If I want to prove that technological progress generally correlates with methods that involve more suffering, yes! Agreed.
But while the post suggests that this is a possibility, its main point is that suffering itself is not inefficient, such that there is no reason to expect progress and methods that involve less suffering to correlate by default (much weaker claim).
This makes me realize that the crux is perhaps this below part more than the claim we discuss above.
While I tentatively think the “the most efficient solutions to problems don’t seem like they involve suffering” claimis true if we limit ourselves to the present and the past, I think it is false once we consider the long-term future, which makes the argument break apart.
Future solutions are more efficient insofar as they overcome past limitations. In the relevant examples that are enslaved humans and exploited animals, suffering itself is not a limiting factor. It is rather the physical limitations of those biological beings, relative to machines that could do a better job at their tasks.
I don’t see any inevitable dependence between their suffering and these physical limitations. If human slaves and exploited animals were not sentient, this wouldn’t change the fact that machines would do a better job.
Sorry for the confusion and thanks for pushing back! Helps me clarify what the claims made in this post imply and don’t imply. :)
If I want to prove that technological progress generally correlates with methods that involve more suffering, yes! Agreed.
But while the post suggests that this is a possibility, its main point is that suffering itself is not inefficient, such that there is no reason to expect progress and methods that involve less suffering to correlate by default (much weaker claim).
This makes me realize that the crux is perhaps this below part more than the claim we discuss above.
Sorry for the confusion and thanks for pushing back! Helps me clarify what the claims made in this post imply and don’t imply. :)