From: Randall Randall (randall@randallsquared.com)
Date: Wed Oct 07 2009 - 07:26:15 MDT
On Wed, Oct 07, 2009 at 08:41:01AM +0100, Stuart Armstrong wrote:
> >> If you saw a random baby lying on the sidewalk, you would not kill
> >> it. ?This is a "limitation" in the human architecture. ?Do you find
> >> yourself fighting against this built-in limitation? ?Do you find
> >> yourself thinking, "You know, my life would be so much better if I
> >> wanted to kill babies.
> >
> > If you substituted the word "baby" for "slug" you would have a much more
> > realistic analogy;
>
> Um - no you wouldn't. You'd get an massively less realistic analogy;
> slugs are things we hate and value not at all. The process analogised
> is going from valuing something very highly to valuing something much
> less; loving babies but voluntarily deciding to treat babies as slugs.
Of course, John is talking about the intelligence difference, which he
sees as overriding all that "goals" business. Different analogy, anyway.
Some people do love and highly value their houseplants, which might be
an analogy you can both agree on.
-- Randall
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