[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The same way that you predict the effect of any action on generations yet unborn. Inspired guesswork.

Look at Russia and China in 1900. What could benefit present and future generations more than a communist revolution?

I don't see how it can lead to determine the future actions of a specific individual.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Veganism will win, but you're wrong about why

Loose workings for how many cows my dairy consumption will kill (for a reason unknown to me, this text didn't render on the video, sorry): Based on my current rate of dairy consumption (1 litre milk + 500g of cheese per week) I’ll consume another 15,600 litres of milk if I reach 82. The average cow produces 49,780 litres of milk throughout its life, and for every cow there is a culled bull and a child that’s taken away.

Timestamps:

00:00 Why Make it Easy?
02:48 Can They Suffer?
06:53 Unnecessary Harm
16:02 An Arbitrary Definition
19:34 Two Sovereign Masters
27:58 Why Not Vegan?!

[alancalverd]

I don't see how it can lead to determine the future actions of a specific individual.

In order to have a revolution, you need to persuade a few million individuals to behave in a certain way, beheading aristocrats or marching across China, for instance. And the leaders of the revolution are subject to your judgement of morality.

Problem is that society evolves, so what may appear to be in the short term interest of the peasant army may pave the way for repression of their descendants.

Whilst vegans don't drink milk, the quantity of water required to produce a liter of almond "milk" is ludicrous. Nonveggies argue that the culled bull calf will be eaten anyway, either now as veal or later as beef, but beef is a very inefficient form of grass-protein conversion so now is better.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

In order to have a revolution, you need to persuade a few million individuals to behave in a certain way, beheading aristocrats or marching across China, for instance. And the leaders of the revolution are subject to your judgement of morality.

Problem is that society evolves, so what may appear to be in the short term interest of the peasant army may pave the way for repression of their descendants.

With more knowledge and more accurate and precise model of reality, we can avoid and prevent more immoral actions. We forgive but not forget. Any moral rule involving reward and punishment system is meaningless if it doesn't help making life easier for future conscious beings.

[alancalverd]

Lenin, Mao and Hitler had very good models of reality that helped them persuade millions of individuals to do all sorts of things that you might consider immoral.

I was at a Monday project meeting some years back, when we were building a new clinic. Doctors, scientists, engineers, craftsmen and bankers sat around my boardroom table. The architect arrived last and said he had just returned from a  visit to Auschwitz "which was designed, built and run by people just like us". Sobering thought, my friend.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Lenin, Mao and Hitler had very good models of reality that helped them persuade millions of individuals to do all sorts of things that you might consider immoral.

The collapse of the systems that they built show that their models of reality are not as good as you'd like to think.

[alancalverd]

No, it just shows that society is dynamic and evolutionary (except in the USA).

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

No, it just shows that society is dynamic and evolutionary (except in the USA).

It shows that the models don't take dynamics of the society into account, which makes them inaccurate and can only be good for a short period of time.

[alancalverd]

In order to model the future evolution of society completely, you will need a complete model of every individual plus a predictive model of the climate and all natural disasters.

It is for example difficult to imagine how science would have evolved if Newton was not in quarantine. Or if someone had studied the antibiotic effect as thoroughly as Fleming (who just noticed the accidental contamination of a culture) in time to cure Henry VIII's syphilis: No Anglican church → vastly different history of Britain and America....

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

In order to model the future evolution of society completely, you will need a complete model of every individual plus a predictive model of the climate and all natural disasters.

It is for example difficult to imagine how science would have evolved if Newton was not in quarantine. Or if someone had studied the antibiotic effect as thoroughly as Fleming (who just noticed the accidental contamination of a culture) in time to cure Henry VIII's syphilis: No Anglican church → vastly different history of Britain and America....

With finite data and computational resources to run a model of the world, we must work smart, using Pareto principle, and address most significant things first.
To avoid unnecessary and inevitable disagreements, we need to identify common goals among society members.
To avoid misunderstandings, we also need to address ambiguous terminology in morality.

[alancalverd]

 Common goal: to be richer then everyone else. Now avoid the disagreements.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Common goal: to be richer then everyone else. Now avoid the disagreements.

What do you mean by rich? Why should everyone wants to be rich?
To be richer then everyone else, you can make yourself richer, or make everyone else poorer. Is the later equivalent to the former? Why or why not?

[alancalverd]

I can't answer why, but I've never met anyone who aspired to be poorer than anyone else. Have you?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I can't answer why, but I've never met anyone who aspired to be poorer than anyone else. Have you?

No. But I've read some. Although I can't confirm if it's true.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

https://phys.org/news/2022-06-algorithm-crime-week-advance-reveals.html
Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence have sparked interest from governments that would like to use these tools for predictive policing to deter crime. Early efforts at crime prediction have been controversial, however, because they do not account for systemic biases in police enforcement and its complex relationship with crime and society.

The progress in AI should remind us to be clearer about what's allowed and what's not in a society. It must contain a formal definition of morality.

[alancalverd]

What's not allowed in society is called "crime".  Proof of intent is always difficult, but preventive intervention is always welcome.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Common goal: to be richer then everyone else. Now avoid the disagreements.

What do you mean by rich? Why should everyone wants to be rich?
To be richer then everyone else, you can make yourself richer, or make everyone else poorer. Is the later equivalent to the former? Why or why not?

I can't answer why, but I've never met anyone who aspired to be poorer than anyone else. Have you?

Here's my answer. Being rich gives us the ability to make someone else do something that we don't want to do or can't do by ourselves. That something are often necessary to achieve our goals, or even necessary just to stay alive, which is one of our basic instincts.
Being rich doesn't help much if we live in a primitive or isolated society. In most of human history, no matter how rich we are, we couldn't cure heart attack or go to the moon.

[alancalverd]

Here's my answer. Being rich gives us the ability to make someone else do something that we don't want to do or can't do by ourselves.

I think you have just discovered the fundamental point of money. In principle, you get it by working for someone else, and  use it to get a third party to do something for you. It is (or should be) the countercurrent of labour.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Here's my answer. Being rich gives us the ability to make someone else do something that we don't want to do or can't do by ourselves.

I think you have just discovered the fundamental point of money. In principle, you get it by working for someone else, and  use it to get a third party to do something for you. It is (or should be) the countercurrent of labour.

Another way to look at money or currency is as a bookkeeping tool for resources creations, distributions, and consumptions. So, collecting more of it can only be an instrumental goal. Another way to do that is by asking from socialist governments. Or empowering ourselves through education and/or automation.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The Truth About Why America Dropped Atomic Bombs on Japan
The atomic bomb proved to be the most devastating weapon used in any war, past or present, but was the United States justified in dropping two nuclear warheads on Japan for their unconditional surrender? Check out today's insane new video and maybe your opinion will change on whether or not the US should have nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Here's a viewer's comment.

I think that one thing that gets overlooked in this debate a lot is the fact that at the time the after effects of radiation exposure was not fully understood. The US sent in 250k troops to occupy the bombed cities, with a great number of them suffering the rest or their lives or even dying prematurely.  A vast amount of the citizens were killed not from the initial explosion, but from radiation afterwards. Now knowing the effects 80 years later, it changes how we view the decision vs how it would have been viewed and justified back then. I think with history we look at it from our standpoint too much, and don't consider the views, culture, and morals at the time enough.

Morality is about weighing the costs vs benefits of things, and choose those with more benefits. Our knowledge and assumptions put into the weighing process will affect our moral decisions.

We will say that the bombing is immoral if the bombers knew that it would bring more negative effects to future conscious beings but did it any way for one reason or another.