From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Aug 17 2000 - 15:37:01 PDT
Jeff Bone wrote:
>
> The scary thing about that is, who gets to define what constitutes "evil?"
Someone has to do it.
> One man's
> definition of "universal good" is another man's "tyranny." Pick your hot
> button, say, elective euthanasia. What if the "Creators of the Universe"
> a.k.a. Brian and Eliezer (a) don't come down on your side of the issue, and
> (b) don't believe in unlimited free will? Let's say, for whatever reason, you
> just want out. You're in a lot of pain. Now you're trapped in a world where
> life is eternal and you just aren't allowed to opt out.
"To eliminate all INVOLUNTARY pain, death, coercion, and stupidity from
the Universe."
Any problems?
> Sorry, I just can't trust such big decisions to folks who think they have a
> direct line to The Truth on matters such as "the meaning of life," "who is the
> most significant human being," "what's the best operating system for
> everybody," ;-) etc.
Who would you trust it to? Someone so ostentatiously humble, so new and
unacclimated to the issues, that they're too shocked to venture an
opinion? I don't think I have a direct line to The Truth, but I'm not
afraid to guess using the best information I have - or to plan ahead for
the possibility that I'm wrong.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://singinst.org/home.html
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