Post #3919488
2026-07-18 20:29 UTC
Replies (4)
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@lurker@awful.systems 2026-07-18 20:32
for frame of reference, this is the kind of stuff he tweets
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@istewart@awful.systems 2026-07-19 00:14
daniel self-flagella, more like
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@sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 2026-07-19 06:47
Oh no every day sneerclub teaches me about a new guy. So he’s basically arguing that the Borg did nothing wrong (note: the Borg do not actually exist, note #2: the Borg are space fascists). Worthy Successor: A posthuman intelligence so capable and morally valuable that you would gladly prefer that it (not humanity) determine the future path of life itself. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this idea in rationalist circles: that is bad / wrong / irrational to be biased in favor of humans and or humans to succeed in particular. Often the idea is taken as obviously true, but I cannot understand it at all. Like I don’t care if you can make a computer “better” than me or less sad than me or less likely to eat an innocent shrimp than me. I am not that computer-- if it’s a choice between me and them I’m fighting on team me. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make one’s space in the universe or to “selfishly” want self-actualization.
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@corbin@awful.systems 2026-07-20 03:51
These doofuses never actually think through their thought experiments. Quoting from a dead thread half a year ago, where he was downvoted but not yet identified: In a universe where all things are transforming all the time it seems pretty fair to ask the question: “What IS IT about humanity that we want to preserve and expand?” If the answer is “23 chromosomes, 2 eyes, 5-6 feet tall, etc” that seems pretty shallow. Okay, but first surely he can recognize that humanity is already multicultural and multispecies? Like, in a non-specious sense, we’ve incorporated many mammals, birds, plants, fungi, etc. into our daily lives and can’t really separate them out at this point. Sure, there’s some ineffable and beautiful relationship between humans in general which we want to preserve, but before worrying about whether robots should join in, we should first notice that there’s already an expansion of that relationship to include e.g. face mites, and there’s no sense in which face mites are a Worthy Successor to whom we should cede all managerial decisions. (I was gonna say “cats”, but I know plenty of y’all would rather have a cat in charge than a human, and you’re not wrong.)