[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

H G Wells (or was it Olaf Stapledon?) described a distant future where everything appeared to the time traveller as slowed down and torpid, though as the thought processes of the inhabitants were equally slow, they were enjoying life on their own terms. So whilst we can predict a state of total entropy on the horizon, I think the horizon will recede asymptotically.

Time travel is just a fiction, which is logically impossible because it creates contradiction. It shouldn't be used to consider any decision.

[alancalverd]

So you never plan for the future? Little point in planning for the past, and the present is happening anyway. What a delightfully relaxed attitude - and so uncharacteristic of a man who claims to be searching for an ultimate goal! I think the West Indian adjective "mellow" is appropriate....fish in the sea, beer in the can, fruit in the tree, so be cool man!

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So you never plan for the future? Little point in planning for the past, and the present is happening anyway. What a delightfully relaxed attitude - and so uncharacteristic of a man who claims to be searching for an ultimate goal! I think the West Indian adjective "mellow" is appropriate....fish in the sea, beer in the can, fruit in the tree, so be cool man!

Every plan is for the future. No need to be redundant.
If your plan requires time travel to make it work, you better start to look for a better plan.

[alancalverd]

It requires imagination and the ability to extrapolate, which is what the author had. Then to compare your prediction with the status quo, you imagine  yourself transported instantly to the predicted situation as an observer or a naive participant. 

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Making predictions can be done using appropriate models and assumptions. No time travel is needed.
What do you plan for heat death of the universe?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Another example of immoral actions where short term goals take higher priority than long term goals, and larger stake holders are sacrificed for smaller ones.

[alancalverd]

Making predictions can be done using appropriate models and assumptions. No time travel is needed.
What do you plan for heat death of the universe?

But what is the point if making plans if there will be nobody to see the outcome?

If we assume that we or our descendants will be there, our preferred goal will be one that would appeal to us in the future. So we have to imagine ourselves in the position of a time traveller. You do it every day: you have a vision of yourself at work or on holiday, and if the vision is appealing, you get on the train and go there..

I have no plans for the heat death of the universe. Homo sapiens will be extinct by then.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

But what is the point if making plans if there will be nobody to see the outcome?

That's where I got my conclusion about the universal terminal goal. I just extended the definition of somebody, no longer restricted to homo sapiens in current form. I removed all arbitrary restrictions, except that they must be conscious.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets today. And while these cars will ultimately be safer and cleaner than their manual counterparts, they can’t completely avoid accidents altogether. How should the car be programmed if it encounters an unavoidable accident? Patrick Lin navigates the murky ethics of self-driving cars.

Even with self driving cars, accidents can and will still happen. And their outcome may be determined months or years in advance by programmers or policy makers.

Solving complex dynamic calculations in real time can be difficult, and sometimes even give wrong answers. That's why contemplating about them in advance may help improving the result. We can make a list of some probable and conceivable situations, set the rule and standard for making decisions to make priority list. Refusing to make it would effectively let the decisions to be made by random chance. The video above at 2:00 timestamp shows an example.

Is it morally acceptable to leave someone's fate to random chance? especially when a better alternative is available?

Many exercises on moral decision making emphasize on mitigating incidents. Of course, they are more thrilling and less boring. But in real life, preventing them from happening in the first place is an immensely more effective to get desired results.
Just like process safety concept, hazard identification orders us to make multilayered countermeasures. In the automated cars manufacturer' side, the occurence of similar incidents can be significantly reduced by keeping safe distance from vehicles in front of them. Improving reaction time and maneuverability can also help the case.
From regulator's side, they can reduce the occurence of similar incidents by stricter rules to transport cargo. They should penalize irresponsible behaviors, but the decision should be socialized in advance. If it's explicitly stated in the form of law that irresponsible bikers get lower priorities to save in the algorithm of automated cars in such incidents, it would incentivize them to be more responsible in the future. If it still happen, then they should realize that it's the consequences they are willing to take for ignoring the rule.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Many exercises on moral decision making emphasize on mitigating incidents. Of course, they are more thrilling and less boring. But in real life, preventing them from happening in the first place is an immensely more effective to get desired results.

We can take some lessons learned from chess games. Let's say a game finished by a checkmate in move #50. The real decisive move may have happened several moves before that, e.g. #39. It could be a brilliant move by the winner, or a blunder by the loser. Subsequent moves may seem like merely its inevitable consequences.
Building a better virtual universe can help preventing blunders we might make in the future.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Another lesson we can learn from chess. In most cases, letting your pieces get captured by your opponent is a bad move. Unless you can get bigger advantage by doing it.

In chess, any move that eventually makes you win a game is a good move. But chess is a finite game, where every move can be evaluated retrospectively after the game ends. On the other hand, game of life has no foreseeable end.
Some individuals die, but life goes on. It's just like a chess piece being captured, and the game continues.

Real life also contains hidden information, which doesn't exist in chess. That's why we should stick to simple and proven rules, until we're confident that there's a better alternative. It can only be determined if we know the long term goal, so we can make comparison of expected consequences among different options. An accurate, precise, and relevant virtual universe can help us make better decisions.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Here is an example where individualistic based morality is not suitable for living socially.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If we assume that we or our descendants will be there, our preferred goal will be one that would appeal to us in the future. So we have to imagine ourselves in the position of a time traveller. You do it every day: you have a vision of yourself at work or on holiday, and if the vision is appealing, you get on the train and go there..

We can discard time travel if we don't stick to individualistic point of view, and embrace universal altruism.

Moreover, being altruistic prioritizes the well being of others rather than harming oneself. In your example, one of them can commit suicide, or go somewhere else to find another apple.

This problem is better answered in the discussion about universal terminal goal. It would be like jumping in to the final step here. But I'll do it anyway, lest I'll forget about it later.

Here is another expression for Universal terminal goal:
The universe should be kept containing some form of consciousness, but it doesn't have to contain me in particular. I'll just call this universal altruism principle, because, why not?

Apart from the universal altruism, there are non-universal altruism, e. g.
Individual altruism. A gecko drops its tail to distract a predator, and save its own consciousness.
Parental altruism. Parents sacrifice their own lives to save their children.
Kin altruism. Someone sacrifice their own lives to save their siblings or close relatives.
Tribal altruism. Someone sacrifice their own lives to save their tribe members.
National altruism. Someone sacrifice their own lives to save other individuals of the same nation.
Racial altruism. Someone sacrifice their own lives to save other individuals of the same race.
Species altruism. Someone sacrifice their own lives to save other individuals of the same species.
Genus altruism. Someone sacrifice their own lives to save other individuals of the same genus.
Universal altruism. Someone sacrifice their own lives to save other conscious entities.

The altruistic behaviors only make an evolutionary stable strategy if the one being saved is more likely to carry consciousness to the future than the one making the self sacrifice. Otherwise, it wouldn't be much better than suicide.

[alancalverd]

The first, last and only lesson of chess is that it is all about beating your opponent's king into submission, regardless of the cost to your own troops, whilst avoiding getting stuffed yourself. It is total war distilled into a non-contact sport. Not a good starting point for developing a moral code flavored with altruism.

[Just thinking]

I don't think they have come up with one yet but it would be good if someone did a really good one is needed.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The first, last and only lesson of chess is that it is all about beating your opponent's king into submission, regardless of the cost to your own troops, whilst avoiding getting stuffed yourself. It is total war distilled into a non-contact sport. Not a good starting point for developing a moral code flavored with altruism.

I'm sorry if that's really the only thing you can learn from game of chess. So let me share mine.

Game of chess can help us to exercise in decision making process effectively.

First, we need to identify success criteria. That's our terminal goal. In chess game, it's winning the game by checkmating the opponent's king.

Then identify valid steps/options available to us to achieve that goal. In real life, it's like discovering natural laws as well as social laws.

Then identify required steps to achieve the terminal goal. They are the instrumental goals.

Then make priorities. Don't confuse terminal goal from instrumental goal. In light of the universal terminal goal, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain are just instrumental goals. They are generally good things, as long as they don't obstruct our efforts to achieve the terminal goal.

Also identify how our opponent would react to our actions. It makes us think from the perspective of others. In real life, there would be more than two parties interacting simultaneously. But to learn something, we must start from the simple one.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Then make priorities. Don't confuse terminal goal from instrumental goal. In light of the universal terminal goal, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain are just instrumental goals. They are generally good things, as long as they don't obstruct our efforts to achieve the terminal goal.

We also need to be aware of selection bias. Queen is usually considered as highest value chess piece. So getting your queen captured is usually a bad move. But if you see from the list of best chess games of all time, you'll find that chess players who sacrificed their queen are likely end up as the winner.

[alancalverd]

That's our terminal goal. In chess game, it's winning the game by checkmating the opponent's king..................But if you see from the list of best chess games of all time, you'll find that chess players who sacrificed their queen are likely end up as the winner.

As I said

it is all about beating your opponent's king into submission, regardless of the cost to your own troops,

I strongly recommend The Queen's Gambit (Netflix). It won't improve your chess, but it's a damn good story, well told.

So back to morality: do you want to thrash your opponents, or minimise the harm to your own troops? And just to make life really interesting, what do you do about civil wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran? Can you justify or condemn invading Iraq? The Russian angle (particularly in Syria) has been to support the government in power on the basis of "better the devil you know", and hope eventually to control or trade with it as a secure and credible winner.  The US approach has been to try to impose democracy, however corrupt, from the outset.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

It is total war distilled into a non-contact sport. Not a good starting point for developing a moral code flavored with altruism.

Your statements above make me feel like you are missing my last, but not least important point here.

The altruistic behaviors only make an evolutionary stable strategy if the one being saved is more likely to carry consciousness to the future than the one making the self sacrifice. Otherwise, it wouldn't be much better than suicide.

[alancalverd]

So morality is what you do in the service of a concept that you think is more important than anyone and everyone. Not my definition, by any means, though at least two mad despots started a major war because of it, and it seems to lie at the base of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.