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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30623 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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Me:

Small children exist

@IGI-111:

People who make incorrect moral decisions that endanger their lives and require other take risks to save them are not innocent. They're guilty.

Me:

Babies exist

@KMC:

For each and every person, the only way that person can possibly be harmed is by choosing to put themselves in danger. Nobody is forcing you to put yourself in danger, and everyone gets the choice of safety.

Babies don't have meaningful "choices". How many times do I have to say this? I don't understand how you could follow this chain of comments and not address babies at all.

Because babies are not relevant, they're just a prop you're using to tug on heartstrings.

Babies don't have meaningful "choices".

Yet they do have choices. They can choose strawberry or blueberry. They can choose blocks or stuffed animal. They can choose book 1 or book 2. They can choose to move or to stay put.

What you meant is that babies don't understand consequences. It's the consequences that make choices meaningful. And even then, I don't think you're right. Babies know the consequences of leaning over the edge, once they've fallen. They learn consequences and apply them.

Besides, if you're going to stack the deck in favor of the bleeding hearts by using children, I think the much more interesting change, instead of babies get to pick themselves essentially at random, is that they get the same results as their parents. Or, for maximum conflict, you have to pick mother or father, and the baby follows their choice. Then you're risking your child's life by picking blue, but you're also doubling your own weight.

Yet they do have choices.

What you meant is that babies don't understand consequences. It's the consequences that make choices meaningful.

Uh, right. Consequences make choices meaningful. So babies don't have meaningful choices, which is exactly what I said and exactly what I meant.

And even then, I don't think you're right.

Sure, I'll grant babies have some meaningful choices, but this isn't one of them.

Besides, if you're going to stack the deck in favor of the bleeding hearts by using children

I'm not "stacking the deck" using children. They're already part of the premise. The deck is already stacked.

I think the much more interesting change, instead of babies get to pick themselves essentially at random, is that they get the same results as their parents. Or, for maximum conflict, you have to pick mother or father, and the baby follows their choice. Then you're risking your child's life by picking blue, but you're also doubling your own weight.

I think it would be more interesting if, for everyone who chose blue, a random person died, rather than the person who chose blue.

People who don't make meaningful choices don't answer Twitter polls about ethical dilemmas.

You don't think a single person has ever misclicked in such a poll, answered without reading it, or been too young to understand it? I think that's preposterous.

Look if you want to bring in the element of irresponsibility in a thought experiment, you have to do it explicitly, otherwise we run into these pointless discussions about an incomplete model.

What's to learn from flukes in a thought experiment?

When trying to solve the prisonner's dilemma, people don't assume the prisoners might have a rare ailment that makes them pick the opposite choice than the one they want. Because it's a model.

When trying to solve the prisonner's dilemma, people don't assume the prisoners might have a rare ailment that makes them pick the opposite choice than the one they want. Because it's a model.

Actually, people often (I would even say more often than not) do! There are both variants and strategies which deal with this. If you look up "interactive prisoner's dilemma", the first result involves many prisoners whose strategies are fundamentally irrational.

Look if you want to bring in the element of irresponsibility in a thought experiment, you have to do it explicitly, otherwise we run into these pointless discussions about an incomplete model.

I disagree. The thought experiment explicitly included everyone who responded to the poll. I think it would have to be phrased differently for us to be able to ignore those who responded on accident.

Another user did mention that those who respond to the poll are offered the choice, so technically, according to the premise, the option they choose in the poll isn't necessarily what they would actually choose in the thought experiment. Still, I think it's a given that plenty of young/stupid people will respond and that their decisions will not necessarily be rational.

Of course there are refinements that you can add to make this a better model, since in reality we do have problems that fit this. My point is that this should be included in the model otherwise we're just going to argue about what the model even is, which is exactly what is happening.

I guess it is fair enough to say that it should be included given Twitter is bound to have irrational actors. I still think the formulation is bad because it's too vague.

Maybe I'll create some kind of simulation we can all play around with. The correct answer between red and blue definitely changes depending on who you're playing with, and definitely depending on how many of the players are irrational.

When trying to solve the prisonner's dilemma, people don't assume the prisoners might have a rare ailment that makes them pick the opposite choice than the one they want. Because it's a model.

Game theory calls this rare ailment a "trembling hand". You're right that it's not the same model, but in some ways it's a much more interesting one, and there's lots to learn from it.

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