Re: META (Re: KILLTHREAD: Re: physical pain is bad)

From: Russell Wallace (russell.wallace@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jan 26 2006 - 10:07:17 MST


On 1/26/06, Philip Goetz <philgoetz@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/25/06, Mitchell Howe <mitch.howe@gmail.com> wrote:
> > This thread is having trouble staying above the level of mere
> > philosophy. I don't deny that it has relevance, but it doesn't seem to
> > be getting anywhere right now. Let's give it a rest.
> >
> > --SL4 List Sniper
>
> I have 3 questions:
>
> - How are we supposed to talk about what sort of goals and ethics we
> should develop an AI to have, so that it will be friendly, without
> delving into "mere philosophy"?
>
> - If we can't talk about "mere philosophy", does this mean we can have
> a blanket ban on discussions of consciousness?
>
> - What do people think about applying this policy generally, and
> killing all threads that turn into philosophy? I think this might
> help with the perceived drop in quality of this list.
>

I think philosophy in general is appropriate for this list. My take on it
was that Mitch was killing the thread not for being philosophical per se,
but because it had got stuck in a rut - it was dominated (as far as post
count goes) by an axiomatic disagreement over whether animals have rights in
the "we must intervene to protect them from suffering" sense, and wasn't
going anywhere - Mitch, correct me if I'm wrong.

- Russell



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:55 MDT