Andrew Catton

Always looking for better explanations. @MakeAndPlayHQ

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@robinhanson Not sure about the bosses part, or the books part, but r/teachers has no shortage of complaining about students and assistants.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

I think the main thing that’s striking to me about “Expanding the moral circle to include non-humans is actually immoral and should be discouraged.” is the extreme confidence it implies about the truth of the matter. It reads to me as overconfidence, given the arguments I’ve heard here and elsewhere.

On the one hand, who cares about confidence? It’s just a psychological state and all we should care about is our best explanations at the time, yada yada yada.

I think it’s worth keeping in mind the consequences of being right or wrong. Maybe your best theory is that the rickety-looking bridge in front of you will bear your weight. But if you are wrong, you fall to your death. If it’s only a 5 minute detour to avoid the bridge and get to the same place, it seems worthwhile to consider how confident you really are. Possibly even if it’s far less convenient than that.

Similarly, when it comes to who or what gets included in the moral circle, being wrong is a moral disaster. And no, this doesn’t mean we worry about rocks “just in case,” because rocks don’t even have nervous systems. Our best theory, that they don’t suffer, is very well founded. But with some non-human animals, where there many similarities to us, we really are relying on theories like “not understanding means you can’t suffer” (which so far seems like mistaken logic to me) and “non-universal explainers aren’t conscious” which reads to me like a bald assertion about one of the least understood topics we are aware of. Neither of these stand up to criticism well enough.

I get the pragmatic reasons to express this confidence: there are so many anti-human memes spreading around out there, seeing people as an evil spoiling the natural world. I can understand the desire to combat those ideas, which I also find dangerously wrong. As well, it would be really really convenient if “animals don’t suffer” was known to be true. I like meat and other animal products and I don’t like feeling bad about using them. Unfortunately, neither of these reasons make the claim true.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

Hm. I meant the question more as an alternative best theory, and to critique the logic of the argument, not as an airy-fairy “what if the sky were purple?” kind of thing. It seems like you have an explanatory theory of why non-human animals can’t suffer, based on universal explainership. This seems to me like a reasonable approach since that’s arguably the most important difference between us and them (and there are many similarities otherwise). But, I’ve had a hard time being convinced by its logic.

This exchange has been helpful for me in understanding why that might be: UEs being able to interpret the same physical experience with widely different positive or negative valences (which is quite true) does *not* logically imply the converse, that a non-UE with much of the same experiencing hardware couldn’t still suffer or feel pleasure. In fact, one could imagine that they more reliably experience the same thing as one another in the same circumstances, which could make it *easier* to treat them morally(!)

In any case, I’m still unsure. “Since we don’t know, we shouldn’t worry about it too much.” is not the position I’d want to fall back on though. It’s the mirror of “Since we don’t know, we *should* worry,” which arguably could make even more sense when it comes to potentially causing a lot of suffering. But I generally hate that argument too.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

Yeah, it seems likely to me that we are capable of a far wider range of types of suffering (and pleasure) than other animals. No argument there. And don’t worry, I really really get how special UEs are in the universe. I swear 😂

It’s less obvious to me that we are capable of greater _extremes_ of suffering, but maybe that is true too? I’m not sure how we could judge that. Even if is true, I’d want to grant beings capable of suffering-but-not-as-much-as-people some moral concern, counter to your original moral circle claim.

As for consciousness… it’s a hard problem (ha). I’m fairly lost on whether and how much and what flavor to extend to different types of animals. It’s far from obvious to me that you must be a UE to have consciousness. Maybe that’s true, maybe not, but I haven’t heard an especially convincing argument either way. Have you?

So yeah.. to me at least, it seems like there’s some real cause to be unsure about whether animals should be entirely excluded from the moral circle of concern, even if we understandably want to make people much much more central.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@andrewcatton Sure, it could be, but we are in a world where lots of things could be. Maybe trees suffer.

Since we don’t know, we shouldn’t worry about it too much, especially compared to what we do know, which is that status of people. This is why we should vastly privilege people.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

Those examples are the kind I had in mind when I said that understanding can make suffering worse or better (all the way to not being suffering at all). So, that works as an explanation on one direction: a particular understanding can (massively) impact one’s suffering (or pleasure) from the same physical experience. I’m not so sure it works the other way though, allowing you to say the lack of understanding makes suffering impossible.

Couldn’t it just be that the lack of understanding makes *changing* the amount of suffering or pleasure from a particular physical experience impossible? So, if you lack understanding and are touched by hot coals, you can’t interpret it as anything other than severe suffering, while perhaps a person skilled in certain types of meditative practice could?

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

Interesting. Have you worked out why "suffering requires understanding"? I can certainly see a relation between having good explanations of what is going on and the amount of suffering (I can imagine it making suffering worse or better in different situations), but it's not obvious to me why understanding would be required to suffer at all. How would you know if that wasn't the case?

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@blisstweeting @marinwaves I would be much more interested in “lost in a recommendation algorithm time”

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@blisstweeting @marinwaves Yeah “screen time” is only a little more specific than “eyes open time.” Too coarse grained to be useful imo.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@fordnation @StevenDelDuca If you take at face value that they allow police to focus on more useful activities while making roads around schools, etc. safer, why not keep the cameras, but distribute an equal portion of net revenue from them to each taxpayer as a cheque every year? Cash grab over.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

Yeah this gets at the heart of the problem with many ideas around most “progressive”schooling and “gentle” parenting: if you have your own agenda for what the kids should do, no matter how you go about making it happen, it’s still in a sense authoritarian and coercive (and can even be worse if it’s covert, confusing and manipulative).

I can’t find the the talk it’s from, but Daniel Greenberg (who co-founded Sudbury Valley Schools) once said something like “if you aren't going to let your kid be in a truly free situation, don't send them to a progressive school, just send them to military school so things are at least clear.”

The only way out is to not have your own agenda for them and just help them achieve their own. Also a good plan for the adults in our lives.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@astupple Congrats Aaron! Can’t wait to see if there are any specifics I disagree with.. and also all the things I probably haven’t even considered yet.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

The thing that I find impactful in that movie is how easy it is to blink and accidentally “lose time.” The relativistic time dilation effects are a hammer-fist metaphor for missing out on the experience of huge swaths of other people’s lives or even your own, due to losing touch or just not paying enough attention.

Seems like it should apply to mothers as much as fathers, or kids with their parents, or anyone who has lost touch with friends. Maybe men are more likely to lose touch with people? Or to not pay enough attention to their own lives?

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@__drewface @jrob385 I thought the important part for raw consumption was that it was frozen deeply enough (colder than a typical freezer) and long enough (a week?) to kill parasites without cooking. Sure, better sourced fish is great but assuming that means no parasites seems… hopeful.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@michael_nielsen Excellent, although for the sake of prosody: “But I did not shoot typography.”

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@TheAnnaGat This reminded me of a line from a country music song I haven’t heard in decades: “Everything happens either not at all or at the same time”

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@erikphoel Perhaps there’s a selection effect working here: many of the things you could do to garner the public attention necessary to be a cultural figure aren’t things a wise person wants to do.

[Anna Gát @TheAnnaGat]

When critics call a movie "important" and "necessary" you know it sucks.

[Andrew Catton @andrewcatton]

@TheAnnaGat I love that this is actually an optimistic take: you think you’ll finish it!