The fact that I know about LessWrong because of Behind the Bastards should say a whole lot about how “moral” their “rationalism” really neither of those things and personally I feel like their thought predecessors would be pretty embarrassed by them
Yeah, rationalism has been twisted into individualism with a lot more steps. If they were truly rational (as in, considering our current knowledge of astrophysics and biology, the heat death of the universe and the origins of survival instinct), they would have probably ended up noticing that attempting to make things better for hypothetical future people is equally as worth(less) as making things better for the people of now - both are merely postponing the unavoidable.
Hadn’t noticed the reply until today, but the point is that the heat death of the universe makes all actions be effectively inconsequential in the long run - in a final state where nothing is able to suffer the consequences of our past actions or even remember them, the only thing in our control is how fast do we arrive there.
The fact that I know about LessWrong because of Behind the Bastards should say a whole lot about how “moral” their “rationalism” really neither of those things and personally I feel like their thought predecessors would be pretty embarrassed by them
Yeah, rationalism has been twisted into individualism with a lot more steps. If they were truly rational (as in, considering our current knowledge of astrophysics and biology, the heat death of the universe and the origins of survival instinct), they would have probably ended up noticing that attempting to make things better for hypothetical future people is equally as worth(less) as making things better for the people of now - both are merely postponing the unavoidable.
It sounds completely irrational to seriously consider the heat death’s impact on anything when nothing will be alive to experience it, if you ask me
Hadn’t noticed the reply until today, but the point is that the heat death of the universe makes all actions be effectively inconsequential in the long run - in a final state where nothing is able to suffer the consequences of our past actions or even remember them, the only thing in our control is how fast do we arrive there.