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Meta-analysis in general are not to be trusted - at all...
I would love to hear a more detailed discussion of the problems with meta-analysis.
I wonder if there's something to this line of reasoning (there may not be):
There doesn't seem to be robust personal reasons why someone would not want to be a wirehead, but when reading some of the responses a bit of (poorly understood) Kant flashed through my mind.
While we could say something like 'X' should want to be a wirehead; we can't really say that the entire world should become wireheads as then there would be no one to change the batteries.
We have evolved certain behaviors that tend to express themselves as moral feelings when we feel driven to adopt behaviors that may tend to maximize the group's suitability at the expense of possible individual advantage. (Maybe…)
Some are even expressing shock and outrage over this product, and condemning >its purchasers.
Shock and outrage sound like moral reactions. (I also think that they are likely the reactions that would be had in real life as well.) Could it be that some people 'understand' with their group survival (read: moral) sense that if everyone were to wirehead, the group would not survive (I imagine procreation, while the mechanism of which would probably play a central role in the simulation, needs to happen outside the simulation to produce children and sustain humanity)
As a sort of corollary, even if everyone does not wirehead, could it be that people know that if an individual wireheads she is no longer contributing to the survival and wealth of the group? Could this be where the indignation comes from?
Granted I’m positing that all of this happens under-the-hood, but I’m comfortable making the hypothesis that we have evolved to find reprehensible behavior which disadvantages the group. (This also fits nicely, I think, with that nebulous 'I want to make a real difference' stated goal.)
I'd come along to a meeting that took place in London centered around Less Wrong/ Overcoming Bias type topics.
To be honest, the more 'strongly' Transhumanist topics don't excite me too much, but I'd love a good conversation about rationality, ethics, the (non)meaning of life, etc...
I agree that a format based on a speaker and then discussion would lend itself to a more on-topic discussion. Alternatively, for some topics more than others, a 'book-club' type approach might work:
We could, for example, all read Mill or Bentham and then one could be designated to MC the event, get conversation going, pop the attendees out of any infinite conversational loops, provide cheesy-poofs, and other duties befitting a group of people who argue on the internet. (Perhaps the one suggesting the next topic/book could then take on the responsibility for the next meeting.)
Thoughts?
(Short-time reader, first time poster)