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InsideOutSantatoday at 11:33 AM1 replyview on HN

You can make an argument supporting your disagreement.


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randallsquaredtoday at 3:11 PM

There are two possible forks. The physical fork involves factual disagreement on how much humanity has built vs destroyed, the relative ease of destruction over construction, and an argument that given entropy and other effects, even a slight bias toward production would produce little positive, leading to the conclusion that humans mostly produce vastly more than they consume, even though production is, as mentioned, more difficult.

The value or "moral" fork would be trying to convince you that building, producing, and growing was actually helpful rather than harmful.

I don't imagine we actually disagree on the physical fork, making that argument pretty pointless: clearly humans and human civilization are learning, growing, and still have a strong potential to thrive as long as ASI, apathy, or a big rock don't take us out first. Instead, I took your statement as an indication that you don't actually positively value humans, more humans, humans growing, and humans building things. That's a preferences and values disagreement, and there's no way to rationally or logically argue someone into changing their core values. No ought from is, and all that.

I'm not suggesting, by the way, that people's values don't change, or can't be changed by discussion, only that there is no way to do so with logical argument; reason can get you to your goal, but it can't tell you what ultimate goal to want.

Anyway, I was expressing that I like humans and want humans (or people who themselves used to be humans, in the limit) to continue and do more, rather than arguing that you ought to feel the same.