[ExI] The list is in the timeline

spike spike66 at att.net
Wed Dec 9 14:32:55 UTC 2015



>...On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg


Subject: Re: [ExI] The list is in the timeline

On 2015-12-08 21:38, spike wrote:
>> Cool!  Anders, make them spell your name correctly please...

>...But that is my evil twin. Triplet, actually. He and Anders Sandburg work
with Nick's evil twin Nick Bostrum at the Future of Humanities institute.

--
Dr Anders Sandberg
_______________________________________________

Oh OK thanks for that clarification.

Your comment has me pondering evil twins and triplets in general.  The evil
twin thing is fairly simple, the terms unambiguous.  But once we introduce
the complexity of triplets, it upsets my sense of symmetry to imagine two of
the siblings evil and one good.  It just feels like you should have one on
either end of the malicious/benevolence spectrum with one exactly at zero.

But that introduces a new complexity: how does the middle guy stay exactly
unevil and ungood simultaneously?  Or does she alternate days?  And what if
the same action being defined as good by some observers and evil by others?
This is common in politics for instance.  I can't even give you an example
of a living adult exactly at zero on the mal/ben spectrum.  It is easy to be
evil, and it is pretty clear how to be good.  But how does one be exactly
balanced?  If the neutral triplet strays even a little bit either direction,
it causes the whole family to be defined as that characteristic.

The mind boggles.

spike  






More information about the extropy-chat mailing list