Stephen Omohundro needs to make a more careful study of the sociopaths who are currently in power (mostly government, but any position of false or unverified "authority"), and precisely what values are defined as "human" values. Informed juries work really well as moral agents, but only because they tend to sharply limit government power (ie: not as positive goal-seekers). On the other hand, judge-instructed juries have been a miserable failure, thanks to "Sparf and Hansen v. USA" and "US v. Thomas" and the rise of unconstitutional "voir dire" instruction. (This allows "empathic leaders" to be removed from juries, and juries stacked with punishment-minded conformists.) For more information, please read the content at "The Fully Informed Jury Association" and "The Libertarian Party Platform."
@11:20 I admire Omohundro, and believe him to be a genius. However, he makes a profound error in thinking, one that is commonly associated with both empathy and conformity (but luckily not pure sociopathy). It's confirmation bias. He confirms what he'd like to be true about reality, and conflates that with the top-down statements made about society from the sociopaths who govern it. "Most sociopaths are caught and wind up in prison." This is factually not even close to correct. Only the "lowest common denominator" of sociopaths commonly wind up in prison. Most of them do quite well for themselves, both in the corporate world, and in government. Unfortunately, sociopaths cause immense harm in our society, primarily by getting elected to positions in government. It is only the far less common "psychopath" who is caught and put in prison for aggression. Most of the people in prison are the victims of sociopaths, and have committed only first-time victimless crime offenses. A victimless crime offense is an offense which has no "corpus delicti" or "body of the crime." A corpus delicti must have both "injury" and "intent to injure" a specific, named individual or group of individuals. Without a "corpus," it is wrong to charge a defendant with a crime, and upon a writ of habeas corpus, the individual must be released from custody. Yet, possessing illegal drugs, firearms, medicines, or engaging in gambling and prostitution creates no such "corpus." The fact that acts and properties without a corpus are created by the elected sociopaths is of no consequence to them. They don't need to understand or care about philosophy or morality. The sociopath understands that if he has "plausible deniability" for his actions, and if his actions appear to be operating within the same "degraded law" paradigm as others' actions, then he can do almost whatever he wants. The effects of governments being composed primarily of top-down "command and control" philosophy sociopaths has been cycles of world-wide chaos, up until the point of system destruction, at which point a new cycle begins. The end of each cycle is when the political class becomes so parasitic it stifles innovation and production, leading to economic collapse. Most people are empaths (the experience empathy for others, when they see others being injured). However, most people are also conformists (they have a tendency to mindlessly accept what they are told by authority figures). Most people are also stupid. Unfortunately, the stupidity and conformity of most empaths is a stronger set of combined variables than their will to express their empathy. This is why you have such perverse phenomena as the foreman (a woman) on the Waco survivors' trial crying and apologizing that she obeyed the judge's instructions. This is also why you have the results of the Stanley Milgram experiment, and why an entire nation ostracized and participated in the murder of 6-8 million ethnic Jews in Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1944. This also neatly explains every democide in the history of man, and why jurors are regularly appalled at the judge's instructions (but then, obey them anyway). Said another way: Most people are well-meaning idiots, who are in favor of their own freedom, but only very weakly, because they lack any significant education, intelligence, or morality. These well-meaning idiots generally adopt the philosophy, in inconsistent pieces, of those who are in power. The people in power are typically "go getter" sociopaths, albeit sometimes ones who have been forced (by general forward progress) to adopt benevolent-sounding rhetoric. Thomas Jefferson refused to free his slaves, even when confronted by Kosciusko that it was "the right thing to do" and that his marvelous Declaration was "inconsistent with slavery." Most people, even most libertarians, don't want to believe that the Founding Fathers were sociopaths. Even those who use them as propaganda don't want to believe this. But that seems to be where the evidence points, with a few notable exceptions (Sam Adams, who never was a true "Founder," in the sense that he was mostly a rabble-rouser, and not a signatory or a power-seeking politician.) Looking at the current, enslaved state of the world objectively, no honest person can refute this position.
@16:40 Mother Teresa was not objectively "good." (Ironically, she makes a good example for the errors in this speech, because she "wanted to be good" but her behavior manifested itself as destructive sociopathy, because she operated on sociopath-defined premises.) She set up homes for the dying, not homes to cure people, which could have been done for a fraction of what she gave to the monstrous catholic church. She mostly dedicated the donations she received to creating nunneries: ie, places where young women could go to have their minds enslaved. She campaigned against birth control and against abortion, condemning Africa to AIDS infection. She was a shithead with stupid, destructive ideas.
Steve Omohundros' talks are always really good.
Thought provoking talk! We all should be thinking more about this issue.
Excellent talk by a brilliant man who has made major contributions it Artificial Intelligence.
Nicely presented, Steve! Even *I* got it!!!
our challenge for this century is to extend cooperative human values and institutions to smart technology for the greater good √
I love science and technology.
LEARN, LEARN, LEARN~!
Good stuff I like the safe au scaffolding strategy eliezer yudkowsky and them at less wrong have some great research too
Stephen Omohundro needs to make a more careful study of the sociopaths who are currently in power (mostly government, but any position of false or unverified "authority"), and precisely what values are defined as "human" values. Informed juries work really well as moral agents, but only because they tend to sharply limit government power (ie: not as positive goal-seekers). On the other hand, judge-instructed juries have been a miserable failure, thanks to "Sparf and Hansen v. USA" and "US v. Thomas" and the rise of unconstitutional "voir dire" instruction. (This allows "empathic leaders" to be removed from juries, and juries stacked with punishment-minded conformists.) For more information, please read the content at "The Fully Informed Jury Association" and "The Libertarian Party Platform."
@11:20 I admire Omohundro, and believe him to be a genius. However, he makes a profound error in thinking, one that is commonly associated with both empathy and conformity (but luckily not pure sociopathy). It's confirmation bias. He confirms what he'd like to be true about reality, and conflates that with the top-down statements made about society from the sociopaths who govern it. "Most sociopaths are caught and wind up in prison." This is factually not even close to correct. Only the "lowest common denominator" of sociopaths commonly wind up in prison. Most of them do quite well for themselves, both in the corporate world, and in government.
Unfortunately, sociopaths cause immense harm in our society, primarily by getting elected to positions in government. It is only the far less common "psychopath" who is caught and put in prison for aggression. Most of the people in prison are the victims of sociopaths, and have committed only first-time victimless crime offenses. A victimless crime offense is an offense which has no "corpus delicti" or "body of the crime." A corpus delicti must have both "injury" and "intent to injure" a specific, named individual or group of individuals. Without a "corpus," it is wrong to charge a defendant with a crime, and upon a writ of habeas corpus, the individual must be released from custody. Yet, possessing illegal drugs, firearms, medicines, or engaging in gambling and prostitution creates no such "corpus."
The fact that acts and properties without a corpus are created by the elected sociopaths is of no consequence to them. They don't need to understand or care about philosophy or morality. The sociopath understands that if he has "plausible deniability" for his actions, and if his actions appear to be operating within the same "degraded law" paradigm as others' actions, then he can do almost whatever he wants. The effects of governments being composed primarily of top-down "command and control" philosophy sociopaths has been cycles of world-wide chaos, up until the point of system destruction, at which point a new cycle begins. The end of each cycle is when the political class becomes so parasitic it stifles innovation and production, leading to economic collapse.
Most people are empaths (the experience empathy for others, when they see others being injured). However, most people are also conformists (they have a tendency to mindlessly accept what they are told by authority figures). Most people are also stupid. Unfortunately, the stupidity and conformity of most empaths is a stronger set of combined variables than their will to express their empathy. This is why you have such perverse phenomena as the foreman (a woman) on the Waco survivors' trial crying and apologizing that she obeyed the judge's instructions.
This is also why you have the results of the Stanley Milgram experiment, and why an entire nation ostracized and participated in the murder of 6-8 million ethnic Jews in Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1944. This also neatly explains every democide in the history of man, and why jurors are regularly appalled at the judge's instructions (but then, obey them anyway).
Said another way: Most people are well-meaning idiots, who are in favor of their own freedom, but only very weakly, because they lack any significant education, intelligence, or morality. These well-meaning idiots generally adopt the philosophy, in inconsistent pieces, of those who are in power. The people in power are typically "go getter" sociopaths, albeit sometimes ones who have been forced (by general forward progress) to adopt benevolent-sounding rhetoric.
Thomas Jefferson refused to free his slaves, even when confronted by Kosciusko that it was "the right thing to do" and that his marvelous Declaration was "inconsistent with slavery."
Most people, even most libertarians, don't want to believe that the Founding Fathers were sociopaths. Even those who use them as propaganda don't want to believe this. But that seems to be where the evidence points, with a few notable exceptions (Sam Adams, who never was a true "Founder," in the sense that he was mostly a rabble-rouser, and not a signatory or a power-seeking politician.)
Looking at the current, enslaved state of the world objectively, no honest person can refute this position.
@16:40 Mother Teresa was not objectively "good." (Ironically, she makes a good example for the errors in this speech, because she "wanted to be good" but her behavior manifested itself as destructive sociopathy, because she operated on sociopath-defined premises.) She set up homes for the dying, not homes to cure people, which could have been done for a fraction of what she gave to the monstrous catholic church. She mostly dedicated the donations she received to creating nunneries: ie, places where young women could go to have their minds enslaved. She campaigned against birth control and against abortion, condemning Africa to AIDS infection. She was a shithead with stupid, destructive ideas.