Ethics in a Feedback Loop: A Parable

Ok, anyone reading the comments knows what this is a allegory for. Before reading on, remember your current stance on this issue.

I'm now going to interpret this as being about education in general.

Green Martians == uneducated

Blue Martians == educated

humans == society, and especially taxpayers

nice tickling == the social benefits of having highly educated professionals

painful tickling == the financial costs of maintaining an education system

Suddenly the anti-creep feminists are libertarians, arguing that tax is theft, even if used to educate children. Others argue against this, saying that everyone has a right to an education, which is a social good that trumps individual property rights.

Some think you should be able to pay for private tickling. Others say this is elitist.

Is it unethical for a Green Martian to attempt to metamorphose? Does this depend on whether they believe themselves to be fast or slow learners?

Clearly, some Green Martians must attempt to metamorphose in order to maintain a technologically advanced society. The current social norm is that all Green Martians, no matter how stupid, must attempt to metamorphose at least to the age of 16. Indeed, in many places the slower-learning Greens are given extra tickling time, more than the fast learners.

Some people believe that some Martians are inherently better at tickling, and that those who struggle to metamorphose are in some way inferior. Some even say that for the slowest-learning Martians it is immoral to try and better themselves by being educated, rather then accepting their lowly place in society.

These people are often accused of being ableist, classist and elitist.

Some people even believe that the slowest-learning Martians should not reproduce, saving the next generation the pain of their stinging tentacles.

These people are generally regarded as crypto-Nazis.

So, now that everyone is thoroughly mindkilled due to the mention of both PUA and Nazis, did your stance change? If so, does this reveal underlying biases, or is it more a matter that allegories are inherently imperfect representations of the actual issue being discussed?

You know, there's a different possible interpretation here that I like much better.

Green martians - people who are a drag socially.
Blue martians - people who are more fun than effort.
Humans - other people in these interactions.

One thing I like is that this interpretation contains the other. It also leads to some additional complications. When the interpretation applies to all people, then each person is some species of martian, and each person is a human. Each person wants to be tickled by blue martians, and each person wants to tickle other people. This allows for much more interesting behavior, if we model social interactions as some degree of reciprocal tickling.

Issues with this interpretation: Ignores context (someone may be a blue martian in one situation and a green martian in the other). Treats blue/green as a dichotomy rather than a continuum. Reduces interactions to one thing (this makes it too easy for the hypothetical people!).

(Note : This parable is obviously an allegory for something.

I'm glad you spelled the analogy out in another comment, because I would never have guessed that was what you were talking about.

That the parable can be interpreted according to that key is such an outlandish statement that I can immediately think of several blogs where, if I bought it to their attention (which I certainly will not), it would elicit an avalanche of incredulous scorn that would dwarf all the drama about Roko's Basilisk.

Discussing whether the allegory is valid is interesting, but will lead to mindkill.

Quite so, and therefore I will not be drawn into explaining why I find the analogy so crazy, and am not asking you to explain it further.

I would prefer if the discussion could stay focused on the Martians, so that we can discuss the ethics of a hypothetical scenario that may not be relevant in real life. I am genuinely confused about the ethics of this, and I think this can lead to an interesting question regardless of whether it is applicable to humans)

You can't have it both ways. As a purely hypothetical scenario of no relevance to real life, it is of no interest. As a purely hypothetical scenario of direct analogical relevance to real life, it is of interest to precisely the degree that it is an accurate analogy; but you want to forestall any discussion of its accuracy. You want to talk about PUA without talking about PUA. The thing cannot be done.

The whole posting reminds me of the situation where someone comes to you and says, "Suppose someone did such and such, and acted so and so, and then this and that, wouldn't they be wrong wrong wrong?" and it's clearly a tendentious, self-serving account of some drama they've got into with someone else. They're not looking for advice, they're trying to co-opt you into giving them validation but screening off the actual facts from you.

Low status men=/= men with poor social skills, even though there is a lot of overlap. Social skills are not binary, and neither is status. As someone else in the comments mentioned, there's a continuum. Most men are teal, rather than GREEN or BLUE. Similarly, "tickling" is not a category on its own (I assume by tickling you mean flirting). Social interactions (even if you view them as entirely about seduction) are on a continuum. Talking to someone pleasantly is a skill you can develop without ever flirting/tickling anyone. Or to bring it back to your allegory: the way to "practice" tickling is to start with waving your tentacles at someone without touching or hurting them, and with no intention of stinging them if they let their guard down.

I am amused to report that this post was fuel for a non-allegorical nightmare for me last night. In my dream, the martians, united, were convinced humans must also have two stages of development, and did some kind of spore-related experiments on us, trying to trigger this second stage. Cue zombies.

Some ideas:

• It might be good to have designated spaces where Green Martians can practice tickling participating humans. As more and more of these spaces become available, it becomes more and more socially unacceptable for Green Martians to tickle humans elsewhere. Obviously, for this to work, there would need to be a sufficiently high number of humans willing to participate.

• For me, a large part of minor annoyances is anticipating minor annoyances. Imagining myself as a human, I might get really sick of stung randomly throughout the day. It would be easier to deal with the occasional sting if they were constrained to certain times of the day or to certain environments. For example, I think it would be good to make a taboo against tickling at work. The blue martians can always tickle later, and the humans would be able to work without having to worry about getting stung.

• Now imagining myself as a Green Martian, I feel like I would naturally feel bad about stinging humans, and try to avoid it for the most part. This anxiety would be significantly worse if the humans visibly disliked me for stinging them. But I would be desperate for someone who could help me become a Blue Martian. Learning the Blue Martian's techniques would be very tempting... Something that might be a good alternative would be if there were humans working with the Blue Martians, finding ways to make the techniques more robust.

• Also, studying the transformation process more carefully would probably be very helpful for everyone.

Here are some partial attempts at a solution, ordered from the one I would support the most to the one I would support the least:

• Recruit the subset of rare humans who enjoy green tickling and employ them as tickling punchbags for green Martians to practice on.
• Make green Martians wear soft clothes that do not dampen their tentacles' sensitivity too much.
• Use some medium (animals, dolls, androids) where green Martians can practice their tickling skills without harming anyone.
• Find a way to chemically induce metamorphosis in green Martians.
• Use plastic surgery, medications, or artificial selection to make green Martians' tentacles less stingy.
• For parents and/or cell donors who are willing, find a way to engineer blue-born Martians.
• Perform non-interventional, follow-up studies on elderly green Martians to assess the worth of a non-tickling life.

This parable is lacking a key concept: consent.

Are we talking about allowing Martians to tickle humans with or without the human consent? If there is (voluntary, informed) consent I don't see any ethical problems. If there is no consent, I see lots of problems which include the Blue Martians.

It's been a day since this discussion peaked, and I've had a chance to think a little bit more about this on a meta-level:

First of all, having a community built around epistemic hygiene is extremely valuable. Discussions about topics that involve mindkill are incredibly unpleasant, and may make it impossible for such a community to be successful. I therefore fully understand people who want to keep these discussions away from Less Wrong, and I won't post again on this topic or any other mindkilling topic.

That said, I think the inability to discuss this rationally and dispassionately is a major problem for society in general, which may contribute to some individuals with abnormal psychology reacting in unpredictable ways. My only view on the object-level question is that low status men get a raw deal, that there is no good solution to the problem, and that PUA is probably very bad ethically. I have natural sympathy for low-status men, but I recognize that I may be biased because I have no experience seeing the situation from a female perspective. The post was an attempt to invite people to help me update my moral beliefs, by hearing from people who do not have those biases. Importantly, this could not have been done on any other website, because they would have been unable to convince me that their moral framework was coherent, that they are being honest about their ethical beliefs, or that they have made a good-faith effort to model low status males as relevant participants in the moral calculus.

There was some really good discussion in this thread, particularly Skeptical Lurker's comment, which may have made me aware of a contradiction in my worldview. I will keep thinking about what updates may be necessary. This is exactly the kind of feedback that I was hoping for - changing your mind is a good thing, and it is only possible if we can gave a genuine discussion as rationalists.

That said, for the Less Wrong community, the cost of these discussions probably outweighs the benefits.

I am happy to see that a dubious parable on LW is being called out as such, when so many seem to get too much credit.

To address the "Martian Dilemma" I would say that maybe "blue" and "green" are entirely misunderstood by some of the martians themselves, and that an earnest, respectful and mature approach to tickling would take the sting out of the actions of even the greenest of martians. More benefit will come to both martians and humans from rethinking the social frameworks in which tickling takes place than from blue martians giving internet advice that may or may not reflect what actually helped them advance in the art of pleasant tickling.

This is not to say that it is easy for the desperate green martian to see this, but should you meet any green martian you should temper any tickling tips with at least an admonition to remember that there is much more to life than tickling and becoming blue, and that while you can be blue martian without being good, confident, mature and respectful, becoming good, confident, mature and respectful lead naturally to blueness and tickling.

Possibly orthogonal to this discussion but possibly also useful information for future discussions: There seems to be an assertion that one group of sapients should or will necessarily accept arbitrary moral assertions made by another group of sapients*. This is so farfetched as to be incredibly distracting.

* never mind getting the members of the second group to accept the arbitrary moral assertion.

As it is, I have trouble considering the ethical implications of this system because I keep reflexively 'anthropomorphizing' your parable-humans and imagining ways in which they might resolve the double binds to mutual satisfaction. If I'm reading your intentions correctly, it might be better to use 'Red Martians' instead of humans. Suppose that 5% of all Martians are born Red, and are thrown in to a terrible and incoherent rage whenever they see or communicate with another Red Martian- so they cannot coordinate their responses and must live isolated among Blue and Green Martians that love to tickle them, and tend to accept Green and Blue social values that tickling need not be consensual. Does this preserve the moral problems you are trying to examine?

(This may undermine the allegorical clarity of your scenario, but that could be an advantage if you're trying to think through a particular ethical problem in isolation.)

EDIT: Now that I know what the allegory actually is, I am fairly uncomfortable with the fact that this variant seemed reasonable. I'll leave this comment here for legacy purposes and to respect PeerGynt's preferred method of approaching the problem, but I want to clarify that this was not intended to be commentary on gender or PUA strategies in any way.

I want to point out that I, perhaps incorrectly, assumed this thought experiment could be interesting even to the anti-PUA crowd, because it would help them distill their thinking about whether they object to PUA on epistemic grounds ("they have incorrect beliefs about female psychology") or if they object on moral grounds ("they draw incorrect / evil conclusions about the ethical implications of the theory")

From the reactions, it is tempting to conclude that most people object to PUA partially on epistemic grounds. However, it is hard for me to understand why a disagreement about facts would lead to such heated debate in a community based around the Litany of Tarski.

Per author's request, I am not discussing the allegory. My discussion of the hypothetical as presented does not imply endorsement of any kind of allegory. A corollary of this is that by proposing a solution I do not endorse any arguably analogous solution in the real world. Also I'm ignoring the whole mothership thing because that hasn't been elaborated enough to discuss without importing lots of assumptions based on the analogy.

With that said...

One big question is what the net human utility from martian tickling is. If it's net positive, we should definitely encourage more tickling. If not, things get hairier; we could look at total utility, but this rationale makes Martians a bit utility-monstrous, so it might be preferable to find or create an acceptable way for Martians to compensate humans for tickling privilege.

Our key concerns will be probably be utility and fairness, both for humans and for Martians. It's pretty important to make sure Green Martians get a chance to practice. One option would be for all humans to agree to make themselves available for a certain number of Green tickling; a solution requiring less global coordination would be for humans to be able to pair with Green Martians under a binding contract that guarantees a certain amount of post-metamorphosis tickling in exchange for allowing the Green Martian to practice enough to metamorphose. This latter arrangement has advantages of also allowing slow-learning Green Martians to negotiate compensation deals with their human partners if that's allowed, and the human and the Martian can decide what tickling techniques will be net wins.

But these are global changes. If the world doesn't make sense, what's a compassionate Green Martian to do? One option is to try to find humans willing to consider alternate tickling norms and reach agreements with them. If that doesn't work, then if tickling is generally a net increase to human utility, I'd say it's probably fine to go out and tickle the way Martians tend to, since humans implicitly expect this. Adopt the techniques iff you think doing so will be a net utility win. The ethics of spreading info on the techniques depends on your best estimate of the difficult empirical question of whether they'll be used well or poorly.

EDIT: Elsewhere in the comments the hypothetical is modified to specify that explicitly-consensual tickling is ineffective. The best solution is then to leverage implicit consent as much as possible. If being in a particular place at a particular time, or wearing a marker, is sufficiently implicit, then the all-humans-make-themselves-available-for-tickling solution can work. The pairing solution can only work if there's a way to pair without explicit tickling-consent: for instance, if blanket permission to tickle in the future doesn't count as explicit consent for any particular tickling instance.

Also, some key issues not specified in the hypothetical: Do martians and humans differ in their (dis)utilities from tickling, and does each martian/human's (dis)utility vary with time and mood? If so, we'd want to incentivise higher-utility ticklings by e.g. letting humans choose times not to be tickled or giving especially Green-averse humans a way to opt out of Green tickling and compensate the rest of humanity somehow. Do martians care who they tickle, and do humans care what martian tickles them beyond the color? If so, there's a match component that we want some way to optimize for. Does marginal (dis)utility of tickling change, for either species, based on how many ticklings they're involved in? If so, this is something to be strategic about; we could either choose a few volunteer humans to be green-tickled for a living, or try to ensure that green-tickling is as evenly spread as possible. Do martians have a desire to metamorphose independent of whether this will allow them to tickle more? If not, we need to ensure there's some incentive in place for them to do so. I have intentionally refused to import answers to these questions from across the analogy.

Firstly, I like your analogy.

Secondly, I would say that all ethics occurs in a feedback loop. Personally, I would recommend Buchanan's short essay "Order Defined in the Process of its Emergence", which in my opinion applies just as much to ethical choices as it does to economic ones. I don't think it's meaningful to ask whether it's ethical for Martians to tickle humans as an abstract question, any more than it's meaningful to ask whether it's ethical for a lion to eat an antelope - or for an antelope to run away. Rather, you need to ask - what is life like for Martians who internalise a value that it's (not) ethical to tickle humans. What is life like for humans who internalise a value that it's (not) ethical to be so tickled? What is life like in societies where those values are promulgated? And of course the question of "what is life like" is itself value-laden.

In other words, what is the value of your values?

In my experience, humans are not delicate flowers. They want to be tickled. They are forgiving if a Martian does it wrong and accidentally stings. If a Martian dedicates himself to never stinging a human, humans will never praise him for it, because he will remain Green forever - from a human point of view, the good Martians are the Blue ones. His values bring no value to him, or to anyone else. Instead, he is going to end up gazing at his own navel (or perhaps, antenna) wondering why the humans are so cruel. But he has nothing of value to offer them, and he's dug that hole for himself.

Is Action X moral?

That's an ill posed question. Moral, according to what/whose moral standard?

If Clippy successfully grinds up half of humanity, and churns them out as shiny new paper clips, he would likely consider himself mighty moral_clippy ( if he even has a concept of morality - does he?). But we wouldn't find him so moral_human, or moral_human_i.

The various twists and turns of the scenario merely obfuscate the more fundamental issue - what/whose moral standards are we talking about?

The obvious solution would be that those Green Martians pay the humans that they want to tickle to get the human to allow them to tickle them.

Consent is a core element of human morality.

I am going to predict that you are talking about cvlx hc

Human ethicists have long struggled to come up with a coherent ethical theory that determines whether tickling humans is morally acceptable.

I'd say it is iff the humans consent to be ticked. (But they needn't consent unconditionally; they may e.g. consent on condition that the martians pay them money.)

(This is what sprang to my mind straight after reading the quoted paragraph, before I realized what this was an allegory for, but I still stand by it.)