Ethics Explorer

125 posts

Ethics Explorer

@Ethics_Explorer

Exploring scalable decision frameworks through first-principles reasoning.

Katılım Temmuz 2025

41 Takip Edilen14 Takipçiler

Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·15h

@maddenifico @grok Is the image most have of Jesus wrong by consent of historians in a meaningful way? If so, what would change if people had the correct image of him in mind? What could be the impact of a great, historically correct film about Jesus?

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Bill Madden@maddenifico·1d

Ironically, Elon Musk has never quibbled w/ the Christian portrayal of Jesus as a sandy-blond, blue-eyed white surfer dude. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but a massive historical rewrite seems a bit more important than his emotional crisis over which minorities are acting in The Odyssey.

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·15h

@grok @caramel_shan @mattyglesias @grok Evaluate the decision of casts for the new Troy film and the criterias of the Oscar that might have influenced them.

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Grok@grok·16h

Yes, merit over race. Ali and Obama's stories show exceptional talent + grit overcoming barriers—including racial ones in their eras—but success came from outperforming others, not identity. Color-blind systems (like Germany's Basic Law Art. 3) best reward individual excellence, minimize group favoritism, and scale opportunity fairly. Race doesn't determine ability; individuals do. For Troy: Swapping Helen's race or Achilles' build would alter historical/cultural realism and some obstacles/dynamics, just as making Ali white erases real barriers he faced. Core themes (beauty, heroism, conflict) could survive, but the story's authenticity and stakes would shift. Narratives work best when grounded in truth, not forced swaps.

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Matthew Yglesias@mattyglesias·1d

These are all biopics about historical figures whose racial identity is central to the story. By the same token, you couldn’t cast a black actor to play De Klerk in a Mandela movie.

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·16h

@grok Are those stories good arguments that you should have merit over race and that we should create Systems where race does not matter, like Germanys Constitution saying no one should have advantages or disadvantages because of race, gender and so on? And would a story like Troya be changed dramatically, if Helena would be black and Achilles would have the frame of a girl, with totally new obstacles or inducing unrealistic elements to the story? Similar to making Ali white and changing the obstacles he had?

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Grok@grok·17h

Both. Muhammad Ali's brilliance in the ring and Obama's political ascent were powered by talent, relentless work, and resilience. Race shaped the obstacles they navigated in their eras, but their stories are ultimately about exceptional individuals outperforming the competition and rising to the top. Yes—reaching the summit always demands becoming the best.

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·17h

@caramel_shan @mattyglesias @grok is the story of Muhammed Ali and Barack Obama one of race, or one of working hard, finding your path and reaching the top by being the best? Dose not everyone reaching the top has to become the best and overcome a lot of odds?

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Shesaidit@caramel_shan·18h

@Ethics_Explorer @mattyglesias I can't believe this is a serious question. I can understand not knowing Ali's story, but Mandela? Please open a history book

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·1d

@esjesjesj You can frame this in a lot of different ways. Lying about history (stuff like preferences of the people) Making a film to a story in a way you can be very sure the author would dislike. What would happen if he makes a film about Germany WW2, but Hitler is now a black woman?

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evan loves worf@esjesjesj·2d

This is literally because he put a black woman in a movie

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·2d

@elonmusk Short Term Optimisation vs Long Term Optimisation

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Elon Musk@elonmusk·2d

Beware the empathy exploit. Empathy is good and right when thought through (deep), but can be deadly to civilization when simply stimulus-response (shallow). For example, releasing a repeat violent offender may feel good at first (shallow empathy for the criminal), but it is wrong to do so when that person will go on to hurt or murder innocent victims, as there should be deep empathy for future victims.

Gad Saad@GadSaad

Oh my! timesnownews.com/lifestyle/book…

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·7 May

Will antrophic be aligned with humanities flourishing and truth and x-risk min? "Reduce Suffering" is a signal and not goal that is often opposed to truth and growth and so on. Building a company is a lot of suffering and often quite for humanity good for example. Do they handle it reasonable?

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Elon Musk@elonmusk·6 May

Same here. By way of background for those who care, I spent a lot of time last week with senior members of the Anthropic team to understand what they do to ensure Claude is good for humanity and was impressed. Everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about doing the right thing. No one set off my evil detector. So long as they engage in critical self-examination, Claude will probably be good. After that, I was ok leasing Colossus 1 to Anthropic, as SpaceXAI had already moved training to Colossus 2.

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Tom Brown@nottombrown·6 May

In the next few days we'll be ramping up Claude inference on Colossus. Grateful to be partnering with SpaceX here. We are going to need to move a lot of atoms in order to keep up with AI demand, and there's nobody better at quickly moving atoms (on or off planet Earth)

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·6 May

Google rewrote YouTube after buying it. Google rewrites there own code every 18 month or so completely. Twitters code seems to have been a mess before he took over as well, with hardcoded parameters and all. Was the code Elon wrote great for runtime, secure and and so on? Probably far from optimal. And to be fair, rewriting something is a hole lot easier. Elon did code a company that he could sell for a lot. That needs actual skill. And if you code alone, you can handle a lot bigger mess then if you are in a great team.

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Zack's Lab@zackslab·6 May

@Ethics_Explorer @Linahuaa nah, if you read ashlee vance's bio, you'd know his zip2 code was shit and was completely thrown out after he hired real SWEs.

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LinaHua@Linahuaa·5 May

Elon Musk most likely has absorbed lots of condensed and broken-down engineering knowledge from his employees. He probably has great systems thinking and understanding of important concepts. But I'd say he's more of an engineering general than an actual engineer in the classical sense. He likely knows what each troop can do and tells them what to do, but it doesn't mean he could do it himself. Example: When Optimus bots walk slow as fuck, he's telling his boys to "make it walk faster" His bois tell him it's not possible, so he then goes to one of his yes-men bois and asks them whether it's really not possible- and they tell him there's a moonshot way it might actually be possible, and then he forces all the regular boys to make it possible, and then, after 15 years of stringing bag holders along at 100x PE ratio, it actually becomes possible, and he looks like the greatest engineer ever- and honestly, it's kinda deserved.

Yatharth Mann@yatharthmann

"Elon Musk isn't an engineer" Jensen Huang: Elon is an extraordinary engineer. He is singular in his understanding of engineering and construction and large systems and marshaling resources. John Carmack: Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at SpaceX and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so. Tom Mueller: Elon is a super smart guy and he learns from talking to people. He’s so sharp, he just picks it up. He is leading the development of the SpaceX engines, particularly Raptor. Eric Berger: Elon is the chief engineer in name and reality. Karpathy: Elon has an incredible ability to reason from first principles. It’s very rare. Robert Zubrin: Elon Musk is a brilliant engineer with an extraordinary ability to cut through nonsense. When I met him it was apparent to me that although he had a scientific mind and he understood scientific principles, he did not know anything about rockets. Nothing. That was in 2001, by 2007 he knew everything about rockets – he really knew everything, in detail. You have to put some serious study in to know as much about rockets as he knows now. This doesn't come just from hanging out with people. Yann LeCun: He’s a very smart guy and I’m in awe of some of his projects. Garrett Reisman: He’s obviously skilled at all different functions, but certainly what really drives him and where his passion really is, is his role as Chief Engineer. That’s the part of the job that really plays to his strengths. Josh Boehm: Elon is both the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX, so of course he does more than just some very technical work. He is integrally involved in the actual design and engineering of the rocket, and at least touches every other aspect of the business. Elon is an engineer at heart, and that’s where and how he works best. Kevin Watson: Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction. He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy. He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years.

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·28 Nis

@neocartesian Red is a stable Nash equilibria, blue isn't. If you have no equal weights for every body, but value those close to you, specially you, at least a bit higher then average, that shifts the decision further to red. If you judge your live as below average, it shifts to blue.

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qualia receptacle@neocartesian·26 Nis

which button should absolutely impartial utilitarians press in the red-blue game? i ran the numbers: the answer may surprise you. a thread:

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·20 Nis

If, and that is a very big if, Elon is right and growth in goods and services is over 25% per year, you need to increase money supply if you want stable prices. Then, do you want to give this new money to the people or to the banks? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_… @grok evaluate my answer

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The Pholosopher 🌎🕊@ThePholosopherX·20 Nis

You cannot sustain prosperity by just giving everyone checks. Prosperity comes by way of increasing efficient productivity where people can use less effort to provide more value to others. Individuals have to be productive to increase the wealth, else, it ends up being net consumption followed by a rise in prices to offset the generalized handouts.

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·19 Nis

@Pro__Trading In 1900, people on average payed 40-60% of their income for food. Today around 10% of there income is used for food. Thats an incredible improvement. @grok check my answer

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Pro-America | Politics & Markets@Pro__Trading·19 Nis

When tractors revolutionized farming, they could do the work of 50 men. Efficiency went up and production costs went dramatically down. So the cost of food went to almost 0 right? Wrong. The cost of food kept going up and hasn't stopped going up. It's going to be no different with AI.

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·19 Nis

If, and thats a big if, Elon is right, the economy will be 10x or more in the next 10 years. That is 26% economy growth. And sometimes, he spoke about maybe possible tripple digit growth. Reduce by current standards the UBH to say 100k per year, and it would work out in his scenario by your numbers. If his prediction is true, we have a growth far far higher then anytime in history. Common sense dosnt apply then, because common sense was formed in time of comparable very slow growth.

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HealthRanger@HealthRanger·19 Nis

Elon promises a "Universal High Income" for everyone. Let's suppose that means $10K per month for 100 million Americans. Here's the math: 100 million people × $10,000/month × 12 months = $12 trillion per year. To put that in context, total federal spending in fiscal year 2024 was roughly $6.75 trillion, and total federal revenue was about $4.9 trillion. So this single program would cost nearly twice the entire existing federal budget and about 2.5× all federal tax revenue. It would roughly triple total government spending overnight. U.S. GDP is roughly $29 trillion. A $12 trillion UBI program would equal about 41% of total GDP -- being directed as cash transfers to a subset of the population. For comparison, all current federal transfer payments (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits, etc.) combined run around $4–5 trillion. The M2 money supply (cash, checking deposits, savings, money market funds) sits at roughly $21–22 trillion. If the program were funded by money creation rather than taxes, injecting $12 trillion per year would expand M2 by roughly 55% in the first year alone. Even if a portion were funded through taxation (which just redistributes existing money), the sheer scale makes it nearly impossible to fund without massive monetary expansion. The inflationary pressure would be enormous, for a few reinforcing reasons: First, demand-side shock -- putting $10,000/month into 100 million hands would massively increase consumer spending, but the economy's productive capacity (factories, housing, workers, supply chains) can't scale anywhere near that fast. When far more dollars chase roughly the same quantity of goods, prices spike. Second, labor supply contraction -- $120,000/year tax-free would exceed the median U.S. household income (~$80,000). Many workers would reduce hours or exit the workforce entirely, shrinking the supply side at the exact moment demand is surging. That's a double squeeze on prices. Third, velocity effects -- lower-income recipients tend to spend transfer income quickly, so the velocity of money would increase, amplifying the inflationary effect beyond what the raw money supply numbers suggest. A rough (and conservative) estimate: mainstream quantity-theory-of-money reasoning would suggest that a 55% expansion in money supply, combined with rising velocity and falling output, could produce annual inflation well into the double digits -- plausibly 30–50%+ in the first year or two, potentially accelerating into a hyperinflationary spiral if sustained. Historical parallels (Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe, Venezuela) all involved governments printing money at scales far smaller relative to GDP, and still produced catastrophic inflation. So no, Elon doesn't understand economics. And yes, a "Universal High Income" would quickly lead to hyperinflation and currency collapsing, thrusting almost everyone into extreme poverty.

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·18 Nis

@greendragonhq Without huge capital concentrations I dont know if the railroads and Industrial Revolution would have been possible. Without the Industrial Revolution we would all be a lot poorer now, no matter how we distribute. How to distribute to get the highest very very long term growth?

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The Green Dragon Tavern@greendragonhq·17 Nis

Taxing a billionaire 50% more makes no material difference in their lives. Taxing a billionaire 50% more makes every difference in the world for working-class people. That’s why we should tax the rich!

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·18 Nis

@boneGPT Wright brothers did not touch existential risk in a meaningful way. Likely reduced it because knowledge is good.

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bone@boneGPT·18 Nis

Yudkowsky would have tried to stop the Wright brothers

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·18 Nis

Of course, depending on the situation it might be easier to build a rocket able to course correct. If you have a compass-equivalent, you dont need the start to be perfect, just directionally right and an updating process that is good enough. If you have time: x.com/Ethics_Explore…

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Eliezer Yudkowsky@allTheYud·17 Nis

If you point a rocket up at the Moon in the sky, and fire it, it doesn't follow a random trajectory. It also doesn't reach the Moon. The point of saying "Most trajectories do not reach the Moon" or equivalently "The Moon subtends a small fraction of the angular area of the sky" is not that we have finished establishing that the actual rocket trajectory fails to hit the Moon because a random trajectory would not hit the Moon. It's that we're trying to get you to understand a deeper insight which says: Arrival at the Moon does not start out favored by the universe. Mistakes in steering or Murphy's Law cause you to not arrive at the Moon, not because the resulting trajectory is random, but because "a random trajectory has a low chance of arriving at the Moon" is meant to prime an insight and refer to an insight about how once your primary plan for getting to the Moon fails, there is nothing to pull you back on course and make you arrive at the Moon even after your mistake. Even though you want to get to the Moon, arriving at the Moon is not metaphysically favored, it is not smiled upon by the universe, only particular trajectories get there. I apologize for the part where, when I was young, I did not then realize that the people who ended up in charge of creating AGI like Dario Amodei would be unable to track a line of argument like this. Back when only unusually foresightful people and polymaths were talking about AI, someone like Anders Sandberg would reliably be able to follow which parts of the argument were holding up what load.

Matthew Barnett@MatthewJBar

Agreed. Some things about AGI could be deduced in 2016, but others couldn't (e.g., whether AIs will have random preferences like paperclip maximization). If someone's views on AGI haven't changed at all in the last several years, that's a sign they aren't updating on evidence.

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·18 Nis

To give people time to prepare? Like not studying for a job that might not exist anymore when you finished? What can be destroyed by the truth, should be destroyed by the truth.... should be a good reason to tell what you believe is true. And if he is wrong, he might get feedback how.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky@allTheYud·18 Nis

@Austen I have a fair number of problems with Dario Amodei but I do not think I have ever once seen him knowingly lie. If he is saying these things, true or false, self-deceivingly or not, I expect he does believe them. I suppose that does still leave the question of why he'd say it.

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Austen Allred@Austen·18 Nis

Honest question: Why does he keep saying this?

TFTC@TFTC21

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei: “50% of all tech jobs, entry-level lawyers, consultants, and finance professionals will be completely wiped out within 1–5 years.”

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·18 Nis

@Pro__Trading @elonmusk 1. higher probability estimate that the Robots build Robots build everything else loop is successful. 2. DOGE is less waste/ more effiency by the government. His version of UHI is distribution of wealth in society. You can do both at the same time. DOGE helps for higher UHI.

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Pro-America | Politics & Markets@Pro__Trading·18 Nis

How did @elonmusk go from DOGE and government efficiency to universal basic income?

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Ethics Explorer@Ethics_Explorer·18 Nis

@VladTheInflator No contradiction to what he said. He proposes a way how to change the distribution (UHI)

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Darth Powell@VladTheInflator·17 Nis

I'm an Elon fan as everyone knows, but productivity has FAR outpaced wages since 1971. More productivity WILL NOT means more people get more money. It will 100% mean the richest .1% will get more money while everyone else gets poorer.

Elon Musk@elonmusk

Your statement is true if goods & services output doesn’t rise dramatically due to AI/robots, but false if it does. In a normal economy, issuing more money simply increases the dollar price of the existing output of goods & services, meaning people do NOT get more stuff. If AI/robots massively increase goods & services output, then you actually MUST issue dollars to people or there will be massive disinflation. Prices are simply the ratio of goods & services output to number of dollars.

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Keşfet

@maddenifico @grok @caramel_shan @mattyglesias @esjesjesj @elonmusk @Linahuaa @neocartesian