• 12 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 13th, 2023

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  • What if our simulated universe is actually way, way less terrible than the real world? What if the simulation was created specifically to have lower suffering/higher utils than in reality?

    certain sentences you’ve extracted suggest the author considers severe suffering incomparably worse than any pleasure (for example why would ‘removing suffering’ necessarily improve the universe? in a framework where suffering and pleasure are comparably significant factors, it is possible that removing suffering would remove enough pleasure to tip the balance negative).

    that’s a point of view I’m very sympathetic to, but it means external reality would almost certainly be worse than the simulation, because the external reality contains the simulation, and therefore contains at least as much severe suffering as the simulation. put another way, is it worse for a torture chamber to exist, or for torture chamber makers to exist?

    I think what this is highlighting is a disconnect in their thinking between what I presume to be a greatest good based utilitarian framework, and what they actually think is cool and are talking about, which is heroic individual action. they want to present as hari seldon but they’re really wanking about pulp adventure shit