> The initial problem is to define, quantify, and guard against evil.
Not really. I mean "guard against evil" loosely interpreted includes all of life so it's hard to say.
But spending a bunch of time defining, quantifying what is evil, arguing about the specifics on the internet, that is deep in the weeds exactly where they want you.
Most people have a good enough intuition for it when they see it up close. The menace is in how well we've obscured a lot of the true evil behind layers of misdirection and diffusion. Focus more on developing your innate sense of wrong so you can ably intuit what is actually happening. That is much more practically valuable than getting bogged down in constructing theories of what evil is and what is evil and how much.
> That is much more practically valuable than getting bogged down in constructing theories of what evil is and what is evil and how much.
I wrote "This model isn't a tool to calculate evil."
Spotting evil is all well and good, but what about when you CAN'T spot it? What then? You STILL need to guard against it. Say you're Mao, now you believe in your ideas. But you should not be convinced, because being doubtful is a guard against evil. You should not use your full power, because this is again a guard against evil.
If Mao had followed this, he would not have killed tens of millions of his own people.
Not really. I mean "guard against evil" loosely interpreted includes all of life so it's hard to say.
But spending a bunch of time defining, quantifying what is evil, arguing about the specifics on the internet, that is deep in the weeds exactly where they want you.
Most people have a good enough intuition for it when they see it up close. The menace is in how well we've obscured a lot of the true evil behind layers of misdirection and diffusion. Focus more on developing your innate sense of wrong so you can ably intuit what is actually happening. That is much more practically valuable than getting bogged down in constructing theories of what evil is and what is evil and how much.