I found myself completely stymied once that article got to the section about death. I haven't read their other articles on the subject, but they seem to find it rather uncontroversial to assert that anyone who thinks that death is ultimately good, and not bad, is 'pretending to be wise'. That seems insane to me. Does anybody think that a world without death—or even human death—would be less than hellish? Is it really false wisdom to be glad that living things, or living people, do not infinitely multiply, age, expand, consume resources? Or even false wisdom to try to see the good in the death of an individual?
Further, the author takes it as uncontroversial that it is 'wrong' to dwell on the problems of modern industrial society, and hypothesizes that one would only do it in order to signal one's intelligence. They don't think it would be useful—indeed, necessary—for many people to spend a lot of time thinking about the ills of A just because you can conclude that it is a greater good than not-A? Is that really the only way that it works? If I mention that industrial society destroys the environment and alienates the individual, then my argument must be, 'therefore, it is ultimately an evil, and we should scrap it for unelectrified villages.'
I like the way the author illustrates the signalling effect in terms of consumption, culture, and even cocktail party conversation; but I'm not sure the mechanism is quite as strong as they think.
Another way of putting it is: a lot of the intellectual arguments that the author likes to cast as counter signalling games can just as easily be characterized as successive philosophies and arguments that respond to the facts available to them and the values of the societies in which they arise. You COULD say that very intelligent people who don't want to give aid to Africa are motivated by a need to counter-signal the rather intelligent people who do; or you could say that they are motivated by their own understanding of the best way to increase the economic condition in Africa. If both of those could be said of any person, what value does this psychological model really have?
>they seem to find it rather uncontroversial to assert that anyone who thinks that death is ultimately good, and not bad, is 'pretending to be wise'.
Eliezer talked about this at at the Singularity Summit...I can't find the slides, but his subsequent update of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (yes, really) pretty much said the same thing. The relevant part starts around halfway down this chapter: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/39/Harry_Potter_and_the_...
I think this is a pretty common position among the futurist/transhumanist/singularitarian community. The standard inductive argument is basically "I want to be alive tomorrow, and tomorrow I will feel the same way. Therefore, I will never want to die."
Edit: Oh, the other point that is often made is that if you grew up on a planet where everyone randomly got hit over the head with a baseball bat every few minutes, there would probably be people who talk about how this is a good thing, because it helps you greater appreciate the bat-free minutes and helps you stay on your toes, etc. But, other things being equal, as an Earthling you probably wouldn't want to go and live on that world. Likewise, if you came form a society where people didn't die, and someone offered you the opportunity to completely cease to exist one day, you probably wouldn't take it.
A better model would probably be a Markov chain, where the states are "don't want to die", "want to die", and "dead". If you can show that the transition probability to wanting to die is very low, then you could show that you'll want to live a hell of a lot longer than is currently possible.
What if we argue, not from the good of the individual, but the good of society? Isn't there a saying that goes something like, "Society progresses one funeral at a time?"
Sure, but consider the cost: all those people, dead!
Doesn't that bother you? More to the point, does it bother you enough that you'll consider possible nonlethal ways for society to advance? If you're biasing your arguments in favor of the status quo, it's easy to forget to look for a third option.
In that case, it seems like what we're really trying to do is envision or bring about a world in which death ISN'T a good thing. If we can bring about an existence without overpopulation, decrepitude, destruction of the biosphere—and maybe with interplanetary colonization, to boot—then death won't be a good thing anymore. But death is not the evil there. Suffering is. I don't think anyone would argue that death is an ULTIMATE good, unless they worshiped Kali or were just hoping to get into heaven—but as long as we live in a world with suffering, decay, and limited resources, put me down in the death column. The cost might be 'all those people' but the alternative is horrible to contemplate.
Oh, the other point that is often made is that if you grew up on a planet where everyone randomly got hit over the head with a baseball bat every few minutes
Further, the author takes it as uncontroversial that it is 'wrong' to dwell on the problems of modern industrial society, and hypothesizes that one would only do it in order to signal one's intelligence. They don't think it would be useful—indeed, necessary—for many people to spend a lot of time thinking about the ills of A just because you can conclude that it is a greater good than not-A? Is that really the only way that it works? If I mention that industrial society destroys the environment and alienates the individual, then my argument must be, 'therefore, it is ultimately an evil, and we should scrap it for unelectrified villages.'
I like the way the author illustrates the signalling effect in terms of consumption, culture, and even cocktail party conversation; but I'm not sure the mechanism is quite as strong as they think.
Another way of putting it is: a lot of the intellectual arguments that the author likes to cast as counter signalling games can just as easily be characterized as successive philosophies and arguments that respond to the facts available to them and the values of the societies in which they arise. You COULD say that very intelligent people who don't want to give aid to Africa are motivated by a need to counter-signal the rather intelligent people who do; or you could say that they are motivated by their own understanding of the best way to increase the economic condition in Africa. If both of those could be said of any person, what value does this psychological model really have?