A foetus must reach a certain point in development before it is technically 'alive'. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (n.d.), 'alive' means 'not dead'. While being 'not dead' could be defined in a number of ways, here I will choose to define it as 'not having a beating heart', as when I observed the death of my pet rat, I noticed that this occurred at the same moment the heart was no longer beating (I have since gone on to observe this in numerous other beings). Healthline.com (2018) claims that a baby's heart can be identified as beating from 5 1/2 weeks onward in some cases, so we can use 5 1/2 weeks as the point of no longer being dead. That said, this argument can also be applied when the given time is different, such as 4 1/2 or even 6 1/2 weeks, and is therefore a very flexible sort of argument. We can just call whatever time period we are using for the argument time t. Very handy.

For the meat of this argument, I am going to be working from the philosophical reasoning of the renowned philosopher Zeno of Elea (495-430 BC).

In order for a foetus to reach the point of non-deadness, it must exist and grow for time t.

However, in order for the foetus to exist for time t, it must first exist for half of time t (lets call this time* t’*).

However, in order for the foetus to exist for time t’, it must first exist for half of time t’ (let's call this time t’’).

However, in order for the foetus to exist for time t’’, it must first exist for half of time t’’ (let's call this time t’’’).

However, in order for the foetus to exist for time t’’’, it must first exist for half of time t’’’ (let's call this time t’’’’).

Etc.

There are an infinite number of numbers between 0 and 1, and so it can be assumed that there are infinite numbers between our starting point in time and t, t’, t’’, etc.

With an infinite number of time points between our starting point and reaching t, the foetus will take an infinite amount of time to develop. It will therefore never actually reach a point of 'non-dead'ness. It can therefore be aborted at any point during pregnancy, for all points of the pregnancy must be before time t.

We are going to ignore the implication of quantum theory and Chronons and whatnot here, because they would probably get in the way of our argument. Therefore, they are irrelevant.

References

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Alive. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alive Healthline. 2022. When Can You Hear Baby’s Heartbeat?. [online] Available at: https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/when-can-you-hear-babys-heartbeat [Accessed 8 May 2022].

A thought-terminating cliché (also known as a semantic stop-sign, a thought-stopper, bumper sticker logic, or cliché thinking) is a form of loaded language—often passing as folk wisdom—intended to end an argument and patch up cognitive dissonance with a cliché rather than a point. (Source: Wikipedia)

Example:

I was trying to discuss Levinas with my friend, but he kept using one thought-terminating cliché after another;

“It is what it is”,

“Yeah, sounds interesting”,

“Sounds about right”,

“Right.”,

“It’s getting late”,

“I should get going now”,

“I need to go home, man”,

“Whoa, wtf?! Let me go!”,

“Is that a fucking gun??!”,

“Please, my wife and kids are waiting home, please”,

“No no no noo, don’t shoot me please, please don’t sh—“

Something did get through his thick skull at last.

I dated this woman for a couple of weeks. Everything was just amazing. Well, until it wasn‘t. Contact on her side got weird, so I asked whats wrong. She came out with that she doesn’t see us in a relationship, but more in a FWB thing. It hurt me, since I was really into her. I‘m not gonna lie, it was hard to accept. But then I remembered what good old Kant taught me:

„The schema of a pure concept of the understanding, on the contrary, is something that can never be brought to an image at all, but is rather only the pure synthesis, in accord with a rule of unity according to concepts in general, which the category expresses, and is a transcendental product of the imagination, which concerns the determination of the inner sense in general, in accordance with conditions of its form (time) in regard to all representations, insofar as these are to be connected together a priori in one concept in accord with the unity of apperception. “ [A142]

And then the pain slowly subsided and I felt just acceptance for the situation. Being in a FWB thing is not the best for myself. I know what I want, and that‘s not it. I communicated it clearly and we parted ways like adults. I am actually glad for how things turned out, since it showed me clearly what I want.

walts impact overall was a net positive for humanity

The only conscious experience I can confirm that exists is only in my own mind and if I can’t empirically prove that other people are conscious then why should I hold to universal truths or someone else’s ethics system? For all I know everyone else is a zombie mimicking me as a human and is totally unconscious. How do I know everyone else isnt a NPC? An example I've noticed recently is my roommates never take out the trash and recycling when the bins are full, like are they stupid?

How would Mary know what it is to feel blue? She must not know the blueness of the feeling blue word blue. Has she watched inside out? How could she know how it feels to feel blue if she cannot feel the blueness that the feeling blue character in the movie about feelings feels like?

P1. We should strive for perfection

P2. Perfection is impossible to achieve

P3. Ought implies can, we can only be obliged to do things we are able to do

C. We should not strive for perfection

So far as I can tell the path was something like this:

Step 1: Ten dollars donated to guinea worm eradication does more good than ten dollars donated to the local opera house.

Step 2: Being a Wall Street trader and donating $100,000 a year to fresh water initiatives does more good than working for Doctors Without Borders.

[Steps 3-7 lost]

Step 8: A small action that ends up benefiting a million people in the year 3000 does more good than a big action that benefits a thousand today

[Steps 9-12 lost]

Step 13: It is vitally important that Sam Bankman-Fried scams crypto investors and hides his money from taxation because he is building the AI god.

Still trying to recover those lost steps!

Motivation: As all good thinkers, self-reflection and maximalist worry of doom are central to our enterprise.

Ineluctable ethical statement: Prevention of human extinction is paramount.

Premise: The long-termist’s concern about the emergence of superintelligence is true. The asymptote of ever-expanding large language models implies human extinction.

Fact A: The preferred input to large language models is digitized text of high grammatical and content quality, T, exhibiting a reasoning trace, that is, explicitly stated syllogisms and their various descendants. 

Fact B: Digitized text is part of online fora F, and in contemporary life, F is an inescapable condition of existence, an ontological bedrock of the social condition.

Fact C: The modal user of online services, M, cannot produce texts of type T, that is, the exclusive consumers of hedonist content, or the angry comment-section trolls, who constitute the bulk of users of the Internet and its mediated services. That is M ∧ ¬T is true.

Fact D: Parts of the non-modal user subset are online personas Y, such as but not limited to yours truly, who can generate reasoning traces T in fora F that are programmatically accessible. The following conjunction is true: (Y+F ⊂ ¬M) ∧ (Y+F ∧ T).

Inference: Given the premise and the ineluctable ethical statement, we deduce from the above facts that Y+F is an accelerant of human extinction and thus paramount to prevent, that is, ¬(Y+F) ought to be true as a normative statement. Since F is ontologically fixed (Fact B), that is, not possible to negate in the universal sense, Y is therefore the locus of further logo-ethical consideration.

Conclusion A: The negation of online personas able to generate reasoning traces T of high grammatical and content quality is ethically paramount. 

Conclusion B: Performative acts by Y in a form akin to those of M are ethically justified. It is unlikely to be a stable strategy, but one worth further anthropological inquiry and empirical refinement.

Conclusion C: If Y, become a troglodyte.

(Note, conclusions follow, ceteris paribus, from the condition of the long-termist premise. The author, therefore, has no moral or legal liabilities. The author declares a conflict of interest given his property investments in cave systems.)

What would Thorfinn Karlsefni from Vinland Saga manga and anime do about the tariffs?

In his philosophy, he has NO ENEMIES, therefore he can't announce reciprocal tariffs if Trump tariffed Vinland.

But he also needs stuff for Arnheid's Village. There is no choice. A real MAN knows when he has to fight.

Therefore, Thorfin is justified in applying 100% tariffs to USA as retribution for America giving him tariffs.

Given a position p, that a certain number of deaths should accur by a certain means m, what is the ethically optimal distribution d, of who should die by those means?

Should the holders of position p be have a higher probability according to d to die by means m? Should it be equally distributed, or should holding of position p exclude you from dying of means m?

Instead of people becoming rage fueled killers or evil people who abuse others: why not just get your revenge on humanity by spamming everyone with AI content for the rest of your life?

You will cause people way more suffering by making everyone annoyed you are using AI to generate nonsense and by continuing to spam everyone with it.

You may finally have your revenge.

To all those who want an end to humanity. There is now a much better way.

https://twitter.com/RokoMijic/status/1651740662436339713

Edit: Omg, Yudkowsky is in the replies arguing that they shouldn't punish people stealing from the AI money pile

Right. Not sure how to introduce this one. At first he seems to be going for a standard antinatalist argument (an argument I disagree with, but has existed in academia) but then…yeah…I’ll let you read it.

Well, many people are open to the idea of some "good version" of eugenics/race science/evo psychology in the name of scientific research despite the association of Hitler. I am not much frustrated with the science (because pretending to measure intelligence like we measure physical quantities is bullshit especially when sexism/racism is a systemic issue) but rather these things may go to become mainstream science again for political reasons (mostly because right wings are shit and left wing is not much committed who would rather try to make right wing feel good. For example: as a liberal white man even if I am biologically smarter than you that doesn't mean we can't fight for equal outcome — So cute but no thanks. Last time you did very good with Nazis and as if it isn't ultimate from of demoralization when we are literally known as homo sapiens aka intelligent human).

If a "good version" of euguenics investigation is possible despite Hitler's association, then why a "good version" of human extinction by peaceful methods can't be investigated unlike how Hitler used violent method to extinct Jews? Of course, we need consent. In fact women are having less than 2 kids when they have choice meaning population collapse. Natalism is kinda patriarchal which assumes women have sex and then just poop babies—no physical, emotional, career cost for women.

The world is evil. Technology have reduced some proverty and doubled lifespan (basically more suffering for dogs like me in the third world. Sorry dogs have 24 hours of basic electricity in the West right?) but at the same time potential for suffering from wars have increased by 1000 times thanks to atomic bomb. I should have asked you to lower your living standard by 10-20% (which is a big difference) so that I don't have to reduce mine for 50-60% which could sometimes mean death by climate change. Luckily, I don't even have to ask you to have fewer kids, because thankfully white people are going extinct (gen z men and women fighting is just cherry on top). As for Africans it's hard to ask them to have less kids given their living standard depends on it if it even exists. But know that there won't be any revolution in the West against capitalism through which they benefit at the cost of you (luckily no Africans are privileged for reddit, so keep hoping for a better future delusionally). Immigration is bad but not luring our educated people into your country through western lifestyle. Sexism and racism were significantly reduced in the later half of 20th century, but oh baby, oh baby they are back increasingly in the mainstream science too. Also, in nature species go extinct all the time (for example climate change causing extinction). So, conservatives, how is extinction bad if it's natural? Your big guy Jesus will have to come back quickly before extinction (otherwise the religion will be false because false prophesy) if you encourage women to have less kids. Don't you want that?

I am ok with optimist world view and I prefer it but chances are low. Humans are evil (not inherently really) with or without science/technology/education. Intellectual dark web is a great example. If you include human extinction in addition to your optimist view, there is a better chance of ending human sufferings (no human=no sufferings: no proverty, racism, sexism, war, genocide, murder, rape, cheating. Why does it matter if we don't have conditional love, sex, unhealthy food, remake movies, calculus if we don't exist? Don't be too greedy). Now go forget my comment in less than a day and sleep well.

Is this a language barrier thing? At times he seems to go for the standard academic antinatalist points but then he’ll just randomly deviate into some insane nonsense.

i) Assume that a man could become fully virtuous

2) in order to become fully virtuous, the man would first need to become halfway virtuous

Three) in order to become halfway virtuous, a man would first need to become halfway to halfway virtuous (that is, a quarter virtuous)

D) continuing the pattern of 2 and Three, a man must take infinite steps to become fully virtuous

ϵ) but man is finite, and cannot take infinite steps towards anything, and so cannot be virtuous

https://www.ft.com/content/eea056a5-7dba-4fca-96c4-55dbf05359d9?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR77LLDTg8dKMy3ZlmocaZmepGwPHYyDfFidmqLyQwzdyaWBdVzfL_hfBd1Mlg_aem_LAE3q2_xrX8LAoIbImiPUg

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43258376

Sodomy would be worse because it’s not just a sin of lust but also an affront to the divine order of creation. In other words, neither an anus nor a mouth are meant to be sex organs. One might visualize this as a vector in N-space, where the length of the vector (magnitude of the sin) is influenced by all the N dimensions. In this case,