If you prefer audio, here are the links to the Sentientism podcast: 🍎apple.co/391khQO 👂pod.link/1540408008. Ratings, reviews & sharing with friends all appreciated. You're helping normalise "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings" sentientism.info/posts. Everyone is welcome in our online communities - come join us: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Good one! Anyone who tries to fix human behavior is honorable, but it's a sisyphean task. Couple of thoughts: 29:49 "Scope neglect" - 1) Utilitarianism doesn't work because compassion can't scale (Bitcoin can't scale either). Hate, money-grubbing, exploitation, denial (lies) - those scale quite well. They also have great layers on top of their base layers (Trumpism, corporations, factory farms, the war machines, politics, nationalism and on and on). Just as Bitcoin needs great network layers on top of its base layer, in order to scale, the pristine base layer of compassion needs great scaling layers as well. A superb stable base layer is essential for value, both in Bitcoin and in compassion, but it's not enough for mass adoption. The bad stuff gets layered-up and mass-adopted quite readily it seems...☹ Human nature? 2) What's real and what matters? To you and me, or to the universe? To the universe diversurdity is what matters and what is real. To humans it's mostly: what can we exploit? To the extent that either has any free will, it would be a good idea to change that. - You hear that, universe?! 😁(I know humanity ain't listening.) PS: A deontological layer on top of the compassion base layer, i.e. legal rights for other sentients, is one such layer - but not enough for any mass adoption I'm afraid. And utilitarian calculations are nothing (but they work well as a layer on top of the exploitation base layer). PPS: Is Sentientism a base or a layer? I see it as a categorical imperative. As such, it is within the deontological layer...
Heartily agree. I get very frustrated when people claim individual change doesn't matter. Certainly works hand in hand with systemic change. Luv the voting analogy!
Thanks Debbie. Yep - it's so often used as an excuse. Of course some individuals have vastly more power than others particularly when it comes to influencing institutions - but we can all have an impact.
31:00 Minimizing rights violations is a type of consequentialist goal. Deontology is about side constraints on the moral agent. There have long been Trolley-adjacent thought experiments which test this, most famously "Jim and the Indians", in which Jim can commit one murder to prevent ten murders by someone else (including the very person Jim could murder, meaning there's no individual Jim could actually save). It doesn't matter nearly as much whether someone makes the correct decision because they want to minimize deaths or because they want to minimize murders, so long as they don't take the deontological (utterly mad) decision of letting nine extra people be murdered in order to "keep your own hands clean".
If you prefer audio, here are the links to the Sentientism podcast: 🍎apple.co/391khQO 👂pod.link/1540408008. Ratings, reviews & sharing with friends all appreciated. You're helping normalise "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings" sentientism.info/posts. Everyone is welcome in our online communities - come join us: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Looking forward to this discussion
Good one! Anyone who tries to fix human behavior is honorable, but it's a sisyphean task.
Couple of thoughts: 29:49 "Scope neglect" - 1) Utilitarianism doesn't work because compassion can't scale (Bitcoin can't scale either). Hate, money-grubbing, exploitation, denial (lies) - those scale quite well. They also have great layers on top of their base layers (Trumpism, corporations, factory farms, the war machines, politics, nationalism and on and on).
Just as Bitcoin needs great network layers on top of its base layer, in order to scale, the pristine base layer of compassion needs great scaling layers as well. A superb stable base layer is essential for value, both in Bitcoin and in compassion, but it's not enough for mass adoption. The bad stuff gets layered-up and mass-adopted quite readily it seems...☹ Human nature?
2) What's real and what matters? To you and me, or to the universe? To the universe diversurdity is what matters and what is real. To humans it's mostly: what can we exploit? To the extent that either has any free will, it would be a good idea to change that. - You hear that, universe?! 😁(I know humanity ain't listening.)
PS: A deontological layer on top of the compassion base layer, i.e. legal rights for other sentients, is one such layer - but not enough for any mass adoption I'm afraid. And utilitarian calculations are nothing (but they work well as a layer on top of the exploitation base layer).
PPS: Is Sentientism a base or a layer? I see it as a categorical imperative. As such, it is within the deontological layer...
Heartily agree. I get very frustrated when people claim individual change doesn't matter. Certainly works hand in hand with systemic change. Luv the voting analogy!
Thanks Debbie. Yep - it's so often used as an excuse. Of course some individuals have vastly more power than others particularly when it comes to influencing institutions - but we can all have an impact.
31:00 Minimizing rights violations is a type of consequentialist goal. Deontology is about side constraints on the moral agent. There have long been Trolley-adjacent thought experiments which test this, most famously "Jim and the Indians", in which Jim can commit one murder to prevent ten murders by someone else (including the very person Jim could murder, meaning there's no individual Jim could actually save). It doesn't matter nearly as much whether someone makes the correct decision because they want to minimize deaths or because they want to minimize murders, so long as they don't take the deontological (utterly mad) decision of letting nine extra people be murdered in order to "keep your own hands clean".
FIRST! 🎉
SECOND! :D
Well done to both of you! :)@@ReverendDr.Thomas
seventh
Yay!
Last?!
Hopefully not! (91 actually.)