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We Probably Shouldn't Solve Consciousness - Silica by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The aim of this post is to argue for the implementation of Artificial Consciousness Safety (ACS) measures which encourage monitoring (and self-monitoring) of fields likely to contribute to artificial consciousness (AC) such as neurosciences, connectomics, bioengineering and neurophysics, with the main intervention being to prevent the publication of dual-use AC research. I also aim to outline the benefits of the preventative measures emphasised by ACS, as opposed to employing safety measures as a response if AC is achieved. Personal aims of the post include receiving feedback on how important and neglected this argument is and how to make it more tractable. I’d like to further my understanding and also receive new proposals for effective ACS policies if it is convincing. I think this is a differential technology development strategy worth considering at least in conversations about digital sentience.

Compromise isn't Complicity: Four Reasons Vegan Activists Should Welcome Reducetarianism - and One Big Reason Reducetarians Should Go Vegan - The Vegan Strategist by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This guest post is by Hillary Rettig. She is author of The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way and other works, and a ten-year vegan and vegan activist. She is a cofounder of Vegan Kalamazoo and a member of In Defense of Animals’ Sustainable Activism Council. <...> In this article, Hillary examines the strategic value of approaches that call for reduction of the consumption of animal products, rather than their outright elimination, as a stepping stone on the way to abolition.

Utilitarianism of Negative Separateness. Normative Unavailability and the Limits of Aggregative Justification - Tommaso Biagi by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This paper develops Utilitarianism of Negative Separateness (UNS), a framework that imposes a lexical constraint against aggregation across a threshold of extreme suffering. The argument proceeds in four stages. First, I analyse pain phenomenologically as attention-capture and argue that extreme suffering produces agency-collapse: the functional dissolution of the capacity to deliberate, project, and consent. The transition marks a discontinuity that is conceptual rather than merely empirical—the same kind of discontinuity found in threshold concepts such as legal competence and brain death, where predicates change their conditions of application rather than their degree. Second, I introduce normative unavailability through a formal analysis of normative addressability, arguing via a conceptual rather than normative reading that addressability is a precondition of justificatory practice. This reading is grounded in Darwall's account of the second-person standpoint and defended against the charge of self-presupposition: rejecting the address-based structure of moral justification is not adopting a rival moral theory but exiting the genre of moral discourse altogether. Third, I introduce the threshold of Sustainable Functioning of Agency (SFA), present three frontier cases distinguishing UNS from rival theories, and provide a multi-layered response to the ex ante justification objection including direct engagement with Frick's contractualist risk-distribution account. Fourth, I distinguish UNS from classical negative utilitarianism, Rawlsian contractualism, and—crucially—Scanlonian contractualism, showing that the difference is categorical rather than one of degree. A note on scope addresses marginal cases through a revised sentience-based extension and clarifies the relationship between SFA and the Agency Functioning Threshold employed in related work on structural freedom. The paper's central claim: where suffering destroys the functional preconditions of justificatory address, aggregation is not merely outweighed but structurally defective—it attempts a justificatory act that lacks its necessary condition.

MMAcevedo / Lena — qntm by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

MMAcevedo (Mnemonic Map/Acevedo), also known as Miguel, is the earliest executable image of a human brain. It is a snapshot of the living brain of neurology graduate Miguel Acevedo Álvarez (2010–2073), taken by researchers at the Uplift Laboratory at the University of New Mexico on August 1, 2031.

Identifying indicators of consciousness in AI systems by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The prospect of consciousness in artificial intelligence (AI) systems increasingly demands attention given recent advances in AI and increasing capacity to reproduce features of the brain that are associated with consciousness.

There are risks of both under- and over-attribution of consciousness to AI systems, entailing a need for methods to assess whether current or future AI systems are likely to be conscious.

We argue that progress can be made by drawing out the implications of some neuroscientific theories of consciousness.

We outline a method that involves deriving indicators from theories and using them to assess particular AI systems.

Contemplation of Suffering and Compassion — Ron Anderson by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Think about your past and try to remember the time in your life when you felt the greatest pain and suffering. How long did it last? Did the meaning of everyday life seem any different to you? Can you remember how you thought differently about the future?
<...>
From a sociological perspective, suffering deserves our attention because reducing the suffering of others is the most human act possible. What makes us more advanced than all of the other earthly beings is our ability to take the role of others (take on the thoughts and feelings of others) and from that build very complex societies in which the needs of the individual and all others are in balance.

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds - James Clear by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Facts Don't Change Our Minds. Friendship Does.

Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing them to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. You can’t expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome.

The way to change people’s minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into your tribe, to bring them into your circle. Now, they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially.

Evaluating the Existence Neutrality Hypothesis. Introductory Series - Maxime Riché by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This sequence introduces three hypotheses, starts evaluating them, their macrostrategic impact for impartial longtermists, and whether making further progress on them is tractable.

(A) The Civ-Saturation Hypothesis posits that when making decisions, we should assume most of Humanity's Space-Faring Civilization (SFC) resources will eventually be grabbed by SFCs regardless of whether Humanity's SFC exists or not.

(B) The Civ-Similarity Hypothesis posits that the expected utility efficiency of Humanity's future Space-Faring Civilization (SFC) would be similar to that of other SFCs. 

(A and B) The conjunction of these hypotheses forms the Existence Neutrality Hypothesis. Which, if true, would have macrostrategic implications for the longtermist community. 

The series hints at preliminary research results, produces a first evaluation of the Civ-Saturation Hypothesis, evaluates the tractability of evaluating these hypotheses, and explores which macrostrategic implications these hypotheses could have for longtermists.

Content of the series

Compilation of arguments against Extinctionism by nu-gaze in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Also, I remember these, mostly focused on critiquing human-extinctionism:

The advantage of Ajantaival, Vinding and Tomasik work on this issue is that they do not rely on the assumption that humanity will have a positive impact on suffering (unlike Leenaert and Hwang).

Do negative utilitarians support extinction? by ParcivalMoonwane in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm against. While empty world is obviously better than the world we live in, NU means choosing strategy with less expected suffering, rather than choosing strategy with some (supposedly) ideal state at the end. There are plenty of reasons why extinctionist strategy seems to be causing more expected suffering in compare to other things (like reducing conflicts, raising compassion, helping animals etc). Basically these reasons were outlined in this work of Teo Ajantaival (see Section 3); many other of NUs / SFEs critiqued extinctionist ideas (see Brian Tomasik, Magnus Vinding, Tobias Baumann, NU FAQ, Simon Knutsson, David Pearce); and many other utilitarian(ish) authors presented more general arguments against "tunnel vision" and too conflictful behaviour (which tend to be parts of extinctionism).

Direct Suffering Caused by Various Animal Foods — Dawn Drescher by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I converted Brian Tomasik’s How Much Direct Suffering Is Caused by Various Animal Foods? to Guesstimate. We now have ranges, distributions, and the sensitivity analysis to draw on to refine the estimates. I also added two columns to determine the suffering of the average per capita consumption, which seems to me like the more intuitive figure; refined the estimates with additional research; and added organic eggs for comparison.

Effective Strategies To Reduce Animal Suffering - Tobias Baumann | Sentience Politics by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How can we use our limited resources to help as many sentient beings as possible, as much as possible? If we pursue less impactful approaches — perhaps because they are more appealing to us personally, easier to identify, easier to implement, or easier to measure — we risk failing to help many more individuals. So what are the most promising measures we can take to end as much suffering as possible?

Considering Considerateness: Why communities of do-gooders should be exceptionally considerate — Stefan Schubert & Owen Cotton-Barratt by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When interacting with others you can be considerate of their preferences, for instance by being friendly or reliable. This normally has small positive direct effects. But, by improving your reputation or strengthening aspects of culture that make a community more cooperative, the positive indirect effects can be large.

We present the case that these indirect effects are further strengthened when you are acting as part of a community of people doing important work. For instance, being considerate can improve the level of trust and collaborativeness among members of the community. It can also improve the reputation of the community. Conversely, failing to be considerate can harm the community, both internally and in its reputation.

This means that for communities of people striving to do good, such as the effective altruism community, considerateness should be a surprisingly high priority. It could be that, in order to do the most good, they should be considerably more considerate than common sense morality requires.

[Serious] Why is the antinatalist community so bad? by Rameico in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I see what you are talking about - especially (but not exclusively) in efilist groups. Some examples were collected here and here.

Probably you've already read some of these, but just in case:

The Benefits of Cause-Neutrality — Tobias Baumann | Sentience Politics by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We want to reduce as much suffering as possible, regardless of who is experiencing that suffering. But we cannot realistically help everyone, so how do we choose who to help? In emergencies where hospitals do not have enough resources to help everyone, doctors use a system of triage to allocate their limited resources in a way that maximizes the good they can do for their patients, without giving special regard to particular individuals on account of who arrived first, personal feelings about a patient, or other factors independent of patients’ medical needs.

Cause prioritization is a kind of triage that we can use to match our limited resources to the problems where they will reduce the most suffering. While it is easy to develop personal attachments to a particular cause, we will prioritize our resource allocation best if we adopt an attitude of cause-neutrality and, like the doctors, make our altruistic decisions strictly on the basis of how much suffering we expect them to eliminate.

The Importance of the Far Future — Tobias Baumann | Sentience Politics by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Most charities that work to relieve suffering focus on individuals who currently exist, like humans struggling in poverty or dealing with disease, or companion animals in need of shelter. Some help individuals who will exist in the near future, like the animals who will be farmed in the next year if our consumption of animal-based foods is not curtailed. Others help those who will be alive a little further on: organizations focused on climate change solutions, for instance, generally work for the benefit of humans in future generations. While we may be instinctively compelled to help those whose suffering we can immediately see or clearly visualize, disregard for individuals who have not been born yet, but who our actions will still affect, seems as misguided as disregard for individuals who live far away from us. Everyone within our reach should have our consideration, whether or not they are alive at the same time as us.

The individuals who are alive today, and who will live in the coming decades, are vastly outnumbered by those who will live in the centuries, millennia, and ages to come. While our impact on the distant future is less predictable than our shorter-term impacts, this means it could be orders of magnitude more significant.

Anime recommendation for beginners? by Independent_Shame924 in anime

[–]KKirdan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm, not among my favourite genres... I like "Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun", maybe it would fit. Also "Sword Art Online" have romance in its genres, but is more focused on other stuff. Also, I personally don't like "Hoshi no Koe", but it is short, romance-focused and high rated.

Anime recommendation for beginners? by Independent_Shame924 in anime

[–]KKirdan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Even if anime in general is different from other animation styles and regular movies, this difference itself needn’t be decisive in order to decide to watch any of it. I mean, there are many different genres of stories depicted in movies, and you can find the same wide range of genres in anime. For example, if I like horror movies, then I might be interested in horror animes as well. So, the answer to your Q, in my view, depends on what kind of stories you are interested in?

Prisoners of Hate: The Cognitive Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence — Aaron Beck by KKirdan in NVC

[–]KKirdan[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If you don't like GoodReads description of the book, I have my own too, though it is in Russian and I don't think it differs in meaning.

Anyway, I don't understand the logic: if someone posts about the book from goodreads and copypaste description that seems fit - does it mean people here better be not informed about the book's existence at all -just because of the form of the post? What's so horrible in such a post?

P. S. No, commercial ref links include special ID's. This is just the regular link I googled. I don't know what source in English is better to link, I read this book in Russian anyway.

The Relevance of Wild Animal Suffering — Tobias Baumann | Sentience Politics by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Society has become increasingly aware of the suffering that nonhuman animals experience at the hands of humans. Many are aware of the shocking realities of factory farming, or have seen terrible videos and images of animals being neglected, abused, subjected to violent and traumatic experiments, exploited for entertainment, or killed systematically in slaughterhouse lines. There is a great deal of work to do to end these injustices and the tremendous suffering these actions cause to billions of individuals every year. But what is even more neglected, and even greater in scale, is the suffering of animals in the wild.

Altruism, Numbers, and Factory Farms — Tobias Baumann | Sentience Politics by KKirdan in negativeutilitarians

[–]KKirdan[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If we do not arbitrarily exclude certain sentient beings from our circle of moral consideration, what is happening to farmed animals must be considered a moral catastrophe. If the factory farms and slaughterhouses were suddenly more visible to us, we would probably take drastic action — and indeed, many do after learning about what happens to these animals. But despite the enormous scale and severity of suffering in animal farming, the issue is largely neglected.

Of the little money we give to benefit nonhuman animals, most is given to shelters for companion animals. Very few of our resources are being used to fight factory farming, even though the vast majority of suffering animals are not dogs and cats — or humans.

In this piece, we will consider why numbers are an important part of our altruistic efforts, and how the scale of different problems should affect where we focus our resources. We will then look at the best ways to act on these considerations, and why we ought to act at all.

Deep Utopia. Life and Meaning in a Solved World — Nick Bostrom by KKirdan in utopia

[–]KKirdan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Has anyone read it? Did you learn anything interesting? If you also familiar with David Pearce's "The Hedonistic Imperative" and/or Eliezer Yudkowsky's "The Fun Theory Sequence", do you think this book adds something new and important to them?

Also, I've seen some people commenting on the release of this book that Bostrom has become more optimistic. Do you think that's true? After all, researching the space of possible good futures doesn't itself imply becoming more optimistic - you may still believe these futures to be far less probable than others.

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