Vitalik Buterin pfp
Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
I think the core of what's unintuitive about the various paradoxes of utilitarianism is the idea that utility is unbounded. This clashes with how our brains work, where there actually is a bound on how strongly we can feel (positively or negatively) about any particular situation.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
This is about the shrimp and bees isn’t it? I think utilitarianism fails to model pain correctly. It needs a “nature is murder” Werner Herzog axiom. You can’t really drive down pain in complex life monotonically, only move it around. Trilemma: Pick 2 of 3 — hard-capped aggregate pain experienced by all life, sustained aggregate net utility growth, complexity of intelligence. It’s the “huntable tofu gazelles for lions” problem. Complex intelligent life capable of experiencing heights of flourishing seems to depend on an engine of causing sustained pain to simpler life to thrive. Utilitarianism has an insufficiently expressive ontology to even state this problem. Pain and flourishing need to be book-kept in non-mutually-offsettable ways.
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Nerd-E 🎩 pfp
Nerd-E 🎩
@nerdy
Wouldn’t it be better to use metrics like life expectancy, over squishy things like feelings?
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vrypan |--o--| pfp
vrypan |--o--|
@vrypan.eth
There is the concept of diminishing returns which implies bounds, no?
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tldr (tim reilly) pfp
tldr (tim reilly)
@tldr
The most fundamental paradox of utilitarianism is always that by being fundamentally about measurement, it is incapable of knowing the thing it measures without some outside help. (Ie, some other philosophy) Utilitarianism is like creating a startup whose only purpose is to track its own success metrics. How would such a startup pick a problem? How would it know if it’s right?
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𒂭_𒂭 pfp
𒂭_𒂭
@m-j-r
can you elaborate? physically, we have only so much immediate exposure to energy, which utility cannot exist without. sociologically, we can only tolerate so much utility before it hinders or harms other utilities. is pareto optimality an illusion? same with constitutionality, all the better that laws are dispassionately bounded, and not captured by feelings https://farcaster.xyz/m-j-r/0x4e21d47c
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shazow pfp
shazow
@shazow.eth
Is utility bounded by time? Only so much utility can be scaled by tomorrow.
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Lokp Ray pfp
Lokp Ray
@lokpray
if our emotional limits are bounded and evolutionarily contingent, why trust them as a constraint on moral truth? Isn't there a danger in letting the limits of human feeling dictate the limits of moral reasoning? Just because we can’t viscerally grasp the weight of trillions of lives doesn’t mean they don’t morally matter. Maybe the discomfort we feel with unbounded utility isn’t a flaw in utilitarianism—it’s a flaw in us. So the question becomes: should ethics be about what feels right, or about what is right, even if our brains can’t keep up?
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joshisdead.eth pfp
joshisdead.eth
@joshisdead.eth
It’s crazy that utility is unbounded. It’s always has been the mind that sets everything.
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Coinbased.base.eth pfp
Coinbased.base.eth
@spellcasterpuff
I wanna see the value of one of vitaliks posts.
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Pete Talbot pfp
Pete Talbot
@petethetalbot
I say, stack that guac to the stars.
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Yos | formo.so 💫 pfp
Yos | formo.so 💫
@yosriady
Diminishing returns and marginal utility needs to be part of the equation
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abranti pfp
abranti
@abranti
I can't see how full species extinction could be negatively bounded
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Thegreatmaikarama (Ø,G) pfp
Thegreatmaikarama (Ø,G)
@maikaramaweb3
But why utility is unbounded
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Babooun pfp
Babooun
@babooun
Utility is energy dissipation.
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r4v🃏🎩🍖🍄🐹🎭🌭 pfp
r4v🃏🎩🍖🍄🐹🎭🌭
@tesanovi
everything has its own portion @vitalik.eth @vitaliiketh
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Bhau pfp
Bhau
@bhau
Is emotional valence bounded? It is highly subjective, and consequently Utility may be perceived as unbounded
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zasod.base.eth pfp
zasod.base.eth
@zasod
utilitarianism breaks because humans aren’t utility calculators, we’re meat computers with emotional caps
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JC pfp
JC
@lemonflavdabest
Idk. I took a big dump this morning. Was surprised with how good it made me feel.
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urbansalesguy pfp
urbansalesguy
@elhombre
You get your @nativefun passport yet? Suggest you do that
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