The Baby-Eating Aliens
overcomingbias.com
The Baby-Eating Aliens
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Re: The Baby-Eating Aliens
#2rms posted the table-of-contents here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=469426
no discussion yet, though.
Re: The Baby-Eating Aliens
#3rms posted the table-of-contents here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=469426 no discussion yet, though.
I tried the first chapter too, but people don't upvote it... no one has the time to read anything? I would keep trying until it sticks.
Re: The Baby-Eating Aliens
#4Thanks, enjoyed the first part, and I'll look forward to reading the rest later.
Re: The Baby-Eating Aliens
#5Morality is an evolved adaptation. The ultimate purpose of morality is to maximize your own utility. There is no reason why any human being would care about a bunch of crystalline insect-like aliens. Practically, human empathy circuits would never span to such alien aliens considering how easy it is to turn it off for other humans whom we consider to be an out-group. From a game theoretical perspective there is no utility gained from sacrificing humans so that some crystal bugs conform to our social values. The correct move from a game theoretic perspective is to ally with the Babyeaters since they are friendly and could be of use in trade.
This is going to sound like an ad hominem attack, but it seems to me that a majority of the singularity/futurist crowd are more concerned with impressing others with shows of intelligence than any other goal. They sound more like a bunch of male apes strutting around vying for alpha status, perhaps not surprising given that they are almost all male. A comment very much like mine (about the pointlessness of feeling compassion for crystal bugs) was posted on the overcoming bias blog but it received no replies/rebuttals. Rather the comments over there simply accepted the premises of the story without question. I have a great deal of respect for Elizer but his followers are frighteningly cult like.
Re: The Baby-Eating Aliens
#6Morality is an evolved adaptation . The ultimate purpose of morality is to maximize your own utility. There is no reason why any human being would care about a bunch of crystalline insect-like aliens. Practically, human empathy circuits would never span to such alien aliens considering how easy it is to turn it off for other humans whom we consider to be an out-group. From a game theoretical perspective there is no u…
right but we aren't fitness maximizers. we're adaptation executors.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/adaptation-exec.html
for instance: we adapted to an environment of scarcity. now that we live in an environment of plenty a lot of people get fat. they can't turn off the adaptation to favor fatty sugary foods just because the environment has changed. similarly when encountering aliens adaptations that evolved to help us socialize with our own species may lead us to having strong opinions about the moral systems of said aliens. strong enough to take significant action.
Re: The Baby-Eating Aliens
#7Morality is an evolved adaptation . The ultimate purpose of morality is to maximize your own utility. There is no reason why any human being would care about a bunch of crystalline insect-like aliens. Practically, human empathy circuits would never span to such alien aliens considering how easy it is to turn it off for other humans whom we consider to be an out-group. From a game theoretical perspective there is no u…
right but we aren't fitness maximizers. we're adaptation executors. http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/adaptation-exec.html for instance: we adapted to an environment of scarcity. now that we live in an environment of plenty a lot of people get fat. they can't turn off the adaptation to favor fatty sugary foods just because the environment has changed. similarly when encountering aliens adaptations that evolved to…
This is a good point, but I would expect (the more evolved) human beings in the future to be closer to being fitness maximizers.
Re: The Baby-Eating Aliens
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
right but we aren't fitness maximizers. we're adaptation executors. http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/adaptation-exec.html for instance: we adapted to an environment of scarcity. now that we live in an environment of plenty a lot of people get fat. they can't turn off the adaptation to favor fatty sugary foods just because the environment has changed. similarly when encountering aliens adaptations that evolved to…
This is a good point, but I would expect (the more evolved) human beings in the future to be closer to being fitness maximizers.
They've been bio-engineered, not evolved. The bio-engineers presumably cared more about maintaining human morality than about fitness-maximizing. So they kept the "human morality applies beyond humans" value.
Re: The Baby-Eating Aliens
#9From the 4th part of the same story
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/02/interlude-with-the-con...
"'Do you know there was a time when nonconsensual sex was illegal?' (...) 'The Prohibition, right? During the first century pre-Net? I expect everyone was glad to have that law taken off the books'."
WTF?
Re: The Baby-Eating Aliens
#10From the 4th part of the same story http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/02/interlude-with-the-con... "'Do you know there was a time when nonconsensual sex was illegal?' (...) 'The Prohibition, right? During the first century pre-Net? I expect everyone was glad to have that law taken off the books'." WTF?
There's some discussion in the comments, including some (little) elaboration from Eliezer, the author, in a comment at 5:27pm on 2009-02-02 and another at 12:33am the following day.