@stardust Given your previous posts I assume this is more of an antisemitism thing for you?

@Kraalnaxx Why is it that you're allowed to criticize Whites, or Blacks, or Muslims, or Hindus, or Russians, or Ukrainians, or Palestinians

But the moment that you so much as say anything that can even be interpreted as mildly negative about Jews or Israel, you're branded an "antisemite"?

It's not "anti-semitic" to call it what it is: a genocide that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians. Mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters who were real people, not numbers on a screen.

@stardust

Why is it that you're allowed to criticize Whites, or Blacks, or Muslims, or Hindus, or Russians, or Ukrainians, or Palestinians

Tbf it would be pretty racist to criticise the racial/national groups as a whole rather than specific individuals/organisations/governments that happen to be part of those groups

@TheAllMemeingEye Doesn't your worldview, "Effective Altruism" (please correct me if I'm wrong), demand categorization of groups by some metric of utility as long as it holds some predictive power?

But even disregarding that, you didn't mention Hindus and Muslims. I hold only love for ethnic Jews who like anyone else are 100% welcome to join into the Orthodox Church and become Christians. I disagree with the sinful behavior of holding a false faith built on blasphemy and heresy, like Judaism.

@stardust

Doesn't your worldview, "Effective Altruism" (please correct me if I'm wrong), demand categorization of groups by some metric of utility as long as it holds some predictive power?

Technically yes, if somehow racial information was the only data you had on a population, then it would be more effective to positively discriminate by targeting aid at the groups that correlate most closely with the actual important metrics, like low income, but that's a pretty contrived situation that we are not in, not to mention the PR disaster it would be. Note that in this hypothetical situation the good of increased aid effectiveness would need to outweigh the bad of discrimination, whereas in the case of "criticizing Whites, or Blacks, [...] or Russians, or Ukrainians, or Palestinians" there is seemingly no good being done, it's just the bad discrimination.

But even disregarding that, you didn't mention Hindus and Muslims.

Correct, I do not believe that discrimination based on religion is anywhere near as bad as racism, since you get to choose and change your religion, and when the specific religion is promoting bad stuff (e.g. child marriage for radical Islam) then it's kinda a good thing to criticise it.

@TheAllMemeingEye

Technically yes, if somehow racial information was the only data you had on a population, then it would be more effective to positively discriminate by targeting aid at the groups that correlate most closely with the actual important metrics

I don't see how this is the conclusion unless you're not truly a long-termist. Now, I somewhat agree with you, but think your ideology cannot possibly lead to this conclusion. It's a short-termist conclusion if you're a consequentialist, principally.

but that's a pretty contrived situation that we are not in, not to mention the PR disaster it would be

Under your worldview, the people being mad about it are merely irrational though, yes? Their feelings may still matter, I'm not saying that they don't, but a more rational populace would be more tolerant of racial discrimination, or sex-based discrimination, or etc.

Note that in this hypothetical situation the good of increased aid effectiveness would need to outweigh the bad of discrimination

This is a highly deontological statement. Consequentialism does not possess a categorical imperative not to discriminate -- in other words, there is no "bad of discrimination", only bad to the targeted group.

Correct, I do not believe that discrimination based on religion is anywhere near as bad as racism

Then why is there a problem with me calling out the heresy of the Jews? Which has manifested itself, "you shall know them by their fruits", in a genocide and ethnic cleansing?

@stardust

I don't see how this is the conclusion unless you're not truly a long-termist. Now, I somewhat agree with you, but think your ideology cannot possibly lead to this conclusion. It's a short-termist conclusion if you're a consequentialist, principally.

I mean, yeah, I'm not a full longtermist, I believe effective altruism should be a pluralistic balance of anthropocentric neartermism, zoocentric neartermism, mid/longtermism, and meta-altruism, though in this case for simplicity I was focusing specifically on how discrimination would effect the anthropocentric neartermist cause area of global poverty.

Under your worldview, the people being mad about it are merely irrational though, yes? Their feelings may still matter, I'm not saying that they don't, but a more rational populace would be more tolerant of racial discrimination, or sex-based discrimination, or etc.

Somewhat, but it's important to emphasise that the tolerated discrimination must be with high certainty for the greater good, such as my given example of positive discrimination via targeting of aid towards impoverished groups, discrimination for its own sake would still be evil.

This is a highly deontological statement. Consequentialism does not possess a categorical imperative not to discriminate -- in other words, there is no "bad of discrimination", only bad to the targeted group.

Not necessarily, although I do think it makes sense to pluralistically allocate a non-negligable slice of probability to duty/virtue ethics actually being right, my main concern here is that discrimination does lead directly to the negative consequence of people experiencing emotional pain from being treated worse (or missing out on being treated better) due to properties of themselves they cannot change.

Then why is there a problem with me calling out the heresy of the Jews? Which has manifested itself, "you shall know them by their fruits", in a genocide and ethnic cleansing?

In this case I was calling out your implication that racism against other groups was somehow ok. I do also dislike the harmful religious dogma of radical Judaism (e.g. imperialistic zionism, mandatory circumcision etc.), but for very different reasons than you I suspect.

@TheAllMemeingEye

I mean, yeah, I'm not a full longtermist

How do you square this with a consequentialist worldview.

Somewhat, but it's important to emphasise that the tolerated discrimination must be with high certainty for the greater good, such as my given example of positive discrimination via targeting of aid towards impoverished groups, discrimination for its own sake would still be evil.

If a highly egalitarian system produced 10 utils, let's say if I grant the existence that you can quantify a util, and a highly non-egalitarian system produced 10.1 utils, then you should be in favor of the latter unless you're a deontologist or a prioritarian or the like. Actually, you as a utilitarian make no distinction between discrimnation and not-discrimination, only utils, at the end of the day. If they both produced 10 utils, a consistent utilitarian would say "flip a coin! The former is mere aesthetic preference".

my main concern here is that discrimination does lead directly to the negative consequence of people experiencing emotional pain from being treated worse

Yeah but... what if the positive outweighs it? You don't care about any one individual experiencing suffering, but the totality of all suffering/benefit.

I do also dislike the harmful religious dogma of radical Judaism (e.g. imperialistic zionism, mandatory circumcision etc.), but for very different reasons than you I suspect.

I also agree on the Zionism bit, but yeah. I dislike them for the heresy too, you probably don't.

@stardust

How do you square this with a consequentialist worldview.

Measures aimed at improving the long term have extremely low certainty, measures aimed at improving the short term have fairly high certainty, doing a mix of both leads to the least bad worst case scenario in case of each possibility of your predictions about the long term being true or false.

Yeah but... what if the positive outweighs it? You don't care about any one individual experiencing suffering, but the totality of all suffering/benefit.

That is my point, you need significant certainty of significant positive for it to be outweighed. The caring for total suffering is the coherent extrapolation of caring for individual suffering.

@TheAllMemeingEye

Measures aimed at improving the long term have extremely low certainty, measures aimed at improving the short term have fairly high certainty, doing a mix of both leads to the least bad worst case scenario in case of each possibility of your predictions about the long term being true or false.

I'm confused on what you're maximizing for. Is it mean expected value, median, then you bring up "least bad worst case scenario" which I can only assume you mean "least bad 1st percentile scenario". So, what is it?

That is my point, you need significant certainty of significant positive for it to be outweighed.

Well, no. All you'd need under a consequentialist framework is for it to have an expected value of 10.0001 utils instead of 10 utils. I'll actually draft up a hypothetical for you to see how consistent you are.

Suppose that people who are against transgenderism win across the world and it becomes broadly illegal. A "transgendered woman" attempts to use the woman's bathroom and is shot, the story is publicized, and like, 4 billion people find it really fucking funny. Like, it becomes a meme for the next 20 years funny. Would that make it a net good act from your worldview, given that so many people derived satisfaction?

@stardust

I'm confused on what you're maximizing for. Is it mean expected value, median, then you bring up "least bad worst case scenario" which I can only assume you mean "least bad 1st percentile scenario". So, what is it?

Improving any of those metrics is good, though in this specific case it's the lower percentiles I am focusing on.

Suppose that people who are against transgenderism win across the world and it becomes broadly illegal. A "transgendered woman" attempts to use the woman's bathroom and is shot, the story is publicized, and like, 4 billion people find it really fucking funny. Like, it becomes a meme for the next 20 years funny. Would that make it a net good act from your worldview, given that so many people derived satisfaction?

Several tens of millions of trans people living under extreme violent persecution seems way worse than a few billion people laughing at this meme rather than another one in its place, counterfactually this world seems worse.

@TheAllMemeingEye

Improving any of those metrics is good, though in this specific case it's the lower percentiles I am focusing on.

If we're taking the central thesis of utilitarianism -- that things can be aggregated into total utils and compared universally, then "utils" can't be (on a fundamental level) fuzzy. I also don't see how any utilitarian worldview that doesn't admit maximization of mean utils, how they don't just collapse into deontology (because any other consistent standard could be gamed into making pretty much any utilitarian that doesn't adhere to this standard disagree with the math).

Several tens of millions of trans people living under extreme violent persecution seems way worse than a few billion people laughing at this meme rather than another one in its place, counterfactually this world seems worse.

No, you misunderstand. The "extreme violent persecution" has already happened, and this killing doesn't change the fact that this is the culture/laws of this world. I'm specifically asking you if this killing, the incident, is a moral wrong?

@stardust

No, you misunderstand. The "extreme violent persecution" has already happened, and this killing doesn't change the fact that this is the culture/laws of this world. I'm specifically asking you if this killing, the incident, is a moral wrong?

What's the counterfactual then? That this one specific trans woman is not caught that day, but presumably would be caught the next? That this one specific trans woman is inexplicably granted legal immunity by the world fascist state?

@TheAllMemeingEye

What's the counterfactual then? That this one specific trans woman is not caught that day, but presumably would be caught the next?

How about he gets killed but it doesn't turn into a joke that billions of people find funny, just goes kinda silently under the radar. You can also do "doesn't get caught that day"

@stardust while obviously ending the fascist world order would be vastly better, if that's literally impossible and the only difference in short and long term is people finding the killing funny then technically that is a slightly less horrible world, kinda like eating a shit sandwich but there's a tiny bit of sugar mixed in

@TheAllMemeingEye Ok, let's say you have a rapist who's raping a woman to death. In 10 minutes the police will be there and shoot him dead no matter what you do, but you have a button that can trigger a chip in his brain and make the experience like 10x more enjoyable for him. Should/do you press it?

@stardust you're concocting very gross unhinged scenarios lol. I suspect that in the moment my disgust and anger would be so visceral that it would override any calm moral calculation.

@TheAllMemeingEye

you're concocting very gross unhinged scenarios lol.

Well, that's the point if you're stating that your moral system is utilitarian (or that it maximizes for one util), universal (or that it can judge all cases with a definite value), and well-orderable (in that if a is preferable to b and b is preferable to c, a must be preferable to c). If you're claiming utilitarianism has an ontology, or in other words, that it maps onto "the truth", rather than it just being mostly right most of the time, you must be able to answer these "very gross unhinged scenarios".

I suspect that in the moment my disgust and anger would be so visceral that it would override any calm moral calculation.

Well I'm glad that, as with the brief conversation on trans prisons we had, your disgust impulse that God gave you is more just than the moral system you've convinced yourself into believing. But that doesn't answer the question of if you think pressing the button is right or wrong.

@stardust I really hope I miss read this, are you asking if making a rape experience more enjoyable is right or wrong?

@Choms Yes, it is a challenge to the utilitarian ethical system. If utilitarianism is true and happiness is the only metric, i.e., virtue has no worth, then you must necessarily be obliged to, in the absence of anything else, also reward those who would traditionally embody negative virtue.

As Christians we would heavily reject this.

@stardust anyone sane, with or without religion, would think that is nuts... first why would you be involved on it at all? like, you are not one of the cops on your example, you are not the captain or the president, just a random chosing to make a rape experience enjoyable for the rapist...

@Choms The point of hypotheticals like this are not necessarily to be realistic, but to prod at moral intuitions. If you recognize that you should not press the button, you are also repudiating utilitarianism. The trolley problem is also not a very realistic problem.

@stardust no man, you went to a crazy example, you are not even putting anything on the balance, on the trolley problem you are chosing let's say the lesser evil, in you example you are just asking if you like rape or not

@Choms I appreciate that it is crazy to you; it is crazy to me too. But it is not crazy to the utilitarian (or rather, their ideology cannot account for it), which is why I posed the question.

@stardust ok let me ask it the other way? what is the supposed utility we are debating here? afaik utilitarianism doesn't says "you need to provide pleasure to every individual you met"

@Choms No, the thesis of utilitarianism, if "pleasure" is the util, is to maximize pleasure. Hence, the utilitarianism must plead that one should press the button. That's the whole point of utilitarianism, it is a maximally reductionist ethical framework. Note that this is why my interlocutor answers hence:

How about he gets killed but it doesn't turn into a joke that billions of people find funny, just goes kinda silently under the radar. You can also do "doesn't get caught that day"

while obviously ending the fascist world order would be vastly better, if that's literally impossible and the only difference in short and long term is people finding the killing funny then technically that is a slightly less horrible world, kinda like eating a shit sandwich but there's a tiny bit of sugar mixed in

The moment you add in additional rules, like moral desertism, you are ceasing to do a utilitarianism, but rather a deontology or virtue ethics with utilitarian characteristics.

@stardust Note: the reason why "rule utilitarianism" falls under utilitarianism even though it pleads rules, is because it pleads that the existence or acknowledgement of those rules are instrumental to maximizing utils.

This is also why I phrased my hypothetical exactly as I did, such that pressing the button or not will have no measurable or predictable causal effect on the future. Hence, the rule utilitarian cannot escape it by appealing to a rule which ceases to have causal effect. If you wanted to make the hypothetical even stronger, you could add in a stipulation that the button (not)-presser will die in 15 minutes no matter what.

@stardust I am by no means an expert here, is "pleasure" actually the util or we are just using it as an example? because, again, a single individual pleasure isn't globally applicable, if you were asking "would you make ALL rape experiences more enjoyable" then I would understand the argument, but applied to an individual, while you are also outside of the situation? idk, I feel like your example still missed the point overall

PS: just to add my opinion, nobody is purely X ;) we can discuss about textbook ideologies but none of them, not even Christianism, applies to reality how we study it

@Choms I believe that is The All Memeing Eye's util of choice, but you could in theory construct a similar utility monster out of any util.

because, again, a single individual pleasure isn't globally applicable, if you were asking "would you make ALL rape experiences more enjoyable"

I don't know what point you're trying to make. Increasing the pleasure of one person without doing anything else necessarily increases aggregate pleasure.

then I would understand the argument, but applied to an individual, while you are also outside of the situation?

This is a deontological intuition, and it's fine that you have it, but we are talking about utilitarianism.

@stardust so this is specifically the part I'm not really getting:

Increasing the pleasure of one person without doing anything else necessarily increases aggregate pleasure.

Aggregated to what? I mean, there is not a "pool" of pleasure we all share like in Evangelion when the humanity fuses, increasing an individual pleasure does not aggregate to anything (a different rapist won't feel that increase for example)

@Choms The thesis of utilitarianism depends on the idea that you can aggregate utility and that any two moral situations are directly comparable (in terms of utils).

(a different rapist won't feel that increase for example)

The point is that doing a good to this rapist, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, is a good act/better than the contrary under a utilitarian worldview. You have increased the pleasure of this rapist, and all utilitarianism sees is that net pleasure went up ever so slightly

@stardust I see where you are going now but I think that's a tricky argument, it's similar to the paradox of tolerance, doing good for someone who is doing bad isn't necessary good same as you cannot tolerate intolerance

@Choms Yes, but I will stress once again

I do not think you should press the button. I am a Christian, not a utilitarian.

You seem to not be getting this fact. It is not a statement I am making but rather a critique of utilitarianism.

@stardust no, no, what I am saying is, you are considering a net positive something that probably a utilitarian won't, you are adding to the utility when I'd argue you are subtracting from it, by aiding a bad action (in this case it is not important you pushing a button or what that achieves but the fact that you are aiding a rape)

@Choms

no, no, what I am saying is, you are considering a net positive something that probably a utilitarian won't

This person in himself likely would not consider it a positive, but his system as stated would necessitate it. That's the point. He has to revise his system or to bite the bullet.

I'd argue you are subtracting from it, by aiding a bad action (in this case it is not important you pushing a button or what that achieves but the fact that you are aiding a rape)

To be clear, the rape happens regardless of whether you press the button or not, but again, you are arguing from a deontological framework here. If you're pretending to be a utilitarian for this conversation, you need to justify how this reduces utils.

@stardust

you need to justify how this reduces utils.

You are increasing the rapist happiness, thus decreasing the victim's happiness in a bigger global scale (because unlike the short term happiness from the rapist, the victim has family, friends, a social structure that will be affected over a long period of time, to which you contributed)