6/18

Thought Experiment:

Suppose a technology called "The Good Person Machine" exists, which instantly transforms someone into a completely reformed version of themselves such that they would continue to live out the rest of their life in accordance with what you/most people would define as a "good life" and so they instantly and irreversibly become a functional, healthy, safe member of society. Suppose that you're able to sign-up for a pre-murder will in the incredibly rare (but technically possible) reality in which you get murdered by someone.

Would you rather leave us a note/will telling us (the surviving people whom comprise the jury overseeing your case) to pursue life imprisonment/the death penalty in this situation, or would you rather us use The Good Person Machine?

This post was edited by Handcuffs on Jun 18 2023 09:00pm

I would wait til everyone was asleep, then steal the Good Person Machine and then charge people $2,000 a pop to become good. I would then donate 5% of my profit to a charity organization that helps hungry children and become Effectively Altruistic and a Superior Person.

9/17

Camping in a tent is probably one of the most-efficient ways to get back to a regular sleep schedule.

10/6

Is there currently a "humanitarian crisis" in the United States related to migration?

If "Yes":

Do you think the "humanitarian crisis" is the migration issues within the United States? Or, do you think the "humanitarian crisis" is the underlying social, political, and economic conditions within their country of origin?

10/8

The invention of the swimming pool has been one of the most destructive forces in the erosion of humanity's connection with nature.

10/8

Various "addictions" such as Internet addiction, video games, porn addiction, etc. are typically explained through the lens of them "hijacking the dopamine system" based off an alleged association between dopamine and pleasure. The idea further suggests that these stimuli are readily available 24/7 and so people get 'addicted' to the loop of dopamine hits of pleasure. This, I posit, is a good starting point, but is insufficient of explaining the phenomenon. Take any person and ask them if X gives them pleasure where X is something that most people would define as 'healthy' or at least unassuming--such as "going for a walk", "the rain", "being in the sun", etc. Invariably, every person you ask this will endorse the experience of pleasure to something; however, we'd likely be unable to find a meaningful amount of people who would endorse being 'addicted' to those things. I assume then that the dopaminergic connection to addiction is more complex than this, especially given recent research that suggests that dopamine is much more strongly associated with "motivation" than it is simply pleasure. Lacerate the dopaminergic system in mice, and they'll be so unmotivated that they won't even move to eat and will eventually die of starvation.

With this said: I find it interesting that there is a theme of 'finishing' for the various things identified as frequently addictive in the list above. You want to "finish" the next episode, "finish" the level you're currently on, "finish" one more Baal run, and when watching porn you quite literally aim to "finish". We may better understand this addictive process by broadening our understanding beyond the simple connection between dopamine and pleasure, but rather view this dynamic as hijacking the motivation system (which, of course, includes 'reward' aka 'pleasure').

People contemplating giving up these addictive habits will often say "But if I quit doing X, what am I going to do?". The 'do' seems like a very telling word, and immediately evokes a connection to the theme of motivation and completion of things 'to do'.

10/8

Credit to my friend for talking this out with me:

Perhaps one of the reasons why gambling is so prone to forming addiction is that the respective games involve a lot of movement and uncertainty akin to the superposition found within the Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment. Slot machines spin, cards are dealt upside down, roulette balls spin around, the Bingo ball goes down the pipeline, etc. Once these are in their superposition state, and if one perceives the superposition through a cognitive bias, then in essence you have both won and not won until everything comes to a rest. As a result of this cognitive bias, people may incorrectly feel like they've got a 50/50 shot at winning despite the actual odds being much less such that even if you lose you feel compelled to play again because the next one may be "the one".

This post was edited by Handcuffs on Oct 9 2023 01:20am

10/9

The fish tank was the precursor to the invention of the touch screen. With a touch (or tap) you could manipulate the 'screen' that you were engaging with.

Could free will and determinism be compatible if we view it as a deterministic range of possible potential futures, and that free will is the feeling of exerting just enough influence to make an intentional, proactive selection within that range?

Transhumanism is death anxiety personified as a philosophy.