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--></style></head><body><div><span data-mailaddress="spike66@att.net" data-contactname="spike" class="clickable"><span title="spike66@att.net">spike</span><span class="detail"> <spike66@att.net></span></span> , 6/4/2015 5:04 PM:<blockquote class="mcnt mori" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:2px blue solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="mcnt"><div class="mcntWordSection1"><p class="mcntMsoNormal"> </p><p class="mcntMsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D;">>>…</span>But some of us will want to help the aliens too! We will go there and give them an adapted version of the potion!<span style="color:#1F497D;"> </span>Anders Sandberg</p><p class="mcntMsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;"> </span></p><p class="mcntMsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;">Well now, leave it to Anders to think of that particular take on it. {8^D</span></p><p class="mcntMsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;"> </span></p><p class="mcntMsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;">Anders, I would hand you the title of the most kindhearted loving person I know. If not you, then my great grandmother, who was such a sweetie, I miss her to this day even though she has been gone 42 years. This I will say without any reservation: you are the most kindhearted, loving tech-enabled person I have ever met. Anders me lad, thanks for being you.</span></p></div></div></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>Aww, shucks :-) </div><div><br></div><div>The interesting thing is of course how to enable people to be nice. It takes a fair bit of energy - from returning politeness to figuring out what makes people happy. Empathy is also tricky work, not to mention sympathy or other enablers for wanting people to feel good. I suspect we might have to invent something like how Facebook amplifies weak social relations and gossip but for maintaining emotional relations better. I think there is loads of tech we could build for improving kindness. Over in Oxford we talk a lot about moral enhancement, but actually niceness enhancement may be a lower-hanging fruit and quite powerful on its own. </div><br><div><blockquote class="mcnt mori" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:2px blue solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="mcnt"><div class="mcntWordSection1"><p class="mcntMsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;"></span></p><p class="mcntMsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;"> </span><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">That movie Keith describes is the disturbing flip side of the scenario: someone could come up with a Hate Potion Number 9. </span></p></div></div></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>There are some worrying results about oxytocin, which makes you nicer - to those you consider to be your in-group. </div><div><br></div><div>Generally, if we can control our emotions we should be careful about who gets to control us. But the paradox is that niceness is in a sense emotion influence: when I do something nice for somebody I *plan* on them enjoying it. It is just that it occurs between peers, and through external means: a greeting card or gift, rather than a dopamine increase. People can integrate the experience through their conscious mind and give it meaning according to their beliefs, rather have meaning be defined externally. </div><div><br></div><br><br>Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University</body></html>