Let this be a lesson in why you should never trust Levina markets at all

@xyz Why? What did I do wrong.

Wtf you resolved wrong gimme my money back

@RafaelRuizdeLira Me, completely bankrupted by this market

Shit I forgot to switch back 😅

Thanks, this has been interesting, but after much consideration I have divined YES ❤

Once upon a time in a magical universe ✨🌌, love ❤️ was the most powerful force that held everything together. It was the cosmic glue that connected every being, big and small 🌟🌍. Love's magic transcended boundaries, bringing joy, healing, and warmth to all 🌈💕. With love at its core, the universe blossomed into a symphony of kindness and compassion 🌻🤗. So remember, in this vast and wondrous universe, love is the most important thing of all! Spread love like confetti 🎉🎈 and let it guide you on your cosmic journey through life.

There are a lot of things in the universe, and while I think that we would all agree that intrinsic value is going to be dependent upon some conscious state or feeling of value, love does not seem to be a good candidate. It moves us to do certain things, like procreate, write poetry, make art, or feel very attached to particular sets of persons, but there are other states that have the same instrumental value; love is not the only emotion that moves us to do these things.
Going further, there are other states that many find intrinsically more valuable than love. There's satisfaction in one's work, cultivating a talent, or even just the calm contentment of meditation. Whatever the contents of such eudaimonia may be, if we take the highest state of wellbeing to be the most important, love does not appear necessary. At most, a sort of compassion may be an ingredient in that, but not love in the sense that most persons use it in ordinary language.
As a pivot from that sort of argumentation, you may want to follow the market's geometry in making your decision. I do have a vested interest in that, but the market shows that the value of love is lower than something else, whatever that may be, to a number of persons.

Love is a kinda-pleasant-sometimes emotion made to motivate animals to multiply. It ultimately results in the existence a bit more copies of said animals. It's hard to see how that's an important thing, let alone the most important thing in the universe ❤

<3

@PavelPotocek what do you suggest is more important? 😼

@levifinkelstein For hungry people - food, people at war - peace, ill people - health, prisoners - freedom. Are these people going to prefer love over their more primal needs? Love can't fix societies suffering by scarcity, disease, or tyranny. Love only comes second, after the more important needs are satisfied.

@levifinkelstein From the comfort of our homes, playing with words at virtual markets, love seems much more important to us than to less fortunate peoples ❤

@PavelPotocek In addition to this, it seems like once you hit a certain level of comfort, you even get persons that do not experience a desire for (or joy from) certain types of love (see: aro/ace persons). It's not super hard to imagine someone having a completely fulfilling and happy life even sans love (just imagine someone like Derek Parfit, singly-mindedly devoted to academics, just sans someone like Janet Radcliffe Richards).

@PavelPotocek "Love can't fix societies suffering by scarcity, disease, or tyranny. Love only comes second, after the more important needs are satisfied."

Why do you think this? Many people living in societies not plagued by scarcity help people who do for example.

@hmys Maybe compassion is a better word for this than love. And only somewhat prosperous societies can help. Our prosperity is not built on love in the first place.

I love having the most important thing in the universe. I mean, I probably would. So "yes"!

I have changed my mind. The most important thing in the universe is quite obviously the universe itself. The fabric of space time, the laws of physics. Arguing about prerequisites for something still makes sense, but I cannot say, that there is no conciousness without love without acknowledging, that there is no love without the universe itself.

Everything good is downstream from love and gains its importance from love. Without love all other virtues will be used to bad ends. One comment says avoiding extreme suffering is the most important thing. That is a statement of love. Love is epistemologically, ontologically and axiologically prior to all other normative judgements and without it we are totally lost.

If you want to bake a cake, what is more important. Having flour or having the universe not be annihilated false vacuum decay?

You can call the wanting to reduce suffering a kind of love, but it would not follow that love is more important.

If I care about X, it isn’t because I care to care about X (quite the opposite, I would care to care about X, only because I care about X, as a mean).
I can love (in the particular way of thinking reducing suffering is the most important thing), without it being downstream of thinking love is the most important thing. (love would just be a description of the fact, not a reason for it)

Anyway, love is still important.

The most important thing in the universe is avoiding extreme suffering.

@dionisos So infinite amounts of moderate suffering is less important than any amount of extreme suffering?

@dionisos Countless people have volunteered to suffer extremely for their loved ones. Fathers saving their children from a fire and dying in the flames, Brothers gifting a vital organ to keep the other alive, A mother suffering during childbirth. Extreme suffering is nothing against love.

@levifinkelstein No, but the amount would be really high to compensate. I was speaking in practical terms.
Otherwise, my answer would just be : Whatever maximize my utility function.

@Rwin Most of your examples is choosing extreme suffering to avoid extreme suffering.

@levifinkelstein if talking about infinites. Integral of suffering squared over all cases should be minimised.

@KongoLandwalker Why squared (instead of another function)?

@dionisos I think an important thing to add regarding the point about extreme suffering is that the capacity to suffer requires a sufficiently complex mind. My argument here is essentially the same as in my own comment thread. Most living beings that are capable of suffering, will be K-strategists in the very abstract or more concretely higher animals. As such they will rely on family structures and bonding between individuals and will not exist without it. Surveys of humans show, that family and children rank the highest for the question what makes life meaningful (https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/11/18/what-makes-life-meaningful-views-from-17-advanced-economies/). The capacity to suffer is highly correlated with a requirement for love to keep a species that is capable of experiencing it going.

@dionisos square is most commonly used in "mistake" calculations in engineering and statistics. If we say that any suffering is a mistake, then we extrapolate the same formula to this question. Square adds weight to huge suffering. So it is better to make many people in discomfort than a few with a lot of suffering. So when optimising for this function we should help the most suffering people first.

I see, this is interesting, but I feel like thinking of it as an error would not work well with positive well-being (I think well-being should be counted sublinearly and not super linearly).
The analogy seems harder to make with that, but still there is maybe something in the intuition.

Personally, I would choose a use an exponential function, something like 1-K^(-x), with "x" representing the intensity of suffering/well-being.

@Rwin I agree with you that importance is subjective, and I think that probably suffering require a brain, and more intense suffering require a bigger one.
But I still think a lot of K-strategist can unfortunately still suffer.

I disagree that love is a prerequisite to the whole concept of importance (but I am unsure you meant it literary, of you was thinking there is just a factual correlation between both).

Also in some way, you can maybe consider that wanting to reduce suffering is a kind of love (or is linked to it), but at the end of the day, I care more about reducing suffering than love, I care about what I care, I don’t care about the fact I care (except as a mean, as an instrumental value).