Our genes say we must soon die. I say they are not the masters.

[fromderinside]

Not really. It's just how things are.

Totally. Slavery was meet with "tut tut, how sad." Oppression of many has been meet with "tut tut, how sad." The current protests in Mexico have been meet with "tut tut, how sad."

Humans seem to be in a realm of excess supply of resources which permits us to adjust to more humanistic norms for individual and group behavior up to the point where demand exceeds supply at which time the genes again gain control.

 

[Unbeatable]

I have this fear that wireheading will result in a class divide, in which there are exploitative wireheads that permanently enslave the rest of the population to their own pleasure, only emerging from the wire for situations that require their attention.

If the scenario you envision has people who are capable of wanting to emerge from wireheading, then you're thinking of an inferior form of wireheading. The form I envision is not just a high tech virtual version of the exclusive resorts and penthouse suites and skyboxes and yachts and other luxuries that the elite class can already enjoy in blissful isolation from the people they already effectively own. It is a replacement for all of that. It is a replacement for everything. It is permanent satisfaction.

The entirety of human history has been something akin to a series of increasingly elaborate efforts to design a pole to scratch one's back, because one can't reach it with one's own hand, and because natural selection has left us highly susceptible to the delusion that there's something more "authentic" and "fulfilling" about using a pole. But the itch never really goes away, because, to mimic this thread's trend of personification, the game is rigged against us by our genes, which need us to keep using poles. Wireheading represents a means of permanently wrestling control from our genes, of finally snatching the carrot that they dangle in front of us our whole lives and getting rid of the stick.

I tend to think that someone who has a child that they care about would never allow this to happen.

I tend to consider it an act of callousness if not cruelty to bring children into this world at all. In practice, what people care about is a spot on the map representing their children. They can be and often are determinedly oblivious to the actual breakdown of variables that impact their children's welfare. They can be easily fooled, in other words, into allowing harm to come to their children or actively inflicting it themselves in the very name of helping their children (see circumcision, gay deprogramming, the vaccine/autism "controversy", the doctrine of hell, this thread, etc.), to say nothing of the harm they can be fooled into inflicting upon their children and the rest of the world during those times when their maternal/paternal instict subprocess isn't active.

 

[Kharakov]

It is a replacement for all of that. It is a replacement for everything. It is permanent satisfaction.
...
Wireheading represents a means of permanently wrestling control from our genes, of finally snatching the carrot that they dangle in front of us our whole lives and getting rid of the stick.

Ok. I don't think permanent satisfaction would be bad, unless it required the permanent subjugation of other consciousnesses to achieve.

I tend to consider it an act of callousness if not cruelty to bring children into this world at all.

Unless you know with absolute certainty that their life will have more joy than pain, and that they will learn not to be negative. After all, most adults are pretty damn tough, and still care about one another and find some joy.

 

[Unbeatable]

Ok. I don't think permanent satisfaction would be bad, unless it required the permanent subjugation of other consciousnesses to achieve.

I tend to consider it an act of callousness if not cruelty to bring children into this world at all.

Unless you know with absolute certainty that their life will have more joy than pain, and that they will learn not to be negative.

Well, you're entitled to your standards, but I set the bar higher than "more joy than pain", and honestly, if they have to learn not to be negative, that's an indictment of the human condition right there. Sure, they'll need coping skills once you've dragged them into the vale of tears, but why put them in a situation where they need to learn to cope in the first place? No need to answer that. Clearly what's going on is the biological imperative of reproduction, reinforced by memes and rationalizations. Genes are the ultimate exploitative elites.

Not that it's even possible to know with absolute certainty that someone's life will have more joy than pain. Nobody can control for every variable. Having children is always a gamble, except it's not just the gambler who stands to lose.

 

[Kharakov]

Well, you're entitled to your standards, but I set the bar higher than "more joy than pain",

The end goals are higher than that. You give kids small goals to start out, like running 20' without skinning their knees.

and honestly, if they have to learn not to be negative, that's an indictment of the human condition right there.

No, but someone who farms for negativity will find it. You have to learn that farming for negativity, in order to create excuses for your detrimental thought processes, is not a positive behavior.

Having children is always a gamble, except it's not just the gambler who stands to lose.

And it isn't just the gambler that stands to win. Everyone wins when you teach a child to be positive. And the fact of the matter is this: even though some people get caught up in negativity, they too can learn to be positive.

 

[Unbeatable]

The end goals are higher than that. You give kids small goals to start out, like running 20' without skinning their knees.

and honestly, if they have to learn not to be negative, that's an indictment of the human condition right there.

No, but someone who farms for negativity will find it. You have to learn that farming for negativity, in order to create excuses for your detrimental thought processes, is not a positive behavior.

The necessity to learn such things is an indictment of the human condition, in the sense that it illustrates that it is a problem to be solved. A series of problems. When you stress how we can overcome these problems, you're just arguing for inefficient versions of wireheading. It is to this that I say that my standards are higher. Your goals are apparently the same as mine, but you're willing to accept a higher probability of failure, probably because you value positivity as an end in itself, whereas I value it only as an alternative to negativity.

Having children is always a gamble, except it's not just the gambler who stands to lose.

And it isn't just the gambler that stands to win. Everyone wins when you teach a child to be positive. And the fact of the matter is this: even though some people get caught up in negativity, they too can learn to be positive.

This is getting redundant. Your optimism about the possibility of solving the problem is neither here nor there. I agree that people can learn to be positive. That sort of talk is fine when focusing on people who already exist. Once you've given someone lemons, the best you can do is teach them to make lemonade. I do not approve of giving them lemons in the first place. Certainly not now, when the probability that they will learn to make lemonade is insufficiently high.

 

[Kharakov]

Ehh, lemons are pretty awesome too. Your ability to turn lemonade into lemons is.. well, a bit superfluous.