25 KiB
[Q] Settings that beat "Reedspacer's Lower Bound"
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Author: u/DataPacRat Amateur Immortalist*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3ody5m/q_settings_that_beat_reedspacers_lower_bound/
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Score: 13
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Created: 2015-10-11T23:24:50
Post:
In "Interpersonal Entanglement", /u/EliezerYudkowsky described 'Reedspacer's Lower Bound':
if your grand vision of the future isn't at least as much fun as a volcano lair with catpersons of the appropriate gender, you should just go with that instead.
How many existing fictional settings do you know that are more fun to live in than that?
Comments:
u/cae_jones [+18] (26 minutes later)
Let's be fair: how many Utopias are basically volcano lairs populated by cat people, just with a different color scheme?
I ... am having a hard time thinking of examples of Utopias, for some reason. I think that is a really bad sign.
So, uh, James Cameron's Avatar. Basically a volcano lair full of cat people. Except instead of a volcano lair, it's the Temple of Gaea, because I am having a hard time determining the value in living in a volcano for more than a weekend. Also I don't remember the name of the planet in Avatar, because I already told you Pacman is apparently in my brain, eating my memories. [edit: Pandora! Right after I posted!]
Star Trek! Like spaceships? Like exploring new worlds? Because it's got the cat people covered. In the future, space is a volcano full of cats.
I tried to explain how Heaven and Disneyland are basically volcano lairs full of cat people, maybe even more literally than the other two, but I'm feeling less sane by the word and decided to cut it.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+15] Godric Gryffindor (7 hours later)
This would be a beautiful sentiment to take out of context.
u/None [+10] (5 hours later)
I ... am having a hard time thinking of examples of Utopias, for some reason. I think that is a really bad sign.
Not really. Most half-decent even-halfway eutopias I can think of simply aren't grouped as utopias. Nobody who made them was trying to write a utopia story, and to call them such would insult them. They're extremely nice places to live precisely because they were meant to provide backgrounds for the positive and interesting lives of their characters.
To give an example, it was HPMoR that noted Rowling's wizarding world to be a "zeroth world country" in which most major material discomforts were so thoroughly abolished as to be beneath notice.
To give a further example, the world of Slayers features various wars between gods and demons and all kinds of "not-so-utopian" worldbuilding details, but actually, on a daily basis, appears to have a high standard of living plus magic plus various forms of sophisticated fun available via Zany Schemes and Simple Plans for all kinds of advancement. It has enough room that the main character of the series eventually grows to be able to control spells which summon the power of their Chaotic Neutral creatress goddess, the Lord of Nightmares.
Nobody has to call it "eutopia", but you'd still actually want to live there.
u/PeridexisErrant [+3] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (a day later)
I think it was a commentary on Orwell that made a distinction for me: utopia (or distopia) is generally a political message, whereas eutopia is more focussed on measurable hedons than ideology.
I don't say "utilons" because I see it referring more to what should be good rather than that-thing-that-hedons-measure, and it tangles politics back in. After all, it's very easy to say that the political and legal structure of a eutopia is ideal, and then it's just another utopia...
u/ArgentStonecutter [+5] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (56 minutes later)
how many Utopias are basically volcano lairs populated by cat people, just with a different color scheme?
Well, they're easy to do the set design and models for.
If you stick to media SF, yeh. Literature SF has some pretty awesome utopias.
u/MugaSofer [+7] (8 hours later)
Well, Star Trek has catgirl-lairs with the Holodecks, plus you get to explore space. Which happens to also resemble a volcano lair, and be populated by people who look suspiciously like catgirls. Hmm.
Life in the Culture looks a lot like Reedspacer's Lower, I guess. I mean, the catgirls are mostly other bored people, and you have to ask a Mind for a volcano lair, but it's basically the same. But you die after a while, and there's other depressing stuff around... probably doesn't pass it.
Um ... dang, most of the transhumanist ones seem to actually fail ... ah! The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect beats the Bound.
u/None [+5] (17 hours later)
Old argument is old: you don't have to die in the Culture, but most people do, Because Philosophy.
There's also the issue with the Culture or Prime Intellect's Cyberspace that the authors deliberately add negative elements to make it easier to write a book rather than because the core ideas have actual fundamental flaws.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+4] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (9 hours later)
But you die after a while, and there's other depressing stuff around... probably doesn't pass it.
You don't need to die after a while. You can uplift into higher dimensions, upload into a heaven, or simply live forever. It's mildly frowned upon (it's an "unusual life choice") but nobody forces you to die at 300 or 400 or whenever they normally decide to drop.
Reedspacer's Lower Bound doesn't imply there isn't depressing stuff outside the volcano lair.
u/MugaSofer [+2] (13 hours later)
I'd feel obligated to go fix things, though :/
And Culture people complain a lot about this feeling, so it is part of the utopia, although I'd be guilty about other things than they seem to.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)
You seem to assume that you have no obligations beyond the volcano lair full of catgirls. That's not specified, so the awesomeness criteria for a utopia don't cover whether EVERYONE has a volcano lair full of catgirls, or whether you have an obligation to provide one for everyone else. I mean, it's a really low bar when you think about it.
u/None [+3] (17 hours later)
The whole point is that it's a really low bar which most IRL and fictional "utopians" fail miserably at.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (17 hours later)
And I'm saying that there's lots of societies in written SF that are at least as much fun as a volcano lair full of catpeople. Media SF seems less successful at meeting that target, as it is at meeting pretty much any other target.
Oh, let's add Gabriel's domain in Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi (Gabriel takes care of his catgirls very well). And for all it's not a Utopia by any means, Karl Schroeder's Virga.
u/drageuth2 [+11] (9 hours later)
Easy setting exceeding the bound:
A volcano lair full of cat-girls.... with air conditioning.
Volcano-heat tends to be a little bit overpowering, y'know?
u/gabbalis [+1] (20 hours later)
All the more reason to ask your cat girls whether they think it's getting a little hot in here.
u/drageuth2 [+3] (a day later)
Double-edged sword; hotter temperature means less clothes, but also less cuddling.
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (4 days later)
Now I'm just imagining cuddling a chilly volcano full of catgirls in adorable parkas.
Thank you so much.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+6] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (51 minutes later)
AND, after reading the whole article:
Why does EY assume the catgirls are nonsentient?
I'd spawn a bunch of instances of myself so I'd get to be the catgirls as well. Why not? And why does he assume the catgirl option means you spend all your time screwing? Even if you do, how many people would stay stuck in the same gender? Hell, they'd invent new ones.
Also, Larry Niven has already written the novel where men and women no longer have sex to hold them together. It doesn't end well.
u/ulyssessword [+5] (5 hours later)
Why does EY assume the catgirls are nonsentient?
If they were sentient then they would be people. Possibly people with strange body-modifications, but people nonetheless. If you think living in a personal volcano lair with other people is better, then that scenario has passed Reedspacer's Lower Bound.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (9 hours later)
If they were sentient then they would be people.
Why do you/EY assume catgirls aren't people? Or that they're forced to be there? "Catgirls" certainly doesn't imply "not people" to me. C'Mell was definitely a people.
u/Jiro_T [+10] (15 hours later)
This is another case of EY and LW in general using unusual terms for things. "Catgirl" was used in the original EY post to mean "sexual not-person" which is not what most people would think of catgirls as being and which has several better words to use to describe the same thing. (Someone replying to the original post suggested "fembot", which has much more appropriate connotations even though literally speaking it's possible for fembots to be sentient too.)
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (15 hours later)
"Catgirl" was used in the original EY post to mean "sexual not-person"
I realize that's what EY thinks it means, but is that what meant?
This Utopia consists of a one-line remark on an IRC channel: <reedspacer> living in your volcano lair with catgirls is probably a vast increase in standard of living for most of humanityI'm pretty sure that most people would want their futuristic catgirls/fembots/succubi/post-realdollian-sextoys to pass the Turing Test.
u/None [+2] (17 hours later)
You can strengthen the point in two ways:
The catgirls aren't independently sapient/intelligent. This is what Eliezer meant.
The catgirls aren't independently sentient/emotional. This tends to trigger people's discomfort with near-hive existences and lack of individuality.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (17 hours later)
I think you're making a point that's kind of orthogonal to the one I was making.
u/None [+2] (17 hours later)
True.
u/the_one_butcher [+1] (6 years later)
Catgirl in the lesswrong community is DEFINED as a sex partner who makes no demands of you and who will have sex with you whenever you want. It doesn't mean girl with animalistic features. Merle isn't a catgirl in lesswrong terms, because she didn't want Van to fuck Hitomi.
It's not that he thinks catgirls aren't full people, it's that he calls sex partners that aren't fully people "catgirls" because they are effectively pets you can fuck.
Also in the very same lesswrong post in which reedspacers lower bound is first postulated Eliezer effectively said that "I'm pretty sure that most people would want their futuristic catgirls/fembots/succubi/post-realdollian-sextoys to pass the Turing Test." It was a post about the lower bound being still pretty low, about how dating and relationships were an important part of multiplayer fun.
So: Before you complain: Read the thing in context.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (6 years later)
Catgirl in the lesswrong community is DEFINED as
Ewww.
I don't think I even want to know about that context. In fact your comment here just told me more about it than I wanted to know.
u/the_one_butcher [+1] (6 years later)
If you find sextoys to be disgusting, I am sorry I have brought it up again.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (6 years later)
Sapient sex toys.
u/the_one_butcher [+1] (6 years later)
Catgirls on Less Wrong are defined as not sapient. If it's sapient, it's not a Catgirl under that definition. If it's a person, it's not a catgirl, it's a slave race.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (6 years later)
If they're consistently convincingly human (passing the Turing test) during any kind of relationship the claim that they're not sapient is dodgy at best. Philosophical zombies are not credible.
u/None [+3] (4 hours later)
[deleted]
u/None [+9] (4 hours later)
The point wasn't that sexual reproduction is all the human condition. The point was that we're fundamentally social creatures, and you're cutting off a major aspect of potential fun-space by reducing us to queen-and-worker colonies of semi-sentient eusocial organisms (that is, one Harem Anime MC surrounded by legions of pleasant, affectionate but ultimately mindless catgirls), in which the sentient queens (the Harem Anime MCs) never actually interact.
u/DataPacRat [+2] Amateur Immortalist (a minute later)
As an initial example, which may be a lower bound for exceeding the lower bound: "The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales.", which has catpersons of all genders, and I'd suspect that an antigrav castle is a suitable equivalent to said volcano lair. :)
u/ArgentStonecutter [+4] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (37 minutes later)
Catpersons of all genders and species. And an antigrav castle in a no-kidding Ringworld you built yourself.
I'll pass on the violent dominance games. Not my cup of tea. Also, it's kind of disappointing that he didn't spin off multiple instances of himself. He misses out on so much of the potential fun of the Hall by only letting people go through it once, too.
I'll vote for Banks "Culture", or Greg Egan's "Permutation City", though I still haven't figured out what's so great about pretending to be a "Chinese Room" AI. Peer's final embrace of Solipsist Nation principles is pretty awesome.
Charlie Stross's "Accelerando" universe has people being pretty much whatever they want in as many instances as they want.
Linda Nagata's universe has potential. Try "Vast".
Varley's Ophiuchi Hotline universe is pretty much a blast, though his reboot decades later nerfed the shit out of it.
Edit: adding Karl Schroeder's "Lady of Mazes".
Walter Jon Williams, "Implied Spaces"
Wil McCarthy, "Queendom of Sol" series.
u/DataPacRat [+2] Amateur Immortalist (46 minutes later)
Also, it's kind of disappointing that he didn't spin off multiple instances of himself.
IIRC, by the year-37,500-era stories, he has.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+5] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (53 minutes later)
What took him so long?
That's what really bugged me about the Journal Entries. Ken was so bloody conservative.
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (a day later)
Among beings who are truly immortal, there's a strong selection effect towards conservatism in most things.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
If there were a community of immortals in which a selection effect could operate, I could see that. Immortal doesn't mean indestructible. Rash immortals get killed off, survivors are conservative.
But Ken is a black swan, there's only one of him and he is what he is, he's not the result of a selection process among immortals. And he doesn't act conservatively in other areas. He acts like an impulsive risk taker inclined to radical experiments on adolescent whims (I mean really, lumbering a whole species with impractical tentacle-arms because he thought a cheesy Heavy Metal cover looked cool?).
u/Empiricist_or_not [+2] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (an hour later)
Despite overall Dystopian tone I got the impression life in the Sobernost as a Gogol might pass the bar, but I still wouldn't be willing to embrace their values.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (9 hours later)
Not to mention the other societies (the Oubliette, the Zoku)...
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (a day later)
Um. . . no thank you on the Oubliette. The use of the quiet seems to show a lack of imagination. It also implies forking is illegal.
The Zoku. . . I'm not sure. It's one hell of a party and I'd emigrate to them pretty quickly, but I unintentionally forgot them, probably because of the hidden values dissonances.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
Um. . . no thank you on the Oubliette. The use of the quiet seems to show a lack of imagination. It also implies forking is illegal.
It's still more fun than a volcano lair full of catgirls.
Don't forget the lower bound is pretty low.
There's also the Oortians. They sound kind of ascetic but still...
Speaking of Oortians, let me toss in the Oortians from Vacuum Flowers.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (2 days later)
It's still more fun than a volcano lair full of catgirls.
I'm not sure I think the volcano full of catgirls assumed eternal life without periodic mandatory indentured servitude to the state.
Speaking of Oortians, let me toss in the Oortians from Vacuum Flowers.
I'll have to give it a look.
There's also the Oortians. They sound kind of ascetic but still...
No thank you on the Ortians as a paradise, it's better than here and I'd work to get there, but it's a subsistence society constrained by being bios in the Oort. They have a deathist culture and a second class afterlife. It'd be a scary cult if they have a low out-migration rate.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+0] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 days later)
I think the volcano full of catgirls assumed eternal life
" living in your volcano lair with catgirls is probably a vast increase in standard of living for most of humanity"
Don't see "eternal life" in there.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (2 days later)
I want to spend a million years having sex with catgirls after the Singularity."
I
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 days later)
That's quoting some unnamed third party.
There's a lot of other bullshit in EY's article too, such as the assumption that "catpeople" implies "nonsentient"... I mean consider that this subthread stared with DataPacRat's comment about the Journal Entries, where the catgirls are definitely NOT "nonsentient".
So I figure we're talking about "How many existing fictional settings do you know that are more fun to live in than that?" Where that is just what I quoted two messages up. It's certainly easy to come up with ones that aren't. Like, Star Trek's Federation.
So, let's try another: I'll go with the high-tech Amish of Iain Banks Feersum Endjinn, who are resource constrained by some poor reactions to transcendant machinery (they're apparently the people left behind by their Singularity) but still manage to do a better job than "A volcano lair full of catgirls".
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)
Heck, the backstory to Karl Schroeder's "Lady of Mazes" has spoiler
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+1] (14 hours later)
Present-day Earth passes Reedspacer's Lower Bound if the catpeople are sentient, because odds are that in such a "utopia", you would be one of the catpeople. This is basically the same problem with many Christian conceptions of Heaven, wherein humans assume the roles of the catpeople and God assumes the role of the non-catperson.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (15 hours later)
odds are that in such a "utopia", you would be one of the catpeople
Except for the Volcano Lair bit. Plus, it's never specified that there's anyone in the scenario who isn't a catperson.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Well there has to be someone in the scenario who isn't a catperson, because by weirdo LWian definition, the non-catperson is the only one conscious and intelligent enough to actually have fun having a lair and catgirls.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
I think we've already determined that I don't buy into the LW definition of catgirl (along with anyone else who's read any stories about The Instrumentality of Mankind, or The Wanderer, or pretty much any SF literature involving humanoid cats...)
I mean, a non-sentient humanoid cat? I wouldn't go near one in less than a full attack dog trainer outfit. Cats are fucking scary, we only think they're cute because we're ten times their size.
Plus this subthread is discussing LiteralHeadCannon's post:
Present-day Earth passes Reedspacer's Lower Bound if the catpeople are sentient [...]
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (4 days later)
u/the_one_butcher [+1] (6 years later)
I don't buy into the LW definition of catgirl
You don't buy into definitions, you just need to accept them as true statements, because that is what a definition, by definition, is.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (6 years later)
3 points 6 years ago*
Why are you spamming me with this stuff from two administrations ago? I didn't think Reddit even let you do that.
u/zoru22 [+1] (6 years later)
It didn't used to. Sounds like they silently removed it.
u/Jiro_T [+2] (18 hours later)
I could just as well say the same thing ignoring sentience: I could describe the utopia as a place containing lots of biological creatures and then say that if I was one of the biological creatures I would probably be one of the catpeople. Specifically assuming that you would be one of the sentients, rather than one of the (insert larger or smaller category that includes you) is reference class manipulation.
Of course, if you're sentient and catgirls aren't, being in a catgirl's position means that you would no longer be you. But actual loss of sentience is not needed for you to no longer be you--there are differences between you and even sentient catgirls, after all.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Specifically assuming that you would be one of the sentients, rather than one of the (insert larger or smaller category that includes you) is reference class manipulation.
This sounds like a strengthening of Rawls and his Veil of Ignorance that captures what's basically good about his form of constructivism while ignoring the liberal baggage about "plans of life" and "procedural justice" that he draped it in.
For instance, it lets us conveniently and easily say, "/u/ToaKraka is literally a self-admitted sociopath, but it's still irrational for him to support turning society into a dictatorship ruled by an evil overlord, because it's outrageously improbable that he would actually wind up in the advantaged position. Maximizing his own (sociopathic) interests actually involves building the kind of society that's robust against forms of power, manipulation, and domination to which he can't cheaply avoid falling victim, and which also robustly supplies him with other people's social cooperation when he needs it."
u/Jiro_T [+1] (a day later)
If we're going to turn society into a dictatorship, there's direct continuity from an existing human to a human living under a dictatorship. On the other hand, saying "that society has a 100 to 1 ratio of trees to humans, so if you live in that society you'll probably be a tree" is nonsense, because we're not going to be making trees from existing people.
In order to be able to say "if the catgirls are sentient, you would probably be one of the catgirls" it would have to be true that
- nonsentient catgirls would not be made from existing people, but
- sentient catgirls would be made from existing people.
I find this unlikely.