From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat May 25 2002 - 03:29:53 MDT
Wei Dai wrote:
> On Thu, May 23, 2002 at 03:43:01PM -0400, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
>>If you really think that racial profiling and gender bias are just
>>"interesting moral problems", then let's drop it and move onto something
>>more constructive. Most of us aren't interested.
>>
>
> I said that I am interested in the moral problem, not that they are just
> interesting moral problems. Obviously these problems are very important in
> the real world. On the other hand, those of us not immediately faced with
> the problems can still have a philosophical interest in them.
>
> If you're not interested in examining the philosophical foundations and
> implications of the Extropian principles, fine, but is it really so bad to
> have to endure the conversation of those who are?
Silly lifeboat situations and polls on the same don't have a
damn thing to do with exploring the implications of Extropian
principles. This particular mind game is widely acknowledge as
useless for even exploring ethics. To use it to make some airy
evaluation of different genders, groups and ages of people and
then turn around and speak of it as about exploring implications
of Extropian principles is beyond belief.
>
>
>>Why not work on real problems and real solutions?
>>
>
> Have you read Eliezer's paper on Friendly AI, where he talks about how
> Friendliness will have to be based on a consistent moral philosophy? It's
> quite possible that some of the most important real problems *are* the
> philosophical ones.
>
No problem with that but let us do honest philosophy and
moral/ethical discussion instead of dumb lifeboat scenarios.
And let us stop pretending that raw prejudice and lack of
appreciation of many segments of even human life is somehow part
of Extropian principles and their implications. It isn't.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:20 MST