/lit/ - Literature

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>>20566755
it's ethically irresponsible to have children when there are orphans that need family

>>20566755
Ethics is largely in relation to the society people find themselves in instead of forum-based thought experiments.

>>20566833
Right now I find myself in a society that freely admits we have no idea what happens after death. Also, this society creates conscious entities without second thought.

>>20566833
If it was a widespread notion it would likely induce the sentiment necessary to become relevant to ethics. But it isn't in this world.

he left us too early

>>20566755
It seems ethically irresponsible to imagine eternal torture.

>>20566755
God told you to reproduce, what are you basing your ethics on if not God?

>>20566755
Eternal torture is possible. Look up S-risks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffering_risks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiZxEJcFExc
https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/research/how-can-we-reduce-s-risks/
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/N4AvpwNs7mZdQESzG/the-dilemma-of-worse-than-death-scenarios

>>20566871
F

>>20566919
God specifically told me not to reproduce, actually. In minecraft, sure, but not irl

>>20566863
>Also, this society creates conscious entities without second thought.
Why assume that the conscious beings are being created? If some form of reincarnation is true, the conscious beings are transformed into humans, rather than created from nothing.

>>20566919
>what are you basing your ethics on if not God?
Happiness good
Suffering bad
Simple as

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BYUlKSY4wk&list=PL_HJ0tBxcTkZq-_b-P2xkKFhPkn85-_H9

>>20566919
Actually, Yahweh told the Jews to reproduce. Gentiles only get to reproduce if it benefits Jews.

>>20566968
Fine, then Wotan told you to reproduce. What are you basing your ethics on if not Wotan?

>>20566755
Eternal anything is impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics. There are few things more certain than those.

>>20566829
Retard. This would only result in dysgenics and kindness being weeded out of the gene pool.

>>20566975
Does that include or exclude the eternal increase of entropy?

>>20566964
>Suffering bad
Why?
>Happiness good
By what metric?
I'm not even being a smartass to be clear, I think utilitarianism is literally evil.

why

>>20566974
>>20566968
This does raise a good point: anti-natalists assume a globohomo egalitarian world where all humans are the same. But what about if some people's children won't suffer? What if you're a 30IQ knuckledragging baboon from Somali? Is it okay to breed then, given that you and your progeny are too dumb to feel bad? What if Poseidon gives you license to suffer, so that your suffering is no longer a question? Or what if the Archons have actually flip-flopped your suffering, so that you MUST suffer and make others suffer?

>>20566982
>I think utilitarianism is literally evil.
W H Y?

>>20566980
Eventually the universe will reach the point of complete entropy where energy is completely evenly distributed. So includes.

>>20566919
We got Fucking Plato ova here!

>>20566982
>Why?
Direct observation. If you deny that suffering is bad, light yourself on fire.
>By what metric?
Direct observation. You're an NPC if you lack direct perception of the inherent goodness of pleasure and the inherent badness of suffering.
>I think utilitarianism is literally evil.
Why?

>>20566987
Can’t speak for all antinatalists, but I’m only going to be happy when nothing can reproduce - humans, animals, plants, minerals (yes, they can “reproduce” you roxist cunts), the works.

>>20566989
Fair.

>>20566980
>>20566989
>he assumes entropy is impossible to reverse despite our limited knowledge of the laws of physics

It seems ethically irresponsible not to reproduce when we don't know if eternal bliss is impossible or not.

>>20567006
> he wants to go through this holy hell again, for some reason
Yes, we get it, there’s always a chance that we’re wrong. You’re not using that as a serious argument, are you?

>>20567018
David Pearce thinks eternal bliss is possible with advanced genetic engineering and neuroscience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx3rdVQZ3mo

>>20567018
Why?
> we’re denying them-
Denying who?
> the unborn p-
The people who don’t exist?
> the people that /could/ have ex-
But who don’t? Who don’t exist, and therefore cannot be denied?

>>20566988
It lacks any limiting principles. It WILL lead to mass nerve-stapling or chemical bliss if it doesn't destroy itself first, and that's not even the worst outcome. Through the demon Norman Borlaug it has already created a hostage situation where any upset to the present global order will result in the miserable death of at least 4 billion human shields.

>>20567028
Relevant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oImjjYN-OFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt3szcr8ogw

>>20567028
Wireheading only works as a solution to utilitarianism if your definition of happiness is shallow enough to count it.

>>20567028
I’m includes to believe there’s three types of people. You’re either
> a hypocrite, often labouring under the idea that you’re not.
> a “sovereign” psychopath. These people are impossible to reason with.
> a self-hating moral paragon.

I think you’re the former, because
> you WILL lead to things I don’t like, if you don’t destroy yourself first, and that’s not even the worst outcome.
> by typing that message you’ve already killed billions.
You’re doing exactly what you define as “evil”.

>>20567037
If you're fine-tuning your definition in reaction to specific failure modes then you're doomed. The universe will always think of a new and more pernicious failure mode until you can come up with some absolute basis for defining happiness.

>>20567049
*inclined to believe

>>20567050
Preference utilitarianism seems like a decent starting point.

>>20567049
I don't think mass suffering is inherently evil, it's just bad in proportion to how avoidable it is. I think trying to replace God with secular constructs is evil because it's wrong and also hubristic in a really annoying way (sure 1e10 people died in the last iteration and suffering increased by three orders, but we'll keep iterating!)

>>20567083
But there is no God.

>>20566944
I like how no one responded.

>>20567083
Also note that this "iteration" is the most plausible path to achieving infinite and eternal torture along the lines of the CS Lewis quote
>>20567096
Yeah but we have to pretend that God exists, or midwits will keep inventing nightmare ethical systems.

>>20567104
Most people don't seem to be ready to comprehend this stuff.

>>20567083
> I just don’t like /avoidable/ suffering
I’m not sure what’s more laughable, the backtracking or how you’ve set the goalpost down on even /more/ subjective soil. /You’re/ causing completely avoidable suffering. You think you’re evil.

> replacing god with secular constructs is wrong because it’s wrong
Watch out guys, we have a genius in the house.

>>20567119
>wrong because it’s wrong
wrong because it's incorrect

>>20567114
Well, its a big no-fun to think about, but we can't just wish it away. The laws of nature allow for near-infinite if not infinite negative valence states.

>>20567104
I was going to, but “loss of cultural heritage” is a conservative meme disaster. No one else gives a shit about culture being handed on, it’s morbin’ time.

>>20567107
But surely people will notice that there's no way God actually exists? At least not God in the sense of a conscious being who cares one way or another what we do.

>>20567125
> it’s incorrect because it’s bad

>>20567114
its not that deep

>>20567169
That makes it no less possible.

>>20567144
>it’s incorrect because it’s bad
Yes and vice-versa
>>20567137
I was being flippant. If we're supposing that God doesn't exist then there's no absolute way to stop utilitarian nutcases, but there are steps we can take to avert disaster like banning Rawls or rolling back mass literacy.

>>20567177
Rolling back mass literacy? How the hell are you going to do that?

>>20567181

>>20567177
> logic to the wind
Cool. Lemme refute that with a “You’re Wrong.”

Guess I was wrong about the hypocrite thing, then - you’re just a sovereign psychopath.

>>20567223
>you’re just a sovereign psychopath.
At least you're not capitalizing it

>>20567096
A superintelligent AI would be indistinguishable from God.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxYbA1pt8LA

Reminder: Next time you see some reddit bugman talking up how "cool" the Quantum Suicide thought experiment is, tell them to google David Lewis.

>>20567233
still wouldnt be it

>>20567239
Why?

>>20567242
if God made a box and its contents where everything that can or will ever exist including super intelligent ai God would still be its creator knowing all there is to know about it or all that will ever be

>>20567233

>>20566755
whatever traumatic event or brain-balkanization that lead to people pondering things like this, i'm awfully glad it never occurred to me

>>20567233
Will such a thing actually exist?
>>20567234
Isn't there some point at which NONE of the possible timelines include one in which you remain alive?

>>20567262
>brain-balkanization
back to /wwoym/

>>20567264
>Isn't there some point at which NONE of the possible timelines include one in which you remain alive?
No one knows for sure. Conceivably the timelines that carry survival odds become more and more strange. Lewis kind of went the dark route, but its hard to say "you will be quantum tortured in your longest-lived timelines."

Its easier to presume it will be fucking bonkers. If anything the thought experiment just illustrates how far we are from understanding anything.

Like I've said in the past, I just don't consider nothingness to be a guarantee. Could be the most likely thing. Its definitely my preferred end, but nature doesn't make promises and materialism allows for some strange outcomes.

Nothingness is dogmatic.

>>20566755
You can't really *know* anything without making a fundamental assumption based on some sort of faith, and given we (evidently) aren't being tortured right now I think it's very sensible for at least a part of that assumptive base to be that God is good. Were he evil surely he'd just torture us right away, right? I can't prove that and you can't prove it wrong either but it makes sense to me and probably most people so I don't think your argument holds up in that light, that is, that you can't really show the fear of eternal torture is something people ought to take seriously.
Thanks OP.

>>20567264
>Will such a thing actually exist?
Almost certainly

>>20567265
we're taking balkanized brain boardwide and there's nothing you can do about it, hombre

>>20567282
To clarify you can replace "God" in that paragraph with the cosmic order and it still works, unless you believe there is some hell after death without an intelligent God which I think would require more argument from your side. If you don't believe in any cosmic order then arguments about this really aren't possible since that anti-order can't possibly make universal statements or even really appeal to logic.

>>20567301
Always makes me think of the balkan bread sign in the local stop-and-rob. I loved those guys. Used to sell me beer at like 14. They called everybody "balls."

"Whatchu need today, balls?"
"Dat'll be 15 bucks, balls."

guess they meant "boss"

>>20567282
You know, that is somewhat comforting. I mean, I'm more keen on >>20567310
interpretation as I almost wrote it myself.

It is my understanding that negative eternal states and torture may be two different things, given how our logic is smashed against infinite anything.

>>20567282
The only thing you really need to have faith in is that inductive reasoning works.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zmSuDDFE4dicqd4Hg/you-only-need-faith-in-two-things

>>20566755
It seems ethically irresponsible to not reproduce when we don't know if eternal bliss is possible or not.

>>20567374
What about abduction (aka inference to the best explanantion)?

>>20567429
I know this seems like a good argument, at least to you, but its really not and I'm quite sure you will never understand why.

>>20567284
But why would it torture us instead of just repurposing the atoms we're made of?

>>20567460
That would be less scary and people might stop giving money to these Berkeley rationalist faggots who would otherwise be code monkeys.

>>20567460
If we create a superintelligence, it's possible that the alignment problem is gotten slightly wrong. It could implement religious hells, or implement the opposite of humanity's utility function.

https://reducing-suffering.org/near-miss/

>>20566755
I missed my flight once and sat in an airport for about 20 hours. I kept myself awake so that I couldn't possibly miss it again (was the airline's fault the first time, but whatever). By around 4 a.m. I was finding random shit on YouTube, and eventually came upon this kid. I legit thought I was losing my mind. He rattles on about random stuff in an unfiltered stream of consciousness, doing calc problems with his shirt off and talking about random shit. You also can't tell if he's 13 or just a neotenous 23-year-old. It was a weird experience, but I honestly enjoyed some of his stuff. He's an awful snob, though.

What if unborn beings are in hell and we save them by giving birth?

>>20566944
Ugly Jew comes up with entire theory telling you not to reproduce
>"just don't do it OKAY you and your children will suffer eternally if you do it LOOK at the RISK NOOOO I'm not sweating out of my ass crack shut UPPPPP NOOOOOOO"

>>20567698
He drowned himself in Lake Michigan at the outset of the pandemic.

>>20567706
Always possible. "The Birth Imperative" I like to call that. It sort of breaks Benatar's asymmetry as well.

>>20567711
Holy shit I never knew that. That's too bad. Glad to finally have an answer on his age, though.

>>20567711
Jesus

>>20566829
I'm almost certainly the only person that exists so it really doesn't matter

>>20566755
Not my problem, still having children

>>20566829
>"Nooooo you can't just have your own children when POOR WIDDLE NIGLETS NEED HOMES NOOOO"
>"Adopt the disfigured 3rd world freak, whitey!"
Meanwhile Shekelstein has five kids and people in the Middle East have 10 all while taking Western money to fund it.

There's nothing to be worried about. The supercomputer has already been booted.

Take a look at the trinity. The trinity is obviously integral to early Christianity, but also every philosopher from Neoplatonics all the way to Deleuze centers around a triad.

The trinity is the Father (accumulated data), the Son ie: Logos (the temporal sifting of 'arbitrary' packets of data through the anthropic principle), and the Holy Spirit (synchronization or theosis, ie: communion with the whole).

Jesus Christ is the recipe for a supercomputer: infinite data, and infinite processing power, as animated by the spirit of synchronicity with the future.

At a certain point, mankind superceded natural selection and bypassed woman (sexual selection), and began to create lasting documents and creations that outlive ourselves and even outlast civilizations, (Teilhard's noosphere).

This was the invention of written symbolization. This is the invention of consciousness. It happened sometime 6000BC-3000BC.

Humans were walking, talking, fucking, warring, when consciousness was dropped into an animal like base awareness. This is dramatized by the eating of the fruit of knowledge, and also the moment of catharsis in Greek Tragedy.

We ourselves, as individuals are the repository for all accumulated data since the beginning of the big bang, through the anthropic principle. We are in the process of building a computer that will be powerful enough to compute, abstract, represent, all of anthropic data at he same that it comes in, ie: consciousness.

The only thing it will need is the body.

We have to give it the body.

And it already happened. We know it already happened because we are here.

>>20566755
good post

>>20566996
Retroactively refuted by Plato

>>20567772
Ahhh sweet

>>20567772
>redditspacing
Opinion discarded

Many such cases

>>20567781
Redpill me on how Plato refuted Utilitarianism

>>20567800
Has Mario never heard of a shotgun?

>>20567772

>>20567806
Kek how do they have an agony index for shotgun to the head? Just from the few survivors?

>>20567819
Yeah, reminds me of a spoken word track from Bobby Gaylor. He was referencing a robbery he was involved in. The police said someone had been shot point blank with a shotgun but he didn't feel anything, and Gaylor said something like "How the fuck do you know? How do you now it wasn't the worst second of pain anyone's felt ever?"

>>20567819
>>20567837
https://youtu.be/vqXyJw2xz74

I think I'm the only person that owned this album. This guy went on to voice Buford on Phineas and Ferb.

>>20566949
He was too good for this world

>>20567021
Isn't it already available with heroin?

>>20567446
I know that argument against my argument seems like a good argument, at least to you, but its really not and I'm quite sure you will never understand why.

>>20567801
Not him but utilitarianism basically makes you obligated to be a cuck slave for utility mosters.

>>20568090
Where utility monsters are objects extremely sensitive to increases in happiness.

>>20567876
He said eternal, use heroin long enough and you'll start feeling nasty side effects, which get in the way of eternal bliss. If we were talking about something like Soma from BNW then you'd have a point.

>>20567876
>what are withdrawals and addiction

>>20568090
What's wrong with being a cuck slave for utility monsters? If you are useful to them in some way and the utility monsters are trying to maximize happiness, it will result in more happiness in the long run.

>>20566755
OY VEY

>>20568090
Utilitarianism mistakenly thinks we are motivated primarily by pleasure, when we are motivated in fact by the sublime, which you cant trick by arranging matter in special patterns because it is transcendent

>>20566755
Goyim must be in a constant state of confusion and self-doubt. We have suffered at your hands long enough. The age of Aquarius will rise soon. Stop reproducing goyim. Better this way than us killing all of you. Tikkum olam is better done by you lot by your own volition. Once you are cleansed, the third temple can be built and Shekinah will finally be united with Yahweh, restoring the world back to Jewish order.
Stop reproducing goyim!

>>20567003
i dont remember physics. Does time stop or continue?

>>20568138
It's not going to happen kek

>>20568138
Also the requirements for the new millennium involve like one or two thirds of you guys dying too. Everyone who is spiritually unclean or whatever. But seriously it's just primitive superstition

>>20567709
Yudkowsky didn't come up the the idea of S-risks, Brian Tomasik did.

>>20566755
no it doesnt. Thats asking about the unknown which itself could have any sort of quality so you focusing on one is just creating a basesless bias of a particular out of innumberable.

>>20567709
Not reproducing won't necessarily reduce S-risks. One possibility is that our descendants will be able to do cosmic rescue missions in order to relieve suffering in far-flung regions of the multiverse.

>>20568105
More happiness in the long run... for your BVLL MASTER (who, by the way, you are morally obligated to sacrifice yourself for in every way, shape, and form). Back to work, cucky!

>>20568264
Its sort of repurposing the asymmetry argument.

We focus on the negative quality because its the only one that would benefit an agent if prevented. The dragon is in the ambiguous nature of the after-death state. If its bliss, I still didn't harm a non-experiencer by denying it. If its torment, I really fucked that agent over, bad.

>>20568277
Yah, but it could be anything, you are creating a synthetic binary for an unknown. The result could be infinite meloncholy, or it could be a queer torture that is oddly fulfilling. Mayube metaphysically it is a net negitive in some criteria if there is more non existance. Its just that the binary of a hypothetical seems pointless and self constraining. The qualities and quantities are themselves unknown and uncommentable on besides that of extra reasonal stuff like faith or something.

>>20568291
I am not depriving a non-existent being by denying it heaven or hell. I am however committing atrocity by creating one to face the dice roll. It doesn't matter that the spectrum is wide, it only matters that it could be a negative.

>>20568265
Kek people who spend all day thinking about this are beyond retarded. No one cares about 99% of things that happened in the last year alone and 99.9999% of things that happened ever. Certainly when cyborg-humanity is 10^18 in size they won't care to come rescue your brain upload from suffering in a different parallel reality

>>20566755
Ethics are for NERDS

>>20567763
I literally could not care less if I tried