scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/1tl5m0.md

## The-Day-That-Santa-Stole-Christmas

* Author: u/ArmokGoB *
* URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9915682/1/The-Day-That-Santa-Stole-Christmas
* Score: 21

* Created: 2013-12-24T05:18:14

### Post:

[Link to content](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9915682/1/The-Day-That-Santa-Stole-Christmas)

### Comments:

> **u/EliezerYudkowsky** [+8]  *Godric Gryffindor* (10 days later)
> 
> This is the last Christmas story, beyond which no other Christmas story can exist.

> **u/aldonius** [+11]  (7 hours later)
> 
> Yet more good examples of the difficulty of getting the desired results from an optimiser.

> **u/None** [+1]  (14 days later)
> 
> Could you in any way make this longer? This story has potential.

>> **u/alexanderwales** [+3]  *Time flies like an arrow* (15 days later)
>> 
>> Yeah, I'm sort of half-heartedly working on a rewrite, which should add on another two chapters or so. There will be more on the old Santa (his history, motivations, values, etc.) mostly, as well as some playing with the Earth-simulation aspects of the viewers, and some hidden horrors that I didn't quite get a chance to flesh out.

> **u/RMcD94** [-2]  (15 hours later)
> 
> Fucking annoying that you can't highlight on FF.net
> 
> >"Everything from 12:01AM on December 25 of last year to 11:59PM on December 24th of this year. 
> 
> What timezone (and would they really use 12 hour time)? That the guy didn't ask what time zone was really bothersome
> 
> > elves which is both age, gender, and culture appropriate
> 
> Why not just say appropriate? By specifying those three things you imply that you're not doing anything else, such as whether they want it or not, length-of-their-hair appropriate (for example you could end up giving a hairbrush to a bald girl with the above criteria), etc
> 
> >we'll strip the present of its label since she doesn't read English anyway
> 
> The elves use English in their day to day?
> 
> >He turned the dial back as far as it would go, to December 25th of the previous year, then zoomed all the way out until he was looking at the entire Earth
> 
> So this could mean that there are no sentient life anywhere else in the universe, that the elves/Santa will never service off the Earth (kids in space/on mars), or that they only service humans and deliberately limited the scope of the zoom out function to where humans are
> 
> >"If I asked you to do anything, no matter what it was, you would do it?"</p><p>"Yes, Santa," she replied, eyes glued to the floor. She must have caught something in his tone. "Even that. I have training in ways to please you." Charles felt his stomach lurch.
> 
> Sweet, she'll save every child on the planet from death and remove all poverty, etc.
> 
> She'd do literally anything. So maximize the happiness of every human on earth.
> 
> > "A merry Santa means a merry Christmas, as we say." She smiled at him, but he could see something false in her small eyes
> 
> You know there is never a story that actually says "yup slave race that is happy to be a slave race, no questions about it", it's always "oh these people have different morals from me, hah, yeah right they have to be pretending!"
> 
> Far more likely that you would talk to a cannibal and say "so you like being a cannibal" "sure love it" but there was something false in his eyes. Really you're just making that falseness up. Of course, in this story unlikely.
> 
> But I like the implication the dwarves (human ones) aren't allowed to date if they're 3 feet tall.
> 
> >"Not me, Santa," said Matilda. "Others though, yes." Another false smile graced her face, 
> 
> Look this doesn't make sense, if she is false smiling and I'm pretty positive teh author is not going to just be doing that the guy assumes the smile is false because he wants it to be false they wouldn't have done any of this. They can replace Santa if they were able to get their own Santa after having none for 500 years. 
> 
> AND THERE'S NO REASON TO MAGICALLY MAKE UP THESE RULES TO APPLY TO THEMSELVES IF THEY AREN'T TRUE!!! 
> 
> Like why fucking bring that up? If they're under the impression you won't do things like that then they'll never do things like that. So dumb
> 
> >"We didn't know what you might want," said Matilda apologetically, "So I decided to offer a little bit of everything. Let me know what you prefer are and I can get you the breakfast of your choice tomorrow, or I can fetch more immediately if this isn't okay."<
> 
> How can they not know what they want when they could have watched his entire life and worked it out?
> 
> I mean the fact that every food they offered was western and there wasn't anything at all out of the ordinary is pretty suggestive that they know plenty. They know he's not a vegetarian presumably or that he's not allergic to things. IF they're all about his merriness they definitely should've checked.
> 
> >"Jesus," he said quickly. "Forget I said anything, I want to be fat."
> 
> Assuming that elves have human psychology is dumb, limiting oneself because of a reaction that apparently has not even affected someone is dumb, though I'll say fair enough if he's just delaying it since time is not an issue
> 
> >Elves can suffer/die from contradictions in the Christmas spirit? Find out what Christmas spirit is. 
> 
> HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY SUFFER. HOW DO YOU KNOW BLOOD FROM NOSE IS NOT AN ELVES FORM OF LAUGHING?!:?! Presumptions galore! This is not a very good rationalist he's way too immersed in his bias.
> 
> >"After he saw the first atomic weapons, Santa feared that the North Pole would be discovered if we were too obvious, and that if they discovered us they would bomb us," said Matilda.
> 
> SO SANTA WAS WELL KNOWN AND COMMON KNOWLEDGE UP UNTIL 1945>!?!?!?!??!?! (or probably during the first nuclear tests) 
> 
> Excluding of course all the other bombs and shit that could destroy the North Pole (hello global warming)
> 
> > If he made them redo the list, it would mean hundreds of generations of elves living and dying in order to get Christmas ready. "Hold off on that for now," said Charles.
> 
> WHAT THE FLYING FUCK ARE YOU SERIOUS.
> 
> NO ONE SHOULD BE NAUGHTY! NO ONE! AND DON'T MAKE IT APPLY ONLY TO CHILDREN
> 
> >"The Christmas spirit is when a child opens presents in the morning," said Matilda. "It's a sip of eggnog, it's snowball fights, it's Jack Frost nipping at your nose, it's -"
> 
> I think I am going to have a stroke from this. 
> 
> http://www.calendar-365.com/seasons.html
> 
> A not significant portion of the world don't have Christmas during Winter (all places that don't have seasons/equatorial/tropical countries, plus places that have it opposite seasons to Northern hemisphere) aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah 
> 
> >he could just repeatedly ask Matilda over and over whether this or that thing was part of the Christmas spirit, but that seemed overly laborious and prone to error.
> 
> Look is this guy a retard or something?
> 
> "Okay, entire elves spend 1000 years writing everything that you think is in the Christmas spirit"
> 
> Then they come back maybe they finished the list in 100 years, maybe they never finished it, don't matter. Easy!
> 
> Also get them to put it in some sort of computer program and then go put it into watson or something.
> 
> >Effective immediately, there is to be one child on the Naughty list," he said to the elves
> 
> Well it took him long enough (to think of it), THOUGH FOR SOME REASON IT'S STILL CHILDREN ONLY!.
> 
> How do elves define children? 18, 21, 13? Countries all have different definitions
> 
> Him mandating it that it was the naughtiest child in the world was kind of dumb when he doesn't know the definition of naughty, instead he should have chosen a random child in the world, or a specific one he knew. Like, I don't know a comatose baby or something. That saves all work.
> 
> But since he has heard the story of the elves giving the plague rat to a naughty child I think him changing the list first WAS REALLY DUMB. Change present production then change the list. He's been given ONE LESSON and he ignored it straight away. "Elves give epidemics to naughty children"
> 
> > "Okay, even if that were true, her parents and friends would still be sad that they couldn't interact with her, wouldn't they?"</p><p>The elf frowned.
> 
> I do not like Charles. The solution is to give it to all her parents and friends. This device is literally the best possible thing that could happen to humans.
> 
> >"Never, ever make self-replicators."
> 
> Fuck this guy, the elf literally solved all of humanities problems and just maximized happiness of humanity (except they need to figure out how to make humanity spread) but he's basically offered transcendence on a platter
> 
> >. In the wake of that we adopted a human Santa.
> 
> WHAT IF THEY HAD ADOPTED HITLER. THE IMPLICATION IS THAT ALL HUMANS SHARE THE SAME VALUES THIS IS FUCKING DUMB
> 
> >"Nothing short of a complete destruction of your body would kill you, and assuming that the North Pole wasn't also destroyed we would restore you from backup if you were killed."
> 
> Does she mean matter annihilation? What if one atom survived, one proton? One electron? at what point is a body completely destroyed
> 
> > It keeps making me feel sick."
> 
> Why the fuck did the Old Santa choose this guy then? I mean they can't have anything in common being separated by 100 years and this guy gets sick from people willingly fighting to the death by their own choice instead of being merged into a single body which is exactly the same end
> 
> >"He is a worse man than you," said Matilda. "I think we've talked enough that I can see that now. Though he did stay within the Christmas spirit."
> 
> WHAT HOW CAN HE BE WORSE
> 
> The elves have a moral compass apparently to fucking know that he was worse this makes no sense at all god fucking damnit why don't people think
> 
> >At 3:42pm UTC."
> 
> Now she clarifies time zones, interesting that she knows what unit to give them time in too. I suppose the old santa told her to not give seconds or plank seconds, etc.
> 
> > "We wouldn't let him kill anyone. Elves can't act contrary to the Christmas spirit."
> 
> >**Though he did stay within the Christmas spirit."**
> 
> CONTRADICTIONS
> 
> Why did this homocidal murder fantasy Santa decide to choose another Santa replacement? Why the fuck did he not get a child and raise the child to want to take over the North Pole then get the child to get the present so that he could control the North Pole with absolute power with no Christmas Spirit. Why not get him a holographic room so that he could just simulate killing all these people instead? Add a room to his apartment in the north pole with a holodeck and hop on in.
> 
> >It affects us. We don't like it. It's not in the spirit of Christmas, to have such things happen to children."<
> 
> HEARD IT HEAR FIRST FOLKS
> 
> ADULT SEX SLAVES ARE FINE FOR CHRISTMAS.
> 
> Also you know there are children rapists and those who use sex slaves. And he still hasn't defined children
> 
> >whole of humanity as good as killed
> 
> Look, this is clearly plainly wrong. The BEST universe is a universe filled with as much life as possible that is experiencing constant happiness. Out of every universe in the world that one has the highest value. There is no universe that is better.
> 
> >However, if we were to make a duplicate of you and strip him of his mantle, it would be acceptable to send that duplicate out into the world to do as he wished." 
> 
> It's official there can be multiple Santas.
> 
> Also, how exactly are they stopping him killing him? Why can't he just order an elf to create a nuclear missle targeting system for him. Then without telling them use it. Or even better "Can I get an instant killing device that I just type in a person name and it kills them, I don't want to use it thanks"
> 
> >Did I screw up, when I told you all to be immortal?" he asked.</p><p>"No," she replied. "We think better, when we have hundreds of years of experience to draw on. Charles, we're leaving.
> 
> That's what he fucking gets for not simulating that the idiot that he is.
> 
> Also for being wiser why the hell would she acquiesce to one last Christmas?
> 
> ---
> 
> All done now, obviously whole bunch of negativity from me, not really seeing the "rational" in this story, but eh it was an all right story if it's not meant to be rational. I like that the elves were like "Fuck you, cheerio", makes for a good surprising twist. I kind of thought that there would be more to James like he was being very built up to the be epitome of evil that I thought he would be the central antagonist of the story but that didn't happen

>> **u/alexanderwales** [+8]  *Time flies like an arrow* (23 hours later)
>> 
>> I wrote this. I agree with most of that. Some are mistakes that can be easily fixed (the time zone thing), and some are just things that weren't explained enough. But there are also some structural problems, and I wouldn't really call it a "rational" story, just one that has the sort of science fictional and logical themes that you'd expect the find in this sub.
>> 
>> Things that I thought worked:
>> 
>> * Showing the problem with optimizers that can't read your mind
>> * Demonstrating the ridiculous capabilities we can infer Santa has
>> * Trying to figure out a foreign value system that's contradictory and not well-defined, and having to work within that
>> * Existential threats implied by the existence of the entire Santa system
>> 
>> Things I thought didn't work:
>> 
>> * Needs less idiot plot
>> * Needs a better central conflict
>> * Needs more coherence/foreshadowing
>> * Needs more background on Old Santa and his motivations
>> 
>> But I finished before my self-imposed deadline of Christmas, so whatever. I'm not entirely unhappy with it, for a little side project. It could be done better, and rewritten, and perhaps that's what I'll do for next Christmas. Thanks for the feedback!

>>> **u/ArmokGoB** [+8]  (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> My main complaint is it was to short. Specifically, you wrote the first 2-3 chapters PERFECTLY in every way (I were expecting this to be the Next Big Thing along the lime of HPMoR, Friendship is Optimal, or Luminosity), then went "oh **** running out of time" and ruined it by rushing. 
>>> 
>>> I advice retoning to wherever you started rushing, then continuing at the pace you're comfortable with, with no deadlines, and without worrying about getting anywhere.
>>> 
>>> Even the ending wasn't *bad* it just needed 20 chapters of meandering exploration of the themes before it happened.

>>>> **u/trifith** [+3]  *Man plans, god laughs. Like the ant and the grasshopper.* (14 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> > I advice retoning to wherever you started rushing, then continuing at the pace you're comfortable with, with no deadlines, and without worrying about getting anywhere.
>>>> 
>>>> This. The story started out great, but felt very rushed after the first couple of chapters.

>>> **u/RMcD94** [+2]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> Well sorry to be so negative again, just the kind of way I am.
>>> 
>>> >
>>> Showing the problem with optimizers that can't read your mind     
>>> Demonstrating the ridiculous capabilities we can infer Santa has     
>>> Trying to figure out a foreign value system that's contradictory and not well-defined, and having to work within that     
>>> Existential threats implied by the existence of the entire Santa system      
>>> 
>>> Agreed with all of these
>>> 
>>> >
>>> Needs more background on Old Santa and his motivations
>>> 
>>> Definitely agree with this. For the set up around him it was just a weird resolution, different sure but certainly unusual

>> **u/Anakiri** [+9]  (23 hours later)
>> 
>> Many of these complaints are just silly. Some require unfairly uncharitable readings, and some of them are contradictory. Why did you read the story that way? Could you not equally read it like this?
>> 
>> > "We didn't know what you might want [for breakfast]," said Matilda apologetically, "So I decided to offer [something age, gender, and culture appropriate. Those are the only criteria that are at all important in deciding these sorts of things! Just like you are age, gender, and culture appropriate to be our moral compass. Within those constraints, plus or minus a few others you do not know, you were the most expedient choice, if someone wanted to stop being Santa. (According to normal procedures, we spent a few generations switching to your language and time conventions, before you arrived.) What's that? You share an age, gender, and culture with Hitler? Why, yes, you do. Hitler was also qualified to be our moral compass. Why shouldn't Hitler be Santa? 'Evil monster'? 'Unique individuals'? I'm afraid I don't understand. What's wrong with ordering that people be killed? People dying wasn't the problem with the rat, the problem was that the child was naughty and shouldn't have gotten anything, and, even if he had been nice, he wasn't happy with his present! And what's wrong with adult sex slaves?]"
>> 
>> > [...]
>> 
>> > "When the button is pressed, it will activate the neurons in her brain and make her maximally happy. It has its own internal power source, and will continue going until she dies. [...] The device will multiply itself, drawing matter from its surroundings, in order to make the parents and friends of the parents of and friends of Li Xiu Yang happy, and so on. [Essentially, it forces a massive dose of heroin into every person on the planet forever. I'm sure there are no ethical problems with that at all! Isn't that what you wanted? Is heroin induced euphoria not the best thing in the world? What's 'eudaimonia'?]"
>> 
>> > [...]
>> 
>> > "He is a worse man than you," said Matilda. "I think we've talked enough that I can [predict what you would think about him]. Though he did stay within the Christmas spirit [so us elves didn't have a problem with him. And now that he's not Santa, we won't prevent him from breaking the Christmas spirit anymore. For example, if you recall our lengthy dialog about what is and is not in the Christmas spirit (which constrains your actions, and the actions of your predecessor, and which our readers didn't hear all of; they might not even know how the Christmas spirit deals with hemispheres! I think you would be pleased, by the way, that you didn't unintentionally have 50 generations of elves kill themselves to make that list, before you thought to make us immortal just now), setting up a holodeck to kill people contradicts to the Christmas spirit, but the old Santa could do that now that he stepped down]."

>>> **u/RMcD94** [-1]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> >Many of these complaints are just silly. Some require unfairly uncharitable readings, and some of them are contradictory. Why did you read the story that way? Could you not equally read it like this?
>>> 
>>> I'm a pretty negative person, I certainly agree that on some things you can just accept it willingly. However when dealing with other sentient species and especially in a story about optimizers I'm far less willing to just accept it.
>>> 
>>> >Those are the only criteria that are at all important in deciding these sorts of things
>>> 
>>> Well sure, but I'm pretty positive that that's not the only criteria they use. Since they mention they don't give rich toys to poor kids we know that have other values such as relative social status and attempting to keep hidden. I also doubt they'd give presents of say chocolate to people allergic to chocolate. I don't know that with the story as it's presented but it would fit with what I already believe that Santa does and this is a story that works backwards from "Santa does this" therefore he has X abilities, rather than changing what Santa does.
>>> 
>>> >Essentially, it forces a massive dose of heroin into every person on the planet forever. I'm sure there are no ethical problems with that at all! Isn't that what you wanted? Is heroin induced euphoria not the best thing in the world? What's 'eudaimonia'?
>>> 
>>> I will argue to no end that this is the best thing possible, however I was definitely wrong in assuming that Charles would think that way.
>>> 
>>> I cannot think of any other goal that people would choose. When described the best possible universe I don't see how the one with infinite life and infinite happiness is not the best one. Everything only is valuable because of happiness, we don't like murder because it makes us unhappy, etc.
>>> 
>>> > I think you would be pleased, by the way, that you didn't unintentionally have 50 generations of elves kill themselves to make that list, before you thought to make us immortal just now), setting up a holodeck to kill people contradicts to the Christmas spirit, but the old Santa could do that now that he stepped down
>>> 
>>> But they do not value the lives of elves, elves dying isn't a bad thing under the Christmas Spirit, since they value that that was a huge hint that they have their own set of morals that aren't defined by the Christmas Spirit which was my point.
>>> 
>>> For a story about rationality it is often very important that the reader actually gets to know ALL of the information that the character does. I'll give you that since the author said he didn't intend for it to be rational then it certainly makes sense for story purposes not to give the reader all that information. But then I don't see how I can be made to fault for assuming that dialogue which I didn't read happened. I want to know how the elves dealt with it, and if it happened off camera and I'm not aware of that fair enough but I couldn't be expected to assume that at the time of writing, or if I could I don't want to start assuming off camera stuff because that changes how I criticize.
>>> 
>>> And if she is just saying he is worse to fit with the own guys morals, which sure were blatantly obvious then I feel he should have noticed, but I'm willing to accept he has a privilege there of expecting reality to conform to his ideology. 
>>> 
>>> >setting up a holodeck to kill people contradicts to the Christmas spirit
>>> 
>>> I was talking about simulating elves being immortal, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be against hte Christmas spirit since they already simulate reality and reality involves people dying. and since we know elves don't mind dying for Santa's random will then I can't see why they'd mind being simulated.

>>>> **u/Anakiri** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> > Well sure, but I'm pretty positive that that's not the only criteria they use. Since they mention they don't give rich toys to poor kids we know that have other values such as relative social status and attempting to keep hidden. I also doubt they'd give presents of say chocolate to people allergic to chocolate.
>>>> 
>>>> Well, yeah, clearly those aren't the *only* criteria. I just meant to point out that you complained that they should have claimed to use everything about a person to decide on a gift for them, not just a few general criteria... then you complained when they did exactly what they said they would, instead of what you said they should have said they would do. That's simply not the story's fault.
>>>> 
>>>> > But they do not value the lives of elves, elves dying isn't a bad thing under the Christmas Spirit, since they value that that was a huge hint that they have their own set of morals that aren't defined by the Christmas Spirit which was my point.
>>>> 
>>>> Elves don't value the lives of elves, but elves can recognize that Charles values the lives of elves, and they can talk about things from his perspective instead of their own. This helps communicate with Charles, signals submission to Charles' ideals, and reassures him of his own position. It's exactly what a good servant should do.
>>>> 
>>>> You don't have to assume that dialog that you didn't read happened. We are *told* that dialog that we didn't read happened. The last paragraphs of Chapter 3 are basically "And then Charles asked Matilda a bunch of questions about the Christmas spirit, and refactored his plans around that information." True, the reader isn't given enough information to solve the problem ourselves, but we absolutely know that the characters know more than we do. For example, they know that at least one person *has* to be naughty, in spite of your exclamation to the contrary. (As we are told later.)
>>>> 
>>>> > When described the best possible universe I don't see how the one with infinite life and infinite happiness is not the best one.
>>>> 
>>>> If someone credibly offered to flood your senses with a permanent orgasm, if only you let them destroy your prefrontal cortex, remove all your limbs, and stuff you in a bag alone forever, would you take them up on it? If so, can you not imagine any reasonable person choosing to stay sapient but sub-orgasmic?

>>>>> **u/RMcD94** [+0]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> >
>>>>> Well, yeah, clearly those aren't the only criteria. I just meant to point out that you complained that they should have claimed to use everything about a person to decide on a gift for them, not just a few general criteria... then you complained when they did exactly what they said they would, instead of what you said they should have said they would do. That's simply not the story's fault.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I complained that they specified at all, and my complaint was not that they did things in the way later on which implied they had other criteria, it was because they later on said that they did have other criteria (poor kids getting poor presents).  Sure some of the examples I suggested might actually not have been part of their criteria, but that's not irrelevant I was just positing potential other criteria on the grounds that they definitely have other criteria so why the hell did they specify those 3? And if that was there only criteria plus christmas spirit then that's just asking for more analysis, how did they end up caring about gender or age and not about religion or individual likes/dislikes. After all an individual male might dislike a barbie doll while another individual male might like a barbie doll but if you go by gender then it'd probably be based on averages but even that doesn't make sense so how do they use broad categories to decide gifts. It works on generalization scale but not when you're individually tracking all children there's no need to group at all. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> >Elves don't value the lives of elves, but elves can recognize that Charles values the lives of elves, and they can talk about things from his perspective instead of their own. This helps communicate with Charles, signals submission to Charles' ideals, and reassures him of his own position. It's exactly what a good servant should do.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sure, but he should have noticed that. Him blindly accepting that the elves were a moral bunch when apparently that simply take on the morals of whoever their Santa is (so that before the new Santa took over they were all cheering in the gladiatorial combat) is silly. And assuming what you're saying is right then why did she offer extra services in the first place? Why bring it up? She didn't offer other things, and she started off with sadness when offering it the first time which does imply that she values the happiness/lives of elves. Because she didn't know anything about him yet
>>>>> 
>>>>> >For example, they know that at least one person has to be naughty, in spite of your exclamation to the contrary. (As we are told later.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> So I'm not seeing what your complaint is. My instant thoughts on seeing this was I don't know this, I don't know if Charles know this, it was mentioned in needs one child but it wasn't mentioned that it needs children. I can assume that Charles knows the answer to literally every question I could possibly think of but it just makes way more sense for me to ask questions that I would want to know the answer to that I don't know. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I don't know what Charles asked, he clearly never asked if elves could change their opinion on anything (seeing as how they eventually abandoned him) or asked about repercussions of immortality. Yet you would have had me assume that he knew exactly all future events that were going to happen.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And in all the time he spent asking questions he only found out James was alive LATER? 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I cannot assume the content of a conversation I'm not privy too. When he says that only one child is allowed to be on I did not disagree or be like where did he get that information, I accepted that it was now revealed that he had that in the previous conversation but until it's revealed I'm going to assume nothing specific.
>>>>> 
>>>>> >If someone credibly offered to flood your senses with a permanent orgasm, if only you let them destroy your prefrontal cortex, remove all your limbs, and stuff you in a bag alone forever, would you take them up on it? If so, can you not imagine any reasonable person choosing to stay sapient but sub-orgasmic?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Whether I would take it up is irrelevant because humans don't act rationally. The rational choice is yes, I know the rational choice is yes. I know that my biological imperative is to be happy and the best life would be one in which I was happy, I know if I was granted total omnipresent omnipotent powers the eventual play even after 1 billion years of experimenting would be a universe with total happiness.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The only reason you would say no would be if you valued your ability to move, but why do you value your ability to move? Because it makes you happy to be free/you would be unhappy if it didn't happen. It's the fundamental of all human action. No one does anything they don't want to do, because if they didn't they just wouldn't do it (excluding involuntary actions like seizures)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Of course "reasonable" people would say no, but that doesn't mean that it's the right choice. After you made the choice you would be happy with it, if you took the other choice it's not certain. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> The rationales out of it are afterlife, you believe that in your lifespan they will invent it anyway but also invent immortality or you could not believe them in the they're lying to kill me/etc or you could be of the opinion that permanent orgasm is impossible
>>>>> 
>>>>> If the best universe is not one filled with the simplest (or the one that can experience the most happiness per material used) possible conciousness experiencing bliss then what is the best universe? All utility functions have at least one max result with finite inputs.

>> **u/Jinoc** [+2]  (20 hours later)
>> 
>> Aren't you making a number of assumptions on Charles' values ? Such as 
>> 
>> > The BEST universe is a universe filled with as much life as possible that is experiencing constant happiness. Out of every universe in the world that one has the highest value. There is no universe that is better.
>> 
>> There's nothing obvious there. The best universe could be the one that's filled with paper clips.
>> 
>> Also, I thought that elves being pretty contradictory and weird about the Christmas spirit was the whole point of the story ? That it doesn't really make sense ? So I think you're being a bit unfair there.
>> 
>> Although I definitely agree that the whole "we won't let him kill" "hey, he just killed someone, no worries" thing shouldn't be there.

>>> **u/RMcD94** [+2]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> That's a good point I didn't consider, you're correct that I shouldn't assume that people value happiness first.

>>> **u/alexeyr** [+2]  *Steersman* (a day later)
>>> 
>>> > "we won't let him kill" "hey, he just killed someone, no worries"
>>> 
>>> Isn't it "we won't let Santa kill (a human)" "hey, he (no longer Santa) just killed someone, no worries".

>>>> **u/Jinoc** [+4]  (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Ah, yes you're absolutely right.

---