I was approaching it from more of a biology point of view (not so much philosophy).
i.e. is it ok to pour salt on a slug even if it may not be self aware, but can still feel pain/suffer…
I’ll leave the robo-philosophizing to the robo-philosophers…
2 Likes
Depends. Are the slugs overpopulated? Are they eating your salad? They after all have a free choice to NOT eat your salad and to go elsewhere - or face the salt treatment.
What about rat poisons? They are often coumarine based as they have to act slow because the sewer rats are too clever for fast ones, and act by causing death by internal bleeding as they interfere with blood clotting mechanism. Not exactly pleasant, too.
1 Like
So, the determination of whether or not you should induce suffering in something depends on what the payout is for you personally… (makes mental note that Shaddack just may be a professional hitman).
Nah, in all seriousness, I’d offer up the perhaps naive point of view that one should not induce suffering in anything else unless absolutely necessary (I mean, do you just like your lettuce, or is growing it truly necessary to sustain life and limb?). The questions are then, how do we quantify suffering" and “is sentience necessary to suffer”?
The question for the robo-philosophers becomes at what point does the programmed tendency to avoid a hazard become a sensation of “suffering”? Right now, our “robots” are little more than fancy machines, and certainly are not self aware, so while people may say “man, what a dick that guy with the stick is”, they’re just reacting to the anthropomorphic appearance of the machine, and probably wouldn’t have the same response to someone pushing a vacuum cleaner over.
3 Likes
Pretty much yes. Said rat will get its ass handed on a platter with a side of a coumarinoid.
Is killing rats truly necessary? Can we just live with the diseases and other trouble instead?
Food crops are pretty important. Other technical crops as well. Even strawberries - I like them more than I like the bugs that want to eat them ahead of me, so blessed be insecticides.
Philosophising, a waste of time. Better spend the time studying toxicology. More use of it in long term.
Again, a waste of time trying to come up with an answer. Maybe good enough for a thesis or three and some cushy mortgage-paying job of a “robot ethicist” who would be more useful if studying something useful instead and then becomes a robot engineer.
People are weird in their reactions. Not to be trusted with decisions in this field.
9 Likes
This from a man who dismisses the world or “stupid” people whenever they don’t conform to his preferred view.
Sorry, why should we care then?
3 Likes
Your side is all about -isms and privileges. So I had to ask.
If people aren’t stupid, why there are mountains of evidence supporting that claim?
Sorry. I don’t have a “side.” I’m just me. I’m a mid-40ish American white het dude with a kid in college who works in technology as my day job and does stuff like read overly long histories of the Roman Republic in my evenings. The same applies to other folks here. @chgoliz and @Mindysan33 or @hello_friends are just people as well. It isn’t like we’re a cabal hatching a plan for “our side” and then foisting it upon you.
Did you ever hear the one about spotting the mark around the table in a poker game if you can’t seem to tell who it is?
The problem isn’t that people are “stupid.” The problem here is that you think other people with viewpoints divergent from your own are inherently stupid because, if they weren’t, they would think exactly like you. The world doesn’t work that way.
This is leaving aside that the world is not an engineering problem when it comes to humans. There are engineering problems within the domain of humanity activity but engineering will not tell you what is valuable in life or what gives your life meaning. It doesn’t tell you what you should do with yourself or why to do it in the limited time available to you. There is a reason why those not quantifiable things like the liberal arts exist and give meaning to lives. So, yeah, just because you can do something as an engineer doesn’t mean you should, whether it be stick extra robotic limbs on people or build gas chambers to reduce your “excess and unwanted” populations.
9 Likes
4 Likes
Wait, that was the code! Arise, arise comrades!!!
11 Likes
Oh shit, did I use today’s code phrase?
8 Likes
Just wait until more Boingers discover split-depth GIFs. No one is safe!
4 Likes
3 Likes
Fwooooosh! Mwahahahahahahah! 
Same here. I should’ve said “subgroup” or something like that. The subset characterized by using such phrases/concepts in conversation.
Also working in tech, now more as an in-house consultant though last night I had a dozen-kilowatt charger sitting on my desk and was dancing around it and coaxing it to tell me that one of the IGBT driver chips is shorted and that’s why there’s no signal to the gate, so no charging.
No children, not even a girlfriend. Anything that involves nonverbal comm is denied to me. Maybe people should’ve tried a bit more two decades ago and then I wouldn’t be what I am now. Not my fault, I did all I could. The rest of the society didn’t do their half, so screw them.
It’s so late it is early. “Forensic material engineering” is on the reading list for today. “Medicinal gases” maybe tomorrow. Or perhaps science of candy, or “Forensic polymer engineering - why polymer products fail in service”, or maybe nibble on some chapters of “Physics of direct hit and near miss warhead technology”. Or maybe some electronic warfare, lots of dual uses here in civilian sector; the khakibrains get the best toys. Roman history is rather useless in comparison.
It won’t get me laid but at least it is fun, especially the stories and case studies of various fails and disasters. And it is something to chat with pals from universities at the rare times when we get together to chat and drink.
Yes but this is not the case, regardless how you’d wish so.
Then explain the barrage of ads aimed at feelings and emotions while there are precious few that contain useful data for actual decisionmaking. Explain the dumbed down user interfaces and inane warning labels that take attention away from the actually important ones. Explain the popularity of unimportant celebrities while people who actually do something useful get largely unknown.
And explain the difficulties of getting service documentation for consumer goods. Or even an MSDS that’d say something useful. Why I have to be the only one wide and far to ask for that, why it is not commonly in demand?
See above.
And so the infrastructure is crumbling. And people are dying, because they would better watch Super Bowl than be interested in corrosion. And then they get killed because of hydrogen cracking in wire hooks, as the manufacturer never heard about that phenomenon. It’s just a stupid spring wire, pass a beer and watch the sportsball.
If it appears to not be an engineering problem then the problem is badly formulated. If there are underlying causal relations, it can be approached correctly. Unless you enjoy handwaving.
From overheard conversations, including those where I tried to be a part and in some cases fell asleep, the bulk is gossip about other people, plus actors and other celebrities. Apparently highly valuable stuff.
The limited time is ticking away, hence my irritation at those who are making noise and are trying to slow things down instead of doing things.
Lives have meaning? Aren’t philosophers trying to find some for millenia and failing all the time?
I want the extra robotic limbs. If you think I should not get them, then better get off my way or face being steamrolled over. Because I doubt you could explain why I shouldn’t go for at least two more.
2 Likes
3 Likes
Well, I can understand being bitter but it doesn’t seem to be a very useful way to work with the situation since the only person you harm is yourself and your ability to deal with others.
The point is that if you’re constantly surrounded by stupid and irritating people, the problem probably isn’t the other people.
You don’t control them anyway. You only control your own reactions and attitudes.
Because it isn’t important in the grand scheme of things to the vast majority of humanity? They don’t care that much.
Why do you care though?
Hate to break it to you but most of human interaction is “hand waving” or not necessarily based on some following of obvious rules. We’re animals and much of our way of dealing with one another and interacting is just like any other primate. It isn’t subject to rational, rules-based behavior. It’s chemical and instinctive.
Why do you care? I mean, you’re dead soon enough either way. What are you hurrying to do? If you care not at all for philosophy and the like, how are you deciding what you need to be doing? I suspect that buried deep inside of you is some philosophy of value, even if you choose not to acknowledge it.
or succeeding all of the time.
Sure, lives have meaning. What that is tends to be up to the people involved though unless you believe in some great Sky Father God or a holy book or the like and, even then, in practice, people still create their own meaning.
No one is stopping you. What people are stopping you from doing is making them for other people and installing them. If you want to go experiment on yourself, have at it. I doubt anyone would notice in time to stop you or, really, care if you did unless you went an waved it in their face that you were breaking laws passed by the fellow citizens of your nation.
3 Likes
I like this phrase and it may explain why in middle age I have some jealousy about just that.
1 Like
I can think of a response, and I did: I stated that I believed that @shaddack’s solution to exploitation of sentient beings was, get ready for it: cold. Which, at @shaddack, if you are curious to it’s definition in the context of my use of it means, “lacking in passion, emotion, enthusiasm, ardor, etc.; dispassionate” and/or “not affectionate, cordial, or friendly.”
Now, all that being said, I will happily admit that A. I definitely went overboard on the gifs and that B. I am very confused, in fact, I live in a perpetual state of confusion. Which I would argue is good for the soul* intellect as it encourages both a open mind and open recognition of the fact that I usually know relatively little about the subject I am discussing. Because, at the end of the day, this is just a friendly disagreement on the internet between one person who isn’t a engineer, ethicist, or philosopher: me, and someone who most certainly is a engineer: @shaddack. So no matter how much I may disagree with @shaddack’s opinion on this matter, at the end of it all their argument will hold much more water than mine and I will recognize and respect both them and their opinion/argument for that.
*[God dammit people, see this is what happens when we argue about the definition of words, it muddles everything up]
EDIT: I just want to recognize this comment because it honestly made me pause and think about the way I respond to people on the BBS. In the future I will pause and think if I can better respond in text before just reaching for a cookie cutter gif response.
4 Likes
This is a odd one for me because I completely disagree with the failed attempt at a solution for dealing with the massive feral cat population in the United States: catch, neuter, and release. It just doesn’t work, it’s too energy intensive to neuter every single cat you catch and doesn’t have a major effect on the growth of the population. Honestly the only way to prevent native songbird populations from being decimated is by capturing and putting down feral cats, or even poising them in the wild.
Is it necessary? That depends on who you ask. Do you like the sound of birds in the morning? Because the Audubon society, an organization that works to preserve life, bird life, is totally for capturing and putting down feral cats. At this point I think Australia has the right strategy.
This statement applies to so many major issues, and I second it for each and everyone of them.
2 Likes
