jest into a real thing)
The answer to that is mu. If someone enjoys video games, then a good life for them involves video games. If they don't, it doesn't.
What is "good" about gardening? Or painting? Or getting into debates with strangers on the internet?
What is laudable about being a doctor when the AI can do your job better? What is so great about travel when you can catch a flight to anywhere in the world and get there in less than 24 hours? What if it takes no time at all, subjectively, and we send a scan of your brain to Enceladus at the speed of light?
I do not rely on the approval of others to define my interests. I hope others have the courage to do the same.
I'm still not sure how any of that changes the question any?
I didn't mention death at all, so I don't know why you bring it up, and everything else there is just... irrelevant. Okay, sure, the posthumans can have bigger numbers. We can posit that the experience is arbitrarily more entertaining. How does that change any of the ethical questions? What ethical difference does it make whether we're talking about playing Crusader Kings or an arbitrarily more complex super Crusader Kings? What is the relevant ethical difference between regular tennis and nuclear tennis? It seems like zero to me.
You can, as you do at the end of your post, just dismiss the question and assert an answer. But why should that answer be compelling? If your position is that there are no external criteria for a good life and the only thing that matters is self-approval, I think it's reasonable to reflect a bit on why you feel that's the case.
Consider the counterfactual, or inverse case:
If you were offered the opportunity to remove 40 IQ points and half your lifespan, would that help in any way? Is there a particular reason the status-quo is privileged?
To the extent that you ask me to involve ethics in the question, my thrust is that most ethical theories tend towards eudaimonia, and some people really enjoy games. The same principle applies to enjoyment of just about anything really, though I suspect Marvel movies are best enjoyed while severely concussed.
In other words, most moral theories kinda like it when people have fun, all else being equal.
There are no universally compelling arguments. If it doesn't compel you, I genuinely can't do better than sigh/shrug. In this case, I have interrogated a rather related question, namely the concept of universal morality. My genuine takeaway from doing that is to come to the conclusion that there's no reason to believe such a thing exists, and even if it did, no plausible way to know that we've found it. The same applies to questions of objective/universal criteria for leading a fulfilling life.
Eventually, most of the "real" challenges that humanity faces will be, at least in my opinion, rendered obsolete. That leaves just about only games to pass the time. They can be complicated games, they might be of relevance to the real world (status games, proof of work or competence), but they're still games we play because we've run out of options. I think this isn't a thing to complain about, once we get there. Our ancestors struggled to survive so that we wouldn't have to.
Forget "eventually"; I think we often fail to appreciate that we're already there, in the first world. Almost none of the "challenges" that our primitive ancestors faced are in any way familiar to us. They worried about whether they would starve next winter; I wonder whether I can justify being lazy and ordering Door Dash today. They might have been permanently crippled from an uncleaned surface cut; I would slap a band-aid on it and take a Tylenol. They banded together and learned to fight so the next tribe over wouldn't kill them all and take their stuff; I put my money into a stock brokerage.
Aging is IMO the one major challenge that hasn't been conquered yet (although we're still living twice as long as evolution intended). In almost every other way we're living the lives of Gods.
I was going to write that myself if I wasn't so lazy. Thank you/curse you for scooping me, and I obviously agree.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I didn't say that we shouldn't seek that kind of power. I'm not arguing that it's bad. I'm arguing that it's irrelevant to the moral question I posed.
The question of whether a morally good human life can be found in merely entertaining one's self does not seem like one that's particularly changed by the intelligence of the human being in question. Whether you live to 40 or 80 or 200 does not seem to have any bearing on it.
I understood you to be suggesting that something about posthuman entertainments would change the nature of the answer - that perhaps it would be bad for you or me to spend our lives self-amusing with video games, but that it might be good for us to spend our lives self-amusing with video games, if we were much more intelligent or powerful.
I'm willing to entertain the possibility, but I think you need to spell out the difference for me. Why would that make any difference?
My moral intuitions, at least, are that it wouldn't make much difference. To take a fictional example: in the setting Exalted, the gods occupy themselves by playing the Games of Divinity, which appear to be extremely entertaining and may be contributing to the gods' quality of life. Nonetheless my intuition is that the Games are contemptible, or that by choosing to amuse themselves in this way (especially when they might otherwise be engaged in other tasks, such as repairing or improving Creation, or caring for their mortal followers) the gods are in some way moral failures. The vastly superior power, knowledge, and immortality of the gods does not seem to redeem the Games, at least to me. So if I consider a scenario in which we were the gods with the super-games, it seems similar to me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link