On Apr 26, 2:09pm, Robin Hanson wrote:
> >You haven't killed any slaves; you've prevented them from being born.
> >Whether this is an improvement depends on what you put in their place.
> I don't see an important difference between killing and preventing from
> living. And you did say what would be in their place: conscious AIs.
You don't see an important difference betweeen murder and abortion? Or
between killing an adult and contraception? I'm baffled.
I see a huge difference. Killing is something done to me, or done to another
citizen who could protest. If something is prevented from ever gaining
consciousness, though, I don't see the problem.
Some have said the history of technology is one of removing problems from the
conscious realm as we get better at solving them. I suppose we could be
anti-historical.
> >... Of course, there might be good practical reasons for
> >limiting population growth, but in general I would say: the more, the
> >better (even if it would somewhat lower the average quality of life).
Urmm. I don't think I'd say that. The utilitarian argument for having more
people is to have more problem solvers; fewer better off people might be
better than a bunch of not so well off people.
-xx- GCU Mindstalker X-)
Adrenaline man, adrenaline man,
Doing the things adrenaline can.
Is he awake? It's not important.
Received on Mon Apr 27 01:47:09 1998
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Tue Mar 07 2006 - 14:45:30 PST