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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   25097 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023

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the argument is that humans are not morally fungible with animals. Not one chicken, not ten chickens, not infinity chickens.

And we’re back to the starting point, aren’t we?

What arguments do you present for drawing such a moral line between humans and animals?

You're the one including the premise in your argument, it's on you to prove this, not me to prove the negative.

  • There is a moral difference between hurting humans and hurting animals
  • There is a moral equivalence between hurting humans and hurting animals

I don’t see how one side is inherently more of a “positive” claim than the other. Regardless, if you take the position of moral difference by default, how do you respond to the Nazi who says “There is a moral difference between gassing Aryans and gassing Jews”?

Hey actually, to all animals you’re more evil than Hitler. Animal lives matter. Have you considered being not animal Uber-Hitler?

I flagged the premise as being smuggled in here and lodged my disagreement. I know it wasn't you who did it but that's the point where it needed to be proved.

Regardless, if you take the position of moral difference by default, how do you respond to the Nazi who says “There is a moral difference between gassing Aryans and gassing Jews”?

I would disagree with them on the basis that Jews and Aryans are both human and that human life is sacred. If I needed to ground out that human life is sacred I would say that I and all my loved ones are humans and I have a vested interest in their lives not being forfeit. If they were in power and planned on gassing Jews I would shoot them if able.

I flagged the premise as being smuggled in here and lodged my disagreement.

Ah gotcha, thanks for the clarification.

If I needed to ground out that human life is sacred I would say that I and all my loved ones are humans and I have a vested interest in their lives not being forfeit.

Fair enough! But surely the Nazi will also ground out their values in a similar manner: “Aryan lives are sacred because I and all my loved ones are Aryans. Non-Aryan lives though are not morally fungible with Aryan lives: not one, not ten, not infinity.”

What can you say to the Nazi that invalidates their argument, without also arguing on behalf of veganism?

Their Aryan loved ones have the same common humanity as the jews and the people of other nations. Maintaining the sacredness of humanity is a ward against other groups of people deciding to discount your people's humanity. It's a very strong schelling point.

That’s a good point, and I agree.

I suppose the only thing I have to say is that this is a rather realpolitik answer, no? It fails to be an argument against genocide if the Nazis ever gain such overwhelming power that they no longer fear a revolt from the “subhumans.” (Or if you find that scenario as unlikely as I do, if the AIs gain such overwhelming power that they no longer need to care about human desires.)

I'm afraid when I'm made to interact with nazis through words rather than bullets I have only realpolitik's at my disposal. They are moral mutants to me, much like AI is. The direction you're trying to get me to go for animals proves too much and I really don't see why it would be more convincing to an AI overlord whether or not I have hold some kind of non-hypocritical reason for why it should value human life while I don't value life of less sentient beings.

If the way we need to align AI such that it values human life is to give it a value system that also values the inner lives of cows and pigs then we should do that. But I can't stress enough how I don't think it works like that.

I really don't see why it would be more convincing to an AI overlord whether or not I have hold some kind of non-hypocritical reason for why it should value human life while I don't value life of less sentient beings.

If a legitimate non-hypocritical reason exists, then perhaps we can just debug the AI enough until it can properly reason through and realize for itself why we deserve our privileged position in reality. If no such rationale exists, then I suppose we’ll have to resort to cruder approaches for AI alignment.

I’m just spitballing there. I’m not actually looking for ways to align AI, but rather to see if I can morally justify non-hypocritically to myself why I can eat animals. On a personal level, I feel better about AI taking over and screwing us over if I know that it’s just us finally losing the same realpolitik game that we’ve inflicted onto “lesser” beings for eons, than if it’s the AI making a monumental moral misjudgment.

Thanks for the fruitful discussion.

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