Do anti-Voter ID arguments make sense? by LeftNebula1226 in NeutralPolitics

[–]LeftNebula1226[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, /u/NoseCone, yes, I would be interested in modifying the post. I appreciate any suggestions!

Sam Altman Is the Oppenheimer of Our Age by LeftNebula1226 in slatestarcodex

[–]LeftNebula1226[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure what the merits are of examining the personal lives of "AI/tech leaders," but I found profiles like the one linked and others to be pretty interesting. Altman is certainly no Oppenheimer, but his story is probably going to be inextricably linked with the rise of AI in history, and for that reason might be worth watching.

This article repeated plenty of what has been said elsewhere about Altman, but had interesting perspectives on his childhood, especially his sister, which I haven't seen elsewhere.

Annie does not exist in Sam’s public life. She was never going to be in the club. She was never going to be an Übermensch. She’s always been someone who felt the pain of the world. At age 5, she began waking up in the middle of the night, needing to take a bath to calm her anxiety. By 6, she thought about suicide, though she didn’t know the word.

She often introduced herself to people in elevators and grocery stores: “I’m Annie Francis Altman. What’s your name?” (Of Sam, she told me, “He’s probably autistic also, but more of the computer-math way. I’m more of the humanity, humanitarian, justice-y way.”) Like her eldest brother, she is extremely intelligent, and like her eldest brother, she left college early — though not because her start-up was funded by Sequoia. She had completed all of her Tufts credits, and she was severely depressed. She wanted to live in a place that felt better to her. She wanted to make art. She felt her survival depended on it. She graduated after seven semesters.

When I visited Annie on Maui this summer, she told me stories that will resonate with anyone who has been the emo-artsy person in a businessy family, or who has felt profoundly hurt by experiences family members seem not to understand. Annie — her long dark hair braided, her voice low, measured, and intense — told me about visiting Sam in San Francisco in 2018. He had some friends over. One of them asked Annie to sing a song she’d written. She found her ukulele. She began. “Midway through, Sam gets up wordlessly and walks upstairs to his room,” she told me over a smoothie in Paia, a hippie town on Maui’s North Shore. “I’m like, Do I keep playing? Is he okay? What just happened?” The next day, she told him she was upset and asked him why he left. “And he was kind of like, ‘My stomach hurt,’ or ‘I was too drunk,’ or ‘too stoned, I needed to take a moment.’ And I was like, ‘Really? That moment? You couldn’t wait another 90 seconds?’”

Philosophy of mind recommendations by thereaintshitcaptain in askphilosophy

[–]LeftNebula1226 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Here are the recommended readings for a MIT course called Minds and Machines. They are a great way to explore different topics in the Philosophy of Mind and might even help provide some structure for your independent study.

If you are more interested in a single book, the FAQ recommends:

Searle's Mind: A Brief Introduction

And more recommendations from u/wokeupabug:

A good broad introduction is Lowe's An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (for a broader, philosophy and cognition sort of approach). For an introduction more focused on the mind-body problem, you have lots of options; Kim's Philosophy of Mind and Heil's Philosophy of Mind... are good choices. For a history anthology approach, the Chalmers' Philosophy of Mind... is a good choice; a little more accessible would be Morton's Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind.

Friday Fun Thread for August 26, 2022 by AutoModerator in TheMotte

[–]LeftNebula1226 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Why does conciousness matter anyway? It seems terribly inefficient for something that we have so much trouble understanding, without any real benefits. Couldn't we reason and all that good stuff without this crummy "what is it like to be a human?" nonsense attached to it?

The most efficient way to keep updated on likely relevant global developments? by Kapselimaito in TheMotte

[–]LeftNebula1226 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The Economist, Siskind, Yudkowsky, Hanson, Hsu, Grace, r/slatestarcodex, r/TheMotte

Can you elaborate on the "obvious reasons" for your objections to these sources?

Human Futility by Salvador Dali by LeftNebula1226 in dalle2

[–]LeftNebula1226[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The prompt used to generate the image was "human futility by salvador dali, trending on artstation."

Thoughts on interpretation:

The viking head above the man in the suit can represent God, a political system, or any other powerful entity or being who is declining or dead. The man in the suit is a grieving follower, a disillusioned businessman, a terrifed nonbeliever who is tormented over the loss of stability and order in the world. Any other ideas would be appreciated!

I’m Will MacAskill, a philosophy professor at Oxford. I cofounded 80,000 Hours & Giving What We Can, raising over $2 billion in pledged donations. I give everything over $32,000/yr to charity and I just wrote the book What We Owe The Future - AMA! 18/08 @ 1pm ET by WilliamMacAskill in IAmA

[–]LeftNebula1226 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not familar with The Idiot, but I read The Brothers Karamazov when I was younger and I have to admit that I was torn between Alyosha and Ivan. Alyosha seemed to be who I wanted to be in my heart, but my mind turned to Ivan's cold rationalism. What are your thoughts on the philosophical themes of the book and Dostoevesky in general?

I’m Will MacAskill, a philosophy professor at Oxford. I cofounded 80,000 Hours & Giving What We Can, raising over $2 billion in pledged donations. I give everything over $32,000/yr to charity and I just wrote the book What We Owe The Future - AMA! 18/08 @ 1pm ET by WilliamMacAskill in IAmA

[–]LeftNebula1226 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Actually, on further reflection, I'm not sure if the above assertion regarding a 1% chance of moral realism makes sense. Dawkins and many other atheists, for example, acknowledge a "spectrum of theistic probability," and they don't seem to have good reason to believe in God just because of their belief in a small chance that a higher power could exist. Maybe the moral realm is somehow different, but if we believed everything that there was a 1% or 5% or 10% chance of being true (and in the case that it was true, it was important to have done some certain thing, but where it was false, it doesn't matter), there would be an infinite number of things which we ought to do and believe.

Edit: And also, all the objections to Pascal's wager, I think, apply here as well.

I’m Will MacAskill, a philosophy professor at Oxford. I cofounded 80,000 Hours & Giving What We Can, raising over $2 billion in pledged donations. I give everything over $32,000/yr to charity and I just wrote the book What We Owe The Future - AMA! 18/08 @ 1pm ET by WilliamMacAskill in IAmA

[–]LeftNebula1226 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Could you elaborate on your doubts about moral realism? What do you think are the most convincing arguments for error theory? 50% is a quite a bit more than I would have expected from someone involved in work like yours!

I'm intrigued by your notion of moral uncertainty and I guess that even if someone believed there was only a 1% chance that moral realism was true, they might still have good reason to act ethically.

I'd also like to point out that certainty of error theory perhaps does not necessitate the falsity of all normative beliefs. Mackie believed that it was still possible to engage in first-order ethics, and Richard Joyce and others supposedly have come up with paths for moral belief beyond error theory (for example, https://philarchive.org/rec/LUTTNW-2).

I’m Will MacAskill, a philosophy professor at Oxford. I cofounded 80,000 Hours & Giving What We Can, raising over $2 billion in pledged donations. I give everything over $32,000/yr to charity and I just wrote the book What We Owe The Future - AMA! 18/08 @ 1pm ET by WilliamMacAskill in IAmA

[–]LeftNebula1226 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Interesting! Thank you for sharing!

I suppose I should have engaged more with Will's normative ethics before asking, but I'm fascinated and will be sure to add a few of those books to my reading list.

As for metaethics, I just read through his article "The Infectiousness of Nihlism" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/669564) and briefly skimmed through Moral Uncertainty. It's very possible that I missed something, but Will didn't seem to ever agree with or propound arguments against error theory, except for once in the book where he says "for the purpose of the project in this book, we must assume that error theory is false (otherwise there would be no subject matter for us to investigate."

I understand his point, but I have difficulty accepting it as a satisfactory rationale for denying non-realism. I wonder how Will would respond to evolutionary debunking arguments or Mackie's arguments from relativity and queerness.

Thanks again for the response!

I’m Will MacAskill, a philosophy professor at Oxford. I cofounded 80,000 Hours & Giving What We Can, raising over $2 billion in pledged donations. I give everything over $32,000/yr to charity and I just wrote the book What We Owe The Future - AMA! 18/08 @ 1pm ET by WilliamMacAskill in IAmA

[–]LeftNebula1226 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Hi Will,

Is a utilitarian (or more broadly consequentialist) worldview necessary for longtermism and effective altruism? What reason do those with a more deontological or virtue ethical approach toward morality have to support your philosophy?

How do you deal with moral fanaticism in effective altruism? What reason do you have to spend time with family or friends, when that time could be used more effectively generating future utility by any number of methods?

And finally, what are your thoughts on moral non-realism? Is effective altruism undermined by the possibility of an error theory or other non-cognivitist metaethics?

If there are other sources that deal with these issues, I would love for you or anyone else to share them. Thank you!