My biggest disagreements lie in their solutions, and some problems here.
On problems of WAW, my current best guess is due to the difficulties of terraforming planets compared to something like O’Neill cylinders, it probably won’t be done a lot. And this will mostly avoid too much populating of at least vertebrates.
On solutions to the problem of Wild Animal Welfare, I disagree with hedonic imperative for moral subjectivity and pluralism reasons, and would instead try to support uploading animals into a simulated environment under our control.
As for the question whether simulating parasites, we don’t need to do that, for we shouldn’t care about realism, we can be as surreal as we want even with increased computing power. Remember, we control the virtual source code for physics and biology, so we aren’t limited to real-life biology or physics. On pain, I’d probably support a bounded pain function, where there is a hard maximum of pain in the source code. On pleasure, we are not obligated to give them pleasure, but there should be no limit. As a bonus, we can discard the immune system due to us not needing to simulate any bacteria, virus, or parasite (including worms).
Finally on the question of predation, some thoughts on this. I do tend towards allowing it for at least conditional on backup/waiver. My reason is I’m a subjectivist on this, and I don’t too much care whether this extreme sport is done.
I’m curious why do you want to upload animals into a simulated environment? What would be the point? Would that be intrinsically valuable according to your beliefs?
My reasons are myriad, but they can basically boil down to: We essentially have almost total control of it, to things like physics, biology and many others. I don’t focus on realism, but rather the surreal worlds virtuality and simulation creates. I don’t think we will ever have this level of control in the physical world, even assuming advanced nanotechnology and AI. And just because it’s not instrumentally valuable (like reality itself) doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable at all. It’s also relatively value neutral because with enough computing power, most people’s values can be mostly satisfied.
And this level of control is likely necessary for long term WAW, in order to prevent any reappearance of evolution and the natural world.
instead try to support uploading animals into a simulated environment under our control.
But what about those physical ones that will still exist?
we are not obligated to give them pleasure
What about humans? Just trying to know if you hold this because you hold something like a pleasure-pain imparity, or that you think there is something special about humans that makes us obliged to give them pleasure, but not the animals.
Finally on the question of predation, some thoughts on this. I do tend towards allowing it for at least conditional on backup/waiver. My reason is I’m a subjectivist on this, and I don’t too much care whether this extreme sport is done.
Not sure I understand this. Do you mind explaining a bit more?
Well, on the physical animals, well it’s a long, hard process to change values to get it in the overton window, and as the saying goes, in order to take a thousand mile journey, you have to take the first step.
There’s a bad habit of confronting large problems and then trying to discredit solving them because of the things you don’t solve, when it won’t be solved at all by inaction.
My reason for saying that we’re not obligated to give them pleasure is because I don’t agree with the hedonic imperative mentioned, and in general hedonic utilitarianism because I view pleasure/pain as just one part of my morality that isn’t focused on. For much the same reason I also tend to avoid suffering focused ethics, which is focused on preventing disvalue or dolorium primarily. It’s not about the difference between animals and humans.
On the predation thing, I will send you a link to what making or changing the predator-prey relation from a natural to an artificial one that is morally acceptable in my eyes, primarily because of the fact that death isn’t final in a simulation. Here’s the link:
My biggest disagreements lie in their solutions, and some problems here.
On problems of WAW, my current best guess is due to the difficulties of terraforming planets compared to something like O’Neill cylinders, it probably won’t be done a lot. And this will mostly avoid too much populating of at least vertebrates.
On solutions to the problem of Wild Animal Welfare, I disagree with hedonic imperative for moral subjectivity and pluralism reasons, and would instead try to support uploading animals into a simulated environment under our control.
As for the question whether simulating parasites, we don’t need to do that, for we shouldn’t care about realism, we can be as surreal as we want even with increased computing power. Remember, we control the virtual source code for physics and biology, so we aren’t limited to real-life biology or physics. On pain, I’d probably support a bounded pain function, where there is a hard maximum of pain in the source code. On pleasure, we are not obligated to give them pleasure, but there should be no limit. As a bonus, we can discard the immune system due to us not needing to simulate any bacteria, virus, or parasite (including worms).
Finally on the question of predation, some thoughts on this. I do tend towards allowing it for at least conditional on backup/waiver. My reason is I’m a subjectivist on this, and I don’t too much care whether this extreme sport is done.
I’m curious why do you want to upload animals into a simulated environment? What would be the point? Would that be intrinsically valuable according to your beliefs?
My reasons are myriad, but they can basically boil down to: We essentially have almost total control of it, to things like physics, biology and many others. I don’t focus on realism, but rather the surreal worlds virtuality and simulation creates. I don’t think we will ever have this level of control in the physical world, even assuming advanced nanotechnology and AI. And just because it’s not instrumentally valuable (like reality itself) doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable at all. It’s also relatively value neutral because with enough computing power, most people’s values can be mostly satisfied.
And this level of control is likely necessary for long term WAW, in order to prevent any reappearance of evolution and the natural world.
But what about those physical ones that will still exist?
What about humans? Just trying to know if you hold this because you hold something like a pleasure-pain imparity, or that you think there is something special about humans that makes us obliged to give them pleasure, but not the animals.
Not sure I understand this. Do you mind explaining a bit more?
Well, on the physical animals, well it’s a long, hard process to change values to get it in the overton window, and as the saying goes, in order to take a thousand mile journey, you have to take the first step.
There’s a bad habit of confronting large problems and then trying to discredit solving them because of the things you don’t solve, when it won’t be solved at all by inaction.
My reason for saying that we’re not obligated to give them pleasure is because I don’t agree with the hedonic imperative mentioned, and in general hedonic utilitarianism because I view pleasure/pain as just one part of my morality that isn’t focused on. For much the same reason I also tend to avoid suffering focused ethics, which is focused on preventing disvalue or dolorium primarily. It’s not about the difference between animals and humans.
On the predation thing, I will send you a link to what making or changing the predator-prey relation from a natural to an artificial one that is morally acceptable in my eyes, primarily because of the fact that death isn’t final in a simulation. Here’s the link:
https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/460328b7114f4
Sorry for taking so long to make this comment.