Maybe tangentially, maybe not, but the imaginary chainsaw faced robot dogs reminded me of the ‘fake bomb detector’ scandal of the Iraq war.
Checkpoints were issued with ‘bomb detectors’ which were nothing more than toys. Someone paid a lot of money for them. Someone made a lot of money from them. Obviously they didn’t work.
But did they? It seemed to me that if everyone manning the roadblocks, the army, and everyone travelling through the roadblocks, the insurgents believed they worked, then they worked.
The army would use them to ‘scan’ vehicles. The insurgents would avoid carrying bombs in cars for fear of being ‘scanned’. It was a system based on belief. And it worked.
Until it didn’t. And loads of people got killed by a bomb. And some guy went to prison. But for a while there…..
I realize that this entire mental exercise, including its characterization of religion, is somewhat tongue in cheek. But it's important to note that the fear of punishment doled out by an omniscient God only goes so far in preempting sin, and people are very adept at convincing themselves that they are doing God's will, whatever they're contemplating. The real value of religion or a guiding philosophy (e.g., Christianity, Stoicism, Buddhism) is how it foments inner restraint and even molds a person's desires. At best, it can even instill within a person the courage to stand against evil. The despot imagines that he has all authority, because he has all the weapons and security forces. The believer sees a higher authority. If you're watching Shogun on Hulu, take note of how Mariko is guided by her deeply held beliefs, and how she summons the courage to defy Ishido in the end. There's far more to the history of human beliefs than can be captured by a cartoonish materialistic conception.
I think the slow update time is a feature, not a bug. We can come up with a lot of ideas not entirely thought through or not taking particular circumstances into account.
But truth doesn’t pull down the fence; ignorance does. The fence builder’s purpose, planning and execution are objectively true. Truth built the fence, and as long as the condition which gives it purpose pertains, truth will argue for its retention.
The problem with relying solely on rational thought is that it is limited by the boundaries of human logic. I am a member of the Church of a Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My post here is not an official statement of the church, but I am comfortable with my interpretations. If any other member of the Church disagrees with me, I am always willing to learn from competent sources.
We know that God loves all of His children and seeks to gather them back to Him. But everyone has absolute freedom of choice, so that goal is frustrated by any number of us making poor decisions. Those poor decisions lead to their own punishment in life, and restrictions on a person’s eternal growth. Does the Bible describe individuals and groups suffering horrible fates? Yup. But I would ask anyone using those instances to declare that Yahweh is vengeful to look at the run-up to those events. Mercy cannot trump justice.
On what metric can you say that life in New Robotnik or Toothfairyville is better? In all three cases, nobody ever actually gets punished by the system, so there is zero harm from that. In all three, people live in constant fear of the system punishing them, and the harm from living a life of fear is exactly the same.
You've actually proven that religion is just as bad as a totalitarian police state, if the rules it enforces are the same. It is not better in any sense. And if the rules it enforces are less aligned to human flourishing, it will be worse. Atheists propose replacing the fear of one totalitarian punishment regime with the fear of a different totalitarian punishment regime. But if the atheist regime enforces fewer commandments, it will be better. And building a competent police state is plausibly cheaper than building a brainwashing engine that requires everyone to burn several hours a week going to an indoctrination camp.
Plus, it actually works, so when people test the system, they don't get away with crimes.
AI and religion are the same to me. The priests who interpret and enforce religion are fallible and prone to corruption. AI programmers and owners of big tec companies are the priests of the chainsaw faced robot dogs. Thru corrupt shady programming they like the priests of religion will end up doing all kinds of nasty shit just like the Catholics have done throughout history. In the end is seems to me that all that both systems are flawed because the human factor always is involved in making the rules. I would choose to live off by myself and not in any of these towns.
God isn't real is truth - therefore religion should die? But the 'truth' seems to be that religion fills something within a human psyche, the worst cultures to live in seem to be explicitly atheist ones. Its generally better to be a kaffir in Saudi Arabia than . . . well, *most anyone* in the Soviet Union or during Mao's China, or North Korea, or . . .
We rarely see far enough to know when the 'truth' is complete.
You don't need new commandments, you just need to have a spiritual authority above the state that can influence the state. It's how what the perennialists call a traditional civilization is run, and you can read about it in Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power.
As to a new religion, I think it's going to have to be something pretty decentralized, since a big chunk of the culture has a lot of resistance to someone playing the guru/messiah (and the chunk that doesn't likely would declare the new religion Satanic). But that can totally work, quite a lot of traditions out there are pretty decentralized.
I have some ideas about this, and am working on a project to produce decentralized scripture (though that's not how it will be promoted).
I get what you're saying, but didn't we have this debate about whether or not religiosity causes people to be law-abiding like fifteen years ago, during the "New Atheism" era? Wasn't it conclusively shown time and time again that secular states enjoy a lower level of crime than states with an enforced state religion?
Maybe tangentially, maybe not, but the imaginary chainsaw faced robot dogs reminded me of the ‘fake bomb detector’ scandal of the Iraq war.
Checkpoints were issued with ‘bomb detectors’ which were nothing more than toys. Someone paid a lot of money for them. Someone made a lot of money from them. Obviously they didn’t work.
But did they? It seemed to me that if everyone manning the roadblocks, the army, and everyone travelling through the roadblocks, the insurgents believed they worked, then they worked.
The army would use them to ‘scan’ vehicles. The insurgents would avoid carrying bombs in cars for fear of being ‘scanned’. It was a system based on belief. And it worked.
Until it didn’t. And loads of people got killed by a bomb. And some guy went to prison. But for a while there…..
here’s a link to an unpaywalled version of the story. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/02/fake-bomb-detector-conman-jailed
I realize that this entire mental exercise, including its characterization of religion, is somewhat tongue in cheek. But it's important to note that the fear of punishment doled out by an omniscient God only goes so far in preempting sin, and people are very adept at convincing themselves that they are doing God's will, whatever they're contemplating. The real value of religion or a guiding philosophy (e.g., Christianity, Stoicism, Buddhism) is how it foments inner restraint and even molds a person's desires. At best, it can even instill within a person the courage to stand against evil. The despot imagines that he has all authority, because he has all the weapons and security forces. The believer sees a higher authority. If you're watching Shogun on Hulu, take note of how Mariko is guided by her deeply held beliefs, and how she summons the courage to defy Ishido in the end. There's far more to the history of human beliefs than can be captured by a cartoonish materialistic conception.
I think the slow update time is a feature, not a bug. We can come up with a lot of ideas not entirely thought through or not taking particular circumstances into account.
Patch only after code review.
Surely Yudkowsky has been an AI alarmist for decades?
But truth doesn’t pull down the fence; ignorance does. The fence builder’s purpose, planning and execution are objectively true. Truth built the fence, and as long as the condition which gives it purpose pertains, truth will argue for its retention.
The problem with relying solely on rational thought is that it is limited by the boundaries of human logic. I am a member of the Church of a Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My post here is not an official statement of the church, but I am comfortable with my interpretations. If any other member of the Church disagrees with me, I am always willing to learn from competent sources.
We know that God loves all of His children and seeks to gather them back to Him. But everyone has absolute freedom of choice, so that goal is frustrated by any number of us making poor decisions. Those poor decisions lead to their own punishment in life, and restrictions on a person’s eternal growth. Does the Bible describe individuals and groups suffering horrible fates? Yup. But I would ask anyone using those instances to declare that Yahweh is vengeful to look at the run-up to those events. Mercy cannot trump justice.
"But who do we trust to do that? "
Me, duh.
I promise to only abuse my power in entertaining ways.
I want a chainsaw faced robot dog... I'd name him Buzzy.
"Here Buzzy! C'mon Buzzy! Who's a good boy? You're a good boy! No licking, no licking!"
On what metric can you say that life in New Robotnik or Toothfairyville is better? In all three cases, nobody ever actually gets punished by the system, so there is zero harm from that. In all three, people live in constant fear of the system punishing them, and the harm from living a life of fear is exactly the same.
You've actually proven that religion is just as bad as a totalitarian police state, if the rules it enforces are the same. It is not better in any sense. And if the rules it enforces are less aligned to human flourishing, it will be worse. Atheists propose replacing the fear of one totalitarian punishment regime with the fear of a different totalitarian punishment regime. But if the atheist regime enforces fewer commandments, it will be better. And building a competent police state is plausibly cheaper than building a brainwashing engine that requires everyone to burn several hours a week going to an indoctrination camp.
Plus, it actually works, so when people test the system, they don't get away with crimes.
AI and religion are the same to me. The priests who interpret and enforce religion are fallible and prone to corruption. AI programmers and owners of big tec companies are the priests of the chainsaw faced robot dogs. Thru corrupt shady programming they like the priests of religion will end up doing all kinds of nasty shit just like the Catholics have done throughout history. In the end is seems to me that all that both systems are flawed because the human factor always is involved in making the rules. I would choose to live off by myself and not in any of these towns.
>" Should it?"
Yes.
But there are *levels* of truth, aren't there?
God isn't real is truth - therefore religion should die? But the 'truth' seems to be that religion fills something within a human psyche, the worst cultures to live in seem to be explicitly atheist ones. Its generally better to be a kaffir in Saudi Arabia than . . . well, *most anyone* in the Soviet Union or during Mao's China, or North Korea, or . . .
We rarely see far enough to know when the 'truth' is complete.
You don't need new commandments, you just need to have a spiritual authority above the state that can influence the state. It's how what the perennialists call a traditional civilization is run, and you can read about it in Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power.
As to a new religion, I think it's going to have to be something pretty decentralized, since a big chunk of the culture has a lot of resistance to someone playing the guru/messiah (and the chunk that doesn't likely would declare the new religion Satanic). But that can totally work, quite a lot of traditions out there are pretty decentralized.
I have some ideas about this, and am working on a project to produce decentralized scripture (though that's not how it will be promoted).
Very well stated and argued.
I get what you're saying, but didn't we have this debate about whether or not religiosity causes people to be law-abiding like fifteen years ago, during the "New Atheism" era? Wasn't it conclusively shown time and time again that secular states enjoy a lower level of crime than states with an enforced state religion?