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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31630 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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"many people here do actually have an unarticulated, possibly subconscious, belief that this is the case." - There's nothing subconscious about it. I believe this is the case, and am willing to defend it explicitly.

Well, as you age, your intelligence will fade. So if you believe you will be worth less morally when you're elderly, has that caused you to save less for retirement than you would otherwise?

Do you believe that you have less moral worth when you are sick, sleep-deprived, intoxicated, distracted, or otherwise cognitively impaired? And if so by how much?

You acknowledge it's possible for something to be true, but for people to poorly acknowledge it, right? Consider telling an addict that "yeah, you may CLAIM cocaine is bad for you, but if you really believe that why's there some white powder on your jeans"?

Do you believe that you have less moral worth when you are sick, sleep-deprived, intoxicated, distracted, or otherwise cognitively impaired? And if so by how much?

wait, what moral worth does a person who's braindead, or in a permanent, unrecoverable coma have? In the normal case, that person will be alert and intelligent in at most a dozen hours, but if that isn't true ...

You acknowledge it's possible for something to be true, but for people to poorly acknowledge it, right?

Challenging people on the implications of their beliefs is a standard argumentative technique. If you're not acting on the implications, maybe there's a part of you that doesn't actually buy into the belief.

wait, what moral worth does a person who's braindead, or in a permanent, unrecoverable coma have? In the normal case, that person will be alert and intelligent in at most a dozen hours, but if that isn't true ...

I agree that if there's a braindead person in a permanent unrecoverable coma, we should probably pull the plug on them and use the resources to help others. (Well, under ideal circumstances cryogenically freeze them first, in case future tech can help them recover from the coma)

If you're not acting on the implications, maybe there's a part of you that doesn't actually buy into the belief.

This doesn't really prove it false though! Consider telling the slaveowner who's having doubts about slavery that "well, you own slaves, so"? The way that codes today is "which is disgusting, and you shouldn't", but the way you're using it is "and slavery is fine, therefore". Morals aren't attempting to "find our current beliefs", as that would make pondering morality entirely vacuous, one can be wrong!

Consider telling the slaveowner who's having doubts about slavery that "well, you own slaves, so"?

So to be consistent with their doubts, they'll want to liberate their slaves. Pointing out inconsistency is valuable.

You are a minority in this regard. But by all means, make your case.

Am I misreading some double negative in that sentence, or is it you that has a particularly dismal view of this place? Count me in as having that supposedly minority view. I don't have time write an essay on it, but morality is morality, and intelligence is intelligence. There might be some statistical voodoo where it turns out intelligent people tend act more moral, but that doesn't mean the two are directly linked. I've literally met a girl with Down's Syndrome that I'd give a higher moral worth than half of rationalists, I might even put her above myself if I had to judge things objectively.

The statement isn't "intelligent people act more honorably/morally", it's "intelligent people have better / deeper experiences and should be prioritized as moral subjects". Although arguably the former is true too, consequentially - a 90iq person can't cure cancer or invent the computer or whatever, and immoral acts are necessarily counter to some moral acts, so any specific level of accomplishment needs a certain level of intelligence to accomplish. E.g. someone who's sufficiently intellectually disabled doesn't even have the awareness to 'save the drowning child'

The statement isn't "intelligent people act more honorably/morally", it's "intelligent people have better / deeper experiences and should be prioritized as moral subjects".

Yeah I know, "intelligent people act more honorably/morally" was the steelman. The second statement is morally abhorrent under my framework.

And it doesn't even seem to prioritize intelligent people, as much as chicks with BPD who love you like crazy, but want to off themselves when you don't give them enough attention, or addicts tripping balls on acid or heroin. And speaking of offing yourself, the chronically depressed they might as well go and do it, and make way for people with "better" experiences.

E.g. someone who's sufficiently intellectually disabled doesn't even have the awareness to 'save the drowning child'

Sure, which is why you don't hold their actions to the same standard.

OP claimed that many people here quietly believe that IQ determines moral worth.

I disagree. I think people who believe that IQ determines moral worth are a fairly small if strident minority here.

@Lepidus is registering that he believes that IQ does determine moral worth, and I am inviting him to make his case.

I think your view, which I agree with, is actually the majority here, though that fact is less evident than it might otherwise be because a lot of the long-timers here are tired of taking the bait on conversations that tend to be repetitive, uninteresting, and unproductive.

can we have a poll on this?

You know >I am inviting him to make his case.

would help to to determine opinions of majority here and minority here.

We have rules against such things for a reason(consensus building). What use would this information be to you? Do you think popularity of a belief that does seem to be pretty contested is really that important? I'll register as someone on the HBD side who thinks that intelligence is not very strongly correlated with moral worth but frankly it's a question that hinges mostly on framing and very little on the kind of thing that makes interesting arguments. Most of what you tend to get and are indeed getting here are people arguing part eachother with totally different definitions of moral and worth and intelligence.

I think many people think that intelligence is incredibly valuable and value raising it in a population as a moral aim. Or it is at least trivially instrumental to moral aims as a more intelligence population alleviates more suffering, produces and experiences better art and is able to develop more wisely. whether we can assign morality to intellectual failings is another questions, that I personally answer no to because to me morality implies some kind of choice and people do not choose to be dumb. And talk of raising a population's intelligence can but does not have to imply some pretty horrible practices of the past which definitely is poisoning the conversation, "We think you have equal moral weight to smarter people but would prefer you not reproduce" is both unconvincing to the people being cleansed from the gene pool and often put much less kindly.

There are many twists and turns in this debate but as @fcfromssc said, they rarely change and people stuck in the twists and turns rare change each other's minds even when they basically agree on everything but definitions.

Well, Scott at least does 1 big poll each year. Is it wrong? I understand why it'd be bad if every motte poster would create one here, but polls provide infortmation supplementary to postings.

and I am also interesting in opinions of people other than those two create long effortposts. A poster being rare poster doesn't mean they don't have strong opinions.

I think we've done wide polls before which I wouldn't be against but I kind of oppose having positions in it. If for no other reason than the behavior of "Well 74% of us believe this so why do you think you're smarter than us all" Which is egregiously obnoxious. As well as the simple act of registering a position might make people less willing to deviate from their previous position.

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