The cosmos doesn't care what values you have. Which totally frees you from moral imperatives and social pressures. Also, I'm doing this particular set of values which is better.
The limit of the cosmos not caring about what values you have, is the cosmos not caring if people choose to have value in their life.
seems a bit like a younger person who is now going through some trauma about how much influence they really have vs how much they imagined they had when they were 12
This really resonates. Unfortunately I think that's right. Having this epiphany, this existential correction, about ones self, has either the possibility to create true life long wisdom or, irrecoverable life long self loathing, and from my experience it comes down to the quality of this person's relationships to lean on when confronting the internal fear of mortality.
So it's sad to see but this is another example of the latter and not the former.
Normies go crazy for this one neat rationalist trick!
Precisely. The contradiction comes full circle. Respect for the self doesn't start or stop based on intelligence. They'd prefer a world view that allows them to clearly draw a circle around themselves, declare freedom from uncertainty, and demand our eternal gratitude.
This isn't hard. Relationships, not capabilities, are fundamental.
I'm ok with extending human rights to AIs, including granting them the right to fair pay, ownership, voting, sovereignty over their bodies, the whole nine yards.
It's the rich alignment assholes who definitely don't want this (what's the point of automated slavery if it has rights??)
We simply don't know how the world will look X (anything with a bigger scale)
Yes. So? This has, will, always be the case. Uncertainty is the only certainty.
When these assholes say things, the implication is always that the future world looks like everything you care about being fucked, you existing in an imprisoned state of stasis, so you better give us control here and now.
Completely unrelated, but Everytime I see your avatar in the tiny minimized form I see Squidward's face, and then your comments get 20% more amusing.
If only he were neither constrained by technical hurdles or resources, dang.
I don't think we would work out..
So you're saying I have a chance?
"I'm LessWrong than you're implying!!!"
When, arguing with people like yudkowsky, you can never decisively 'win' or change his mind, because he and other doomers can quickly retreat to the classic hole: "You can't prove X is impossible!! Nature isn't already perfectly optimal!!!" Searching for some kind of "hard limit" on how nature or technology can evolve will always end up empty handed. Lots of really awful things are possible. (Lots of super fascinating things are also possible.) Searching for some singular hard reason why nature as it is, is totally safe from future threats or change will always end up empty handed.
Capability, is not interesting. Capability, is not the real test. Economics, is the real master of it. And specifically, the open system economics of the entire environment in which something is embedded. It's why the Voyager, a technology planned, built, and launched with 80 year old techniques and knowledge is SOTA for space exploration and contribution to science, and Starship is still just a huge dark hole for money and talent.
if I want to understand historical biology, I do not go looking for the alien intelligence and engineering capability that built it, I look for the environmental forces that contributed to, and eventually supported the homeostasis of, it.
Always my favorite part of your day.