From: Carlos Gonzalia (gonzalia@cs.chalmers.se)
Date: Mon Sep 17 2001 - 17:15:14 MDT
>From: Mike Lorrey <mlorrey@datamann.com>
>
>What is the population of Afghanistan? Ten million? How much time does
>it take for that many people in the world to die of other causes? 6
>months? A year? If the actions of those responsible for terrorism delay
>the achievement of immortality by enough time that the number of people
>who die instead of becoming immortal exceeds that of those who stand in
>its way, then from a PURELY rational, cost/benefit point of view,
>Robert's statement is entirely justified, but only if such action
>actually does result in saving that time.
How would you actually know you saved time? I can't imagine any way
in which you might honestly show the savings will occur. If you indeed
possess such a capacity for foreseeing the cost/benefit balances of
so massive and complex actions as a genocide would have on the global
socio-economic-cultural system, and do it to the point where you can
actually show the saving in actual months associated with your actions,
then I will print this post and eat it.
>I know that this is a rather disgusting thing to say.
Maybe for other readers here it is disgusting, I have a stronger stomach
than that. For me it's simply lunatic, and I would expect your actions to
wreck the advancement processes so much as to end up with human stagnation
or even extinction.
>In positions of leadership, people always have to make life and death
>decisions.
Of course they have. And they tend to blunder as much as they hit right.
I'm very unconvinced you have either the information-gathering tools,
the correct models, or the predictive capabilities to actually defend
such things as "genocide for cost/benefit rationality". And I would
also expect that if/when you acquire all the tools, models and capabilities,
you will find your cost/benefit rationality tells you you are wrong, and
what Eliezer posted is more or less the reason why you were wrong.
>In the case of terrorism delaying immortality: if you kill fewer people
>than are saved by the resultant acceleration of the achievement of
>immortality, you are rationally justified. All that is left is a moral
>debate over whether sins of commission are more wrong than sins of
>omission.
I say that in your cost/benefit rationality you are compounding both
sins: committing genocide, and ommitting to account for the real
cost/benefits involved in your commission.
Carlos
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