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Hot take: trying to base your system of ethics on classifying actions as ethical or unethical is a mistake. All you need is to be able to evaluate actions as more or less ethical than other actions. Trying to set a universal “zero point” that you compare to in order to determine whether an action is ethical or unethical is both unnecessary and a source of pointless confusion.
Of course, choosing to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior is a useful hack that groups or individuals can use to make themselves behave more ethically. But it’s important to remember that it’s just a hack. The line is not part of your values system, and two people can theoretically have the exact same utility function and still disagree about where the line should be drawn in a particular context, if they have factual disagreements about how people would respond to the line being drawn in a particular place.
Of course, choosing to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior is a useful hack that groups or individuals can use to make themselves behave more ethically. But it’s important to remember that it’s just a hack. The line is not part of your values system, and two people can theoretically have the exact same utility function and still disagree about where the line should be drawn in a particular context, if they have factual disagreements about how people would respond to the line being drawn in a particular place.
(reblog of a post asking: "Are there people who genuinely don’t enjoy cuddling? The fact that people announce being pro-cuddles seems like evidence for it, but I don’t recall seeing any direct claims. Have you?" with a few other rebloggers mentioning that they only enjoy cuddling with a small number of specific people close to them)
I enjoy almost indiscriminate cuddling - like I’d prefer to have at least a 2-3 minute conversation with someone before cuddling them, so they’re not a complete stranger, but that’s pretty much sufficient.
Also, regarding the observation of “The fact that people announce being pro-cuddles seems like evidence for [people not enjoying cuddling]“, to me this observation seems more like evidence for mainstream society having very restrictive views on cuddling (i.e. you should only do it with your significant others or your children, and should rarely do it in public) though perhaps that’s just my super-cuddly self being biased against the idea of many people not enjoying cuddling.
More thoughts: In practice, if a stranger or almost-stranger came up to me and asked to cuddle me in the absence of any sort of context that would make them likely to do so (such as us being at a cuddle party) then I’d be very hesitant to agree to cuddling them. Not because I don’t want to cuddle, per se, but more out of a fear of the unknown - that is, if I’m unable to think of a plausible model of the situation which predicts the other person asking to cuddle me, then their asking me to cuddle means I’m confused and don’t understand the situation, and I tend to avoid situations I don’t understand.
I basically see this as the main reason for pointedly announcing onesself as being pro-cuddles. It lets people know that you’re opting out of the traditional social scripts that limit cuddling to narrow contexts, and, importantly, you know that they know that, so that if someone asks you to cuddle, you’re not like “huh? why are they doing this I’m so confused???” but instead you’re like “oh, they’re doing this because I made a point of announcing that I’m cool with almost-indiscriminate cuddling”.
I enjoy almost indiscriminate cuddling - like I’d prefer to have at least a 2-3 minute conversation with someone before cuddling them, so they’re not a complete stranger, but that’s pretty much sufficient.
Also, regarding the observation of “The fact that people announce being pro-cuddles seems like evidence for [people not enjoying cuddling]“, to me this observation seems more like evidence for mainstream society having very restrictive views on cuddling (i.e. you should only do it with your significant others or your children, and should rarely do it in public) though perhaps that’s just my super-cuddly self being biased against the idea of many people not enjoying cuddling.
More thoughts: In practice, if a stranger or almost-stranger came up to me and asked to cuddle me in the absence of any sort of context that would make them likely to do so (such as us being at a cuddle party) then I’d be very hesitant to agree to cuddling them. Not because I don’t want to cuddle, per se, but more out of a fear of the unknown - that is, if I’m unable to think of a plausible model of the situation which predicts the other person asking to cuddle me, then their asking me to cuddle means I’m confused and don’t understand the situation, and I tend to avoid situations I don’t understand.
I basically see this as the main reason for pointedly announcing onesself as being pro-cuddles. It lets people know that you’re opting out of the traditional social scripts that limit cuddling to narrow contexts, and, importantly, you know that they know that, so that if someone asks you to cuddle, you’re not like “huh? why are they doing this I’m so confused???” but instead you’re like “oh, they’re doing this because I made a point of announcing that I’m cool with almost-indiscriminate cuddling”.
I’m annoyed that the word “romantic” refers to such COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS as “romantic feelings” (i.e. crushes, lush symphonies playing in your head when you see a person, etc.) and “romantic relationships” (i.e. having someone be [one of] your “partner[s] in life” either short-term or long-term). It currently seems obvious to me that the disparity between these two senses of the word is quite huge, although the seeming obviousness of this is probably mostly hindsight bias. It took me an embarrassingly long time to even notice the disparity at all, and an embarrassingly even-longer time to notice its hugeness.
(omitting the remainder of the original Tumblr post as it's less interesting)
(omitting the remainder of the original Tumblr post as it's less interesting)
Hot take: “deserve” is a mind-killing word, and we’d be better off removing it from our vocabulary. When you want to say “X deserves Y”, try changing it to “X has earned Y” which, if the idea you’re trying to communicate is a good one, will probably communicate that idea more clearly.
As I see it, the main usefulness of the word “deserve” is to enable us to communicate about scenarios where we [dis]incentivize certain actions by enforcing social norms that link them to certain consequences. But the concept of “earning” also allows us to communicate about such scenarios without the risk of being confused with the other meaning of the concept of “deserving”, which is where “X deserves Y” translates to “It is a terminal moral good for X to receive Y”. This latter definition of “deserving” is vacuous because, by that definition, literally every sentient being throughout all time and space “deserves” to live in [what they’d consider] a perfect utopia for as long as they want (yes, even people who do horrible things, even Hitler, even rapists, even Trump, etc.).
In summary, many debates about whether or not “X deserves Y” seem to stem from conflation of instrumental and terminal values. Talking instead about whether or not “X has earned Y” or whether or not “people who do what X did should be [dis]incentivized with consequence Y” removes this confusion.
As I see it, the main usefulness of the word “deserve” is to enable us to communicate about scenarios where we [dis]incentivize certain actions by enforcing social norms that link them to certain consequences. But the concept of “earning” also allows us to communicate about such scenarios without the risk of being confused with the other meaning of the concept of “deserving”, which is where “X deserves Y” translates to “It is a terminal moral good for X to receive Y”. This latter definition of “deserving” is vacuous because, by that definition, literally every sentient being throughout all time and space “deserves” to live in [what they’d consider] a perfect utopia for as long as they want (yes, even people who do horrible things, even Hitler, even rapists, even Trump, etc.).
In summary, many debates about whether or not “X deserves Y” seem to stem from conflation of instrumental and terminal values. Talking instead about whether or not “X has earned Y” or whether or not “people who do what X did should be [dis]incentivized with consequence Y” removes this confusion.
When hearing something positive about the past makes you feel depressed because it means humanity hasn’t progressed as much as you thought.
#justTranshumanistThings
#justTranshumanistThings
Pet peeve: when people use “sleep with” as a synonym/euphemism for “have sex with”. Like, THOSE ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS STOP TREATING THEM AS BASICALLY-INTERCHANGEABLE FFS.
I think a large part of why I find this so annoying is that I intensely crave sex, but am not so keen on sleeping with people. Like I imagine I am a very unpleasant person to sleep with (even within the set of people who would enjoy sex with me - I take forever to get to sleep, constantly have to shift positions, constantly have to cough, often have to get up to pee), which is bad for me as well, because I’d be constantly fretting over how much I’m probably bothering the other person, which is not exactly conducive to relaxing and getting to sleep.
And I’m sure there are also a lot of people for whom the reverse is true (i.e. they really crave someone they can sleep with non-sexually) and treating “have sex with” and “sleep with” as synonyms makes it needlessly inconvenient for such people (as well as people like me) to communicate their preferences.
I think a large part of why I find this so annoying is that I intensely crave sex, but am not so keen on sleeping with people. Like I imagine I am a very unpleasant person to sleep with (even within the set of people who would enjoy sex with me - I take forever to get to sleep, constantly have to shift positions, constantly have to cough, often have to get up to pee), which is bad for me as well, because I’d be constantly fretting over how much I’m probably bothering the other person, which is not exactly conducive to relaxing and getting to sleep.
And I’m sure there are also a lot of people for whom the reverse is true (i.e. they really crave someone they can sleep with non-sexually) and treating “have sex with” and “sleep with” as synonyms makes it needlessly inconvenient for such people (as well as people like me) to communicate their preferences.
Hot take: friendship with benefits is simplified friendship, in much the same way that transhumanism is simplified humanism.
Of course “simplified” doesn’t always mean “better”. But I nonetheless suspect that, even without changing people’s preferences, there’d be a lot more people fucking their friends if people asked themselves “What reason do I have not to do this highly enjoyable thing with this person I get along with so well and have done so many other enjoyable things with?” instead of “What reason do I have to do so?”.
Of course “simplified” doesn’t always mean “better”. But I nonetheless suspect that, even without changing people’s preferences, there’d be a lot more people fucking their friends if people asked themselves “What reason do I have not to do this highly enjoyable thing with this person I get along with so well and have done so many other enjoyable things with?” instead of “What reason do I have to do so?”.
“If x then I want to believe x; if not x then I want to believe not x” does not imply “if x then I want to be reminded that x; if not x then I want to be reminded that not x”.
This is maybe a useful thing to take to heart if, like me, you often find your desire to be epistemically rational in conflict with your desire to not be in a state of horror at the shittiness of the world.
This is maybe a useful thing to take to heart if, like me, you often find your desire to be epistemically rational in conflict with your desire to not be in a state of horror at the shittiness of the world.
