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One-Electron Universe

117 points · 94 comments · pella

  1. stared · · focus · HN ↗
    In the line, I recommend „The Egg” by Andy Weir <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.galactanet.com&#x2F;oneoff&#x2F;theegg_mod.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.galactanet.com&#x2F;oneoff&#x2F;theegg_mod.html
    1. ndarray · · focus · HN ↗
      Engage in the thought experiment that you are&#x2F;were&#x2F;will be every human for a sec. Is self-harm morally ok? Many would say yes. So &quot;the egg&quot; already gives those people a pass to hurt everyone else in this world because it&#x27;s a form of self-harm. Great. Now for those who explicitly don&#x27;t want to self-harm. &quot;The egg&quot; implies that your rebirths happen serially in meta-time. You live this life, then the next, then another,... those lives may overlap on earth, but in egg-time, they don&#x27;t. This means you can statistically expect you&#x27;ve already lived 50% of them. There&#x27;s no guarantee of this, but the distribution is normal, not uniform [1] (similar reasoning found in doomsday argument [2]). 50%, give or take, humans out there you&#x27;ve already been. Everything you do to them, you do to your PAST self. You&#x27;re not only absolved of moral accountability, but also of the physical consequences of treating them horribly. So while &quot;the egg&quot; tries to do the opposite, it really seems to justify psycho maxxing.

      [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Central_limit_theorem" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Central_limit_theorem

      [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Doomsday_argument" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Doomsday_argument

      1. sph · · focus · HN ↗
        What is moral? It is not a law of the universe. It is a subjective and culture-defined human construct. It is very ineffective to try and understand metaphysics through the ever-shifting lens of morality.
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