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comment by Richard_Kennaway · 2025-02-21T15:34:13.560Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
When we look at experience itself, there is no fixed “I” to be found.
Speak for yourself. That whole paragraph does not resemble my experience. You recommend Parfit, but I've read Parfit and others and remain true to myself.
comment by Viliam · 2025-02-21T10:52:52.674Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
When we look at experience itself, there is no fixed “I” to be found. Boundaries between self and other aren’t innate to reality but drawn after the fact. We carve up this vast space of experience into “mine” and “yours,” but these divisions are somewhat arbitrary.
The boundaries are somewhat arbitrary, but it seems to me that if we keep going in this direction far enough, at the end of the road is equanimity with the universe being converted to paperclips. (Which would be a wrong thing in my current unenlightened opinion.) After all, there is no sharp boundary between "me" and a paperclip.
Replies from: noah-jackson↑ comment by Noahh (noah-jackson) · 2025-02-21T15:18:24.947Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I see where you’re coming from, but my point about boundaries applies specifically within the domain of conscious experience. There’s no clear boundary between ‘you’ and ‘me’ in that space because consciousness doesn’t seem to have non-arbitrary borders. But paperclips aren’t conscious, so they don’t even exist within that domain of experience to begin with.
So while self/other distinctions might be constructed, that doesn’t mean we should erase distinctions that actually matter—like the difference between something that has subjective experience and something that doesn’t. That’s why I wouldn’t extend the same boundary-dissolving logic to a paperclip (or a rock, or a chair) in the same way I would to other conscious beings.
Replies from: Mitchell_Porter↑ comment by Mitchell_Porter · 2025-02-22T00:25:39.714Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
There’s no clear boundary between ‘you’ and ‘me’ in that space because consciousness doesn’t seem to have non-arbitrary borders.
Then why don't you know what I had for breakfast?
comment by FlorianH (florian-habermacher) · 2025-02-23T02:02:11.230Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
If resources and opportunities are not perfectly distributed, the best advancements may remain limited to the wealthiest, making capital the key determinant of access.
Largely agree. Nuance: Instead natural resources may quickly become the key bottleneck, even more so than what we usually denote 'capital' (i.e. built environment). So it's specifically natural resources you want to hold, even more than capital; the latter may become easier, cheaper to reproduce with the ASI, so yield less scarcity rent
An exception is of course if you hold 'capital' that in itself consists of particularly many embodied resources instead of embodied labor (with 'embodied' I mean: inputs had been used in its creation): its value will reflect the scarce natural resources it 'contains', and may thus also be high.