Controversial Philosophical Takes, Ranked

[@CosmicSkeptic]

MyHeritage is having a promotion right now. Click here - bit.ly/AlexOConnor_MH - to find out your ethnic origins. Use code "alexoc" at checkout for free shipping! To support my work and get early, ad-free access: www.alexoconnor.com

[@orbolskimapper12]

what do you thinkof solipsism

[@h3fan725]

Hi Alex, any advice on how you stay present I find social media is making me a bit foggy in the brain. Do you know anything about this to do with psychology and your thoughts on this? I’d love to know

[@GamuSino-dp2pr]

You are wrong in #2: There is no universal frame of reference for speed but yes for acceleration. Earth is accelerating around the sun because it changes both direction and escalar speed. Also we change speed as earth spins because we change the direction of our movement. If earth was really static there wouldn't be coriolis effect and centrifuge acceleration.

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Isn't evolution necessary to continue the human race? Maybe protecting women and children makes perfect sense

[@bruvance]

can you imagine all the kids running around and getting bored of killing so they start making friends with the other kids

[@_Cerb_]

Getting MyHeritage sponsor in a video that involves incest is just chef's kiss

[@justinwolz4932]

My Heritage will show that your family tree is circle.

[@mushy470]

Wreath

[@tdj461]

​​@@justinwolz4932no, it (mankind) would look like complex and very long trees with spider webs 🕸️. Even in an incest family, it would look more like a ladder 🪜. The only way a family cycle exists is by using a time machine, we call it the *grandmother* paradox, where the question is who is the original father and who is the original son. 🤣

[@bradylittlerr]

bro hung out with destiny for an hour too long and started debating incest

[@jesseparrish1993]

Open relationships are a good idea.

[@dbcooperslilbrother]

@@jesseparrish1993 blue hair is not a cry for attention

[@bruhdabones]

Many such cases

[@falcongamer58]

​@@jesseparrish1993 😭 😭

[@dageustice]

Don't forget dogwarts

[@jakerz0]

The child soldiers take stops short. By their logic, anyone over 40 should be conscripted too, many of whom would probably be more effective in combat than children and teenagers.

[@markjuckenburg6006]

i also agree with this. human value is a bell curve with the peak being a young adult

[@_uncredited]

It's a transactional argument. It's even more expensive to reach 40 and they are valuable in other ways (wealth generation, etc).

[@Plasmapigeon]

That's making a generalization, age is not the most accurate quota to measure functional value from. It's likely based on a bunch of factors including those in the nature and nurture of the individual. There is also the issue of knowingly living in a society that with assess you based on a quota, where ones goal may be to gimmick some rating system in order to avoid conscription than to actually be a productive member of the society. Edit: Saw a good point that Functional value also changes based off the needs of the society, a child in an underpopulated area is functionally more valuable than one in an overpopulated area. The situation that happened with birth restriction in China is a great example of the nuance on how this moral philosophy could play out.

[@hibernopithecus7500]

@@markjuckenburg6006_modern_ human value.

[@rorybessell8280]

​@@markjuckenburg6006Are you by chance void of empathy?

[@Solllaire]

I feel like emotivism is wrong

[@SaladDongs]

I know that emotivism is wrong

[@someonesomeone25]

Lol.

[@GrimmWitchands]

Funny thing you did there

[@troyeswan690]

😂👏🏼

[@Syuvinya]

it took me like 5 seconds to get this LMAO

[@noahjackson466]

The minty - spicy controversy should really end once you think about the word peppermint.

[@phillystevesteak6982]

My God....

[@adinom687]

Are you saying that minty and spicy are NOT opposites? It’s possible that peppermint is a sort of oxymoron. I don’t know how I feel about it, but what I do know is that mint and spice feels very similar in my mouth while still being different. Spicy is a sort of hot, zingy feelings, while mint is a more cold, relaxing feeling while both are still extreme flavor profiles. Speaking of which, it’s like hot and cold, even though they are opposite, at the extreme they often feel pretty similar. If you touch something insanely hot, you will pull your hand away in the same manner as if you were to touch something insanely cold.

[@ICWieneryay]

His God 😮 ​@@phillystevesteak6982

[@Sunlessilver]

Peppermint is not a kind of pepper. It's only called a peppermint because it is more pungent or "spicier" compared to its parents spearmint and water-mint. Mint is chemically the opposite of spice since the active ingredient in mint is Menthol which tricks your mind into tasting cold. Spice does the opposite of mint through the chemical Capsaicin, tricking your mind into tasting hot.

[@Sunlessilver]

First off peppermint is not a kind of pepper. It's only called a peppermint because it is more pungent or "spicier" compared to its parents spearmint and water-mint. Mint is chemically the opposite of spice since the active ingredient in mint is Menthol which tricks your mind into tasting cold. Spice does the opposite of mint through the chemical Capsaicin, tricking your mind into tasting hot. All that's left arguing what 'mild' means, bland or barely spicy.

[@omarkennedy7056]

A white dude in the British isles with the name O'Connor is Irish? Imagine my surprise...

[@joepiekl]

There's a reason why these sorts of DNA testing kits are more popular in America than Britain.

[@cutiefarty]

there's nothing to find out for lot of people in the uk 😭

[@samdoyle1064]

British Isles? You’re not Irish I’m guessing

[@lordgemini2376]

He's English with Irish ancestry, no one in Ireland would consider him Irish 😂 A big chunk of English people are of Irish ancestry, they just don't make a big deal out of it like people from the US with Irish ancestry dp. Something like 10 of the 23-man England national team have Irish ancestry lol. Almost everyone will have or will know someone who has an Irish grandparent and the percentage increases if you start going back to the 1800s like the yanks tend to. It's not that big of a deal here. (I'm from Ireland but have lived in England for 6 years)

[@Bob-v6h8t]

@@lordgemini2376 People in Ireland will scoff at an American mentioning that he is of Irish descent, yet these same people in Ireland will consider someone merely born in Ireland with no ties to the natives of the isle to be Irish simply on jus soli alone.

[@charliemcdonald]

much like Samson, Alex’s wisdom is now stored in his moustache. he has a moral duty to keep it for all time.

[@EnglishMike]

His moustache is watered and fed by the bitter tears of viewers who hate the thing...

[@johnrockyryan]

YES YES YES!! I like the stache

[@cazcow]

The stache can stay so long as the beard is allowed to rejoin it. If he's gonna keep the pedostache, however, may as well lean fully into and grow out a mullet.

[@irti_pk]

Samson and Wisdom in the same sentence is like saying Diddy and wholesome.

[@user-lt2zu4qo8z]

​@@cazcow Finally, someone else has sense

[@KreeZafi]

I take issue with saying incest is wrong on the basis that it's icky. If we use that line of reasoning, then what about the people who have that same visceral gross-out reaction to homosexuality? Is homosexuality wrong because people find it icky?

[@Raadpensionaris]

People find it wrong because it is icky to them. You don't find it wrong because it isn't icky to you

[@welshed]

Yes. To some people yes. We all just look at things and come to a conclusion based on our own feelings.

[@thefaboo]

​@@Raadpensionaris Some people like having sex while covered in food, and other people like keeping giant spiders as pets in their home. I find both of those things viscerally revolting, but if I'm not involved I don't see those things as immoral or wrong.

[@gustavolopes5094]

I think I agree with the friends above mostly, but there's one difference. With homosexuality, eventually we should realize "well this is silly. Live and let live, *they're not hurting anyone"*, about homosexuality as a whole. Now, if we allow for such in the cases of incest where there's objectively nothing at risk between the two people involved, there's still a risk for society as a whole. By allowing incest in the "acceptable" cases, you indirectly support it as a whole a bit more, leading to more incest, leading to more genetic problems.

[@Max-zz7ol]

i think the difference is you can make rational statements about why honosexuality is not harmful and change someones mind, but even if you make rational statements about incest in cases where there are no percieved negative effects (although i 99% disagree with this), its hard for most people to accept it as "okay" or socially acceptable, which is where the emotivist point of view comes in.

[@CharlieQuartz]

Not sending child soldiers to the front lines of a war is no where near a purely emotional moral intuition, it has an obvious functional benefit of long term continuation of the species and the next generational source of mental and physical labor. Any society that values preservation and wishes prosperity or comfort for individuals past the "ideal age" will want to preserve a stock of children to perform those tasks they carried out in their young adulthood. If humans had evolved to value the lives of adults more than children, we would not have survived a few generations. It's much more functionally arguable that the elderly should be sent the front lines, if it weren't for their declining physical fitness.

[@TheHadMatters]

I agree with the conclusion, but your line of argument is flawed. "Preservation of the species" can be advanced by 30-year-olds. Whether you kill off 90% of children or 90% of young adults, either will drastically impact the continuation of the species. But 30-year-olds aren't impacted as much from having and raising children as a generation of children raised with half the parental guidance and knowledge pool. I guess it also depends on how you select your soldiers. If the 10% that stay at home survive and are great parents, now killing off the more brutish 90% of 30-year-olds in war becomes less of an issue. At that point we're getting a bit lost in the details though.

[@Pushing_Pixels]

This is true. During WWII, the Soviet Union lost the majority of several years' worth of 18-year-old males in combat. I don't firmly remember which it was, but there was one cohort of men born in a certain year, of whom less than 20% survived the war (it was probably 1923, as they would've turned 18 in 1941 and been expected to fight through the whole conflict). Adjacent cohorts also fared very badly. It left a huge demographic hole, which negatively impacted both the workforce and fertility rates. The repercussions are still being felt over 80 years later, so conscription narrowly targeting the young is not a good long-term strategy.

[@judgejudyandexecutioner.5223]

@@TheHadMatters In fact, young adults are prefect for preserving the species, whereas many of the children hypothetically could die, be celibate or homosexual or have any other number of things occur before they are of age to reproduce. Then additionally, say we lost 90% of the young adults at war, those children who were spared war but must reproduce will lack leaders, parental figures and development by reproduction ages as well, and create a problem generation resultingly.

[@threatened2024]

"it has an obvious functional benefit of long term continuation of the species and the next generational source of mental and physical labor." - Also applicable as a driver of incest aversion.

[@spiralsausage]

Even mathematically I think it doesn't hold, depending on what your goal is. Example: Option one: child is at war, dies age 13, the hypothetical adult that wouldve replaced them lives to 75. Option 2: adult is at war, dies age 40, the hypothetical child that would've replaced them lives to 75. Option 2 seems mathematically correct because you are maximising the total number of years potentially lived.

[@leedouglas1692]

'O'Connor's Law', similar to 'Godwin's Law' - As an online philosophical discussion grows longer, the probability of the topic of incest approaches 100%. Mild.

[@shambhav9534]

If you consider all discussions in general, and not just philosophical ones, I think it kind of flips. I think incest is the most common single internet joke as in people using it for shock value laughter. At the dawn of any discussion, there absolutely will be a person inserting incest into it if remotely possible.

[@LazySatyr]

"my heritage made it pretty easy for me" is a sound bite the internet is gonna have a field day with

[@SillyRobot]

Oh my lord

[@lucia.castelli]

Beautiful

[@M1ntt806]

controversial take- that moustache is fine

[@Doddom]

Indian Spicy

[@TheTrueRandomGamer]

No.

[@shaicry]

agreed

[@Cwflymwest-vx5cb]

No.

[@christophercombs7561]

Lol it's not but go off lol

[@arrownibent5980]

The idea of traumatized child soldiers coming back to society in huge numbers sounds scary as fuck. I think that adults having more attachment to societal norms due to their familiarity with them makes them more stable or at least more likely to internalize their trauma so it doesn't come up and blows up at everyone around them, since children are less likely to handle this the same way you may be running into a much bigger risk of just bringing the war back home

[@njhoepner]

I've heard it said that some groups intentionally recruit child soldiers because their ethical limitations can be more easily removed. I'm not sure about that, but it would increase the ethical problem with using them.

[@icedmosquito109]

let the pets fight it out

[@dillydubb]

“Mild Incest” is a sweet punk-bluegrass band name

[@bruhdabones]

Midwest Incest would be good too

[@destructorzz7197]

What is mild incest 🤣😭

[@simonpeyton-n3h]

@@destructorzz7197 2nd cousins or cousins would be mild i think

[@destructorzz7197]

@@simonpeyton-n3h I guess you're right!

[@simonpeyton-n3h]

@@destructorzz7197 cousins mild and siblings wild lol

[@merrymachiavelli2041]

On the point at 9:15 - it's also worth noting that babies born of incest _aren't_ 'often' born disabled. While inbreeding increases your relative risk substantially, in absolute terms the baby is still probably going to be completely fine. This is particularly true if you are talking about cousin incest - it's been a while since I looked at the stats, but I think in absolute terms the likelihood of a child having major congenital issues goes from 3% to 4.5%, if it's over a single generation. Which is comparable to having kids when you're older, and potentially less risky than having kids if you know you and your partner carry deleterious recessive alleles. Sibling or parent-child incest is risker, but still. Probably fine. It's not really a philosophical point, just getting it out there that the idea that all or most children born of incest look like Quasimodo is mostly a myth.

[@davidheeren3751]

Good point

[@EnglishMike]

They are very common when it's sibling or parent-child couple -- around 50% in a couple of studies I could find. It all depends on how many genetic defects the parents are carrying. First cousins are a lot less of an issue, as you say, though if it is widespread in extended families over several generations, the mental and physical decefits do become a cause for concern.

[@SeeMyDolphin]

@@EnglishMikeI believe you're misreading that statistic. It likely says 50% increase, which would mean 3% to 4.5%. There is absolutely no way a study found 50% total probability. It will certainly be below 10%.

[@meenky]

of course this also only implicates straight relationships

[@blammela]

How often do you normally stay abreast of the most recent statistics on incestrial defects?

[@JustinEddy-r1b]

Regarding controversial take #1, the "transactional, mathematical morality" that explains why a child's life is considered more valuable than an adult's is that a child has more life left to experience and is therefore being robbed of more in dying than an adult. If you had to choose between saving the lives of three 80 year old humans or two 25 year old humans, you could morally justify saving fewer people with more life left to experience using this basic math. If the average life expectancy is 75, the value of the two groups is 100 years vs -15 years. I'm not fully endorsing this logic, but its pretty straightforward and isn't based on emotion.

[@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060]

All moral evaluations are based on emotion regardless of people trying to convince themselves otherwise. Life needs to be given a " net positive value" for this to make sense.

[@JustinEddy-r1b]

@@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060 Broadly speaking, you may be correct, but the "net positive value" of life assumption was built into the original question, so I added no extra emotion in my response beyond what was already presupposed.

[@littlebitofhope1489]

No, that's not it. It's about resources. Evolutionarily speaking, children are much less likely to reproduce (not as a child of course, don't go there). You have already put the resources into the 25 year old, and they have proven they can survive. So transactionally it makes more sense to save the ones who can contribute to survival. That would be the 18-35 first, older but healthy second, older children third, and the sick and infants last, since they are the most likely not to survive anyway. Which is why infanticide was common at some points in history.

[@nate2933]

Was about to make this same comment until I saw yours

[@JustinEddy-r1b]

@@littlebitofhope1489 If the premise of your argument is that the highest value people in a society are those with the most resources, then the "older but healthy" group that you list second would actually be first. They typically have more material wealth then military aged males. They also typically (and not coincidentally) have more power and influence than military aged males, and usually make up the majority of the political class who send military aged males into combat to protect them, their wealth, and the women and children who make up their society. Arguing that people should be prioritized based on resources is not a hot or spicy take, its business as usual. The second part of your argument, that adults have "proven they can survive" (with the clear implication being that children have not), falls apart with a cursory glance at data on mortality. Even prior to modern medicine, a child who made it past the age of two had a standard life expectancy, and now there is essentially no higher risk of death for infants as long as they are born healthy. There are also no infant child soldiers, so if we are staying on topic, its a moot point. Children of all ages do require resources that they are not fully able to provide from themselves (though some of that is cultural, since farming and agricultural work were done by children throughout history and are still done by them in other countries) and that cost is largely passed on to older members of society, but you'd have to weigh that against the negative societal costs of adults aged 18-35. Adults in the 18-35 group are far more likely than young children to engage in a whole host of damaging, dangerous and self destructive behaviors (drinking, drug use, self harm, violent crime, etc). All of this is fun to discuss but is a digression from my original point. Whether you agree with it or not, an argument exists for prioritizing the lives of children over the lives of adults that can arise from a "transactional, mathematical morality" rather than a purely emotional one.

[@davidcooke4384]

@CosmicSkeptic So given ethical emotivism, are you cool with people saying homosexuality is immoral because it’s icky (even if you disagree with them?). I’ve seen anti gay prejudice used as a knock on Christianity by a lot of atheists, but it would seem like on emotivist grounds; there isn’t exactly anything wrong with this type of argument against homosexuality

[@timm9818]

It would be just a fact that they feel that way, no moral value at all. But they cannot base their argument in that feeling, as that feeling has no moral force. They could say it is icky to me when people are gay, ok, but that has no bearing on whether or not people should or can be gay.

[@davidcooke4384]

@@timm9818 but on Ethical Emotivism that’s all that ANY moral claim is, so “it’s wrong to murder” also means “I think it’s icky when people murder” Frankly since studies show that straight people find gay kissing etc to be grotesque and that’s the majority of the population, I don’t see why on ethical emotivist terms there’s not at least a plausible path to social conservatism on something like homosexuality

[@timm9818]

@@davidcooke4384 you are taking it backwards. yes, ethical emotivists say that moral claims are just someone’s feelings about something. you are saying that someone’s feeling, therefore, has objective moral weight. that is not an argument made by emotivists, and i also think is untrue. the best emotivists can get you is the argument “i subjectively think homosexuality is wrong, because it feels bad to me” that is fine, it is a good reason for you to not be gay, but if someone else feels differently they would have no reason to listen to your argument

[@timm9818]

and the idea that if the majority felt bad about something it shouldn’t be allowed, on what grounds? how are you grounding the argument that people shouldnt feel bad in emotivist terms? that feels very utilitarian

[@ErinMagner82]

​@@timm9818yeah but people that are against homosexuality are against public displays of homosexuality because of how they react to it. For them it's the equivalent of having a pile of trash instead of a container, or fixing a car with duct tape instead of having it repaired. And for the religious it's a sin, not so different from adultery.

[@ohp98]

Initially I was outraged by mint being the opposite of spicy. But my girlfriend pointed out to me that the coolness of menthol mint works by latching onto your mouths coolness receptors in the same way that capsasin does that to heat receptors for spice. Therefore working identically but on receptors measuring the two ends of the same spectrum. All in all, I now agree with you.

[@RavenThePlayer]

Bro if you're here who's moderating your subreddits

[@EnglishMike]

Re: Geocentrism.... only if there aren't one or more intelligent alien species somewhere in the cosmos.

[@Taliesin2]

Exactly what I was going to say. It is the only Planet in the Universe where life exists, as far as we know. Considering how far away most of the universe is, that doesn't tell us much.

[@MrCmon113]

Minty af, what would be a bit more spicey is to maintain that oneself is stationary and everything else moves.

[@blackmarvolo]

This is the mintiest of all the takes in this video, I don’t understand the Indian spicy rating. Outer space being the shared heritage of humanity? The mere fact that we call it outer space, as if we’re somehow separate from the rest of it? Any sci-fi with alien civilizations, where somehow humans usually end up as the dominant culture in the universe. And again, even calling extra-terrestrial life „aliens”? All normal stuff, all geocentric and anthropocentric. How is this a spicy take?

[@isiahs9312]

the argument is a bit silly. Sure you can treat the earth as stationary and the results you get will be that orbits do not work properly. It really isnt a question of perspective its a question of basic physics. Stuff orbits around the center of mass. If you assume the center of mass is the sun you can make testable predictions of where the planets are, if you assume it is at earth you can not.

[@njhoepner]

@@isiahs9312 Actually, geocentrists were able to make accurate predictions of the positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars - they did it for centuries, it was the professional skill for which astrologer/astronomers were paid (until the 19th century, the two were basically the same). The problem with the argument is that it starts from the idea of position (for example, the sun is the center of the solar system) and then transitions to the idea of perspective as if that's the same thing. It's a bit of slight of hand. Our perspective is geocentric, but the sun does not change position because of it.

[@seamussc]

12:10 The nuclear thing for Spongebob is a bit more than a theory. Bikini Bottom is a reference to it being under Bikini Atoll, where the US tested nukes in the Pacific. How directly they are affected is up for discussion, of course, but there is a canonical basis for it.

[@schlorbster]

That‘s literally what a theory is. You‘re saying because the name is kinda simillar it has to be true. Do you think some people making a silly show for kids thought that would be the right place for secret political messages?

[@arogueburrito]

​@schlorbster given the creator of SpongeBob was a marine biologist, yes, I do think he was aware of the name similarly

[@Obi-WanKannabis]

The incest question is interest to me cuz people always focus on the disability of the child. Well, it is proven that older mothers have much higher rates of disabled children. Should we look at someone having a baby at 40 the same way as we look at an incestuous couple?

[@warptens5652]

It's very funny how the first reason people come up with when trying to explain why incest is bad is that they're pro eugenics.

[@aguspuig6615]

@@warptens5652 tho tbh, literally everyone is pro eugenics to some level

[@jasonbelstone3427]

@OP If you're in some faction of the American right wing, the answer is yes.

[@maxtelintelo6577]

I don't think so. First of all because having children after the age of 40 is not a conscious decision as it is to have kids with your sister. It just might be that you never got to know someone you wanted to have kids with before then. And is also more of a niche decision than a categorical one. On top of that, i don't believe the chances or severity of disabilities is as bad for children of 40+ women as it is for incest-babies.

[@gamingwhilebroken2355]

@@warptens5652 Eugenics and selective breeding are not the same things and they cannot be used interchangeably. Eugenics is about “improving” the genetic diversity of a population whereas not letting two specific individuals pair together is selective breeding. The difference is that those genetics are still in the gene pool and there is no directive to remove them. There is nothing stopping or even discouraging those individuals from breeding with other individuals. So the frequency of any allele in the population remains unchanged. I see people get this wrong in fiction (or with purebred animals) all the time. For example I watch a video about early magic the gathering lore that claimed it had eugenics. The protagonist breeds a line of people to be specifically effective soldiers against fighting an inter dimensional invasion (they are called phyrexians), but that’s not eugenics. He’s not breeding them to be “better” than other human but instead is breeding them to perform a specific task. That’s selective breeding. He had no interest in doing this to all humans and once the phyrexians were vanquished he had no plans on continuing the breeding program (he dies in the final battle though so that’s kinda a moot point). People should stop conflating the two as eugenics is pseudoscientific and has no back in empirical data. Selective breeding on the other hand absolutely objectively works. We can and do breed animals and plants to perform specific tasks better than other lines all the time. That is objectively and empirically demonstrated reality. When people do conflate the two, which you just did, people (like the commenter below you) response with something like, “well everyone is for a little eugenics.” They think that because they have eyes and can see selective breeding works in other species so why wouldn’t it work in people. The answer is selective breeding would work in people (and I believe it has been done in the past), but eugenics is an entirely different beast. Eugenics is about making the population “superior” (which in and of itself a nebulous idea and such vagueness alone should be suspect for it not being scientifically sound) and that doesn’t really work. Maybe in the future when we have both the technology and extensive knowledge on genetics eugenics, or at least something akin to eugenics, might be a possibility but we are not anywhere near that point in our understanding of genetics. We are likely talking centuries of scientific discovery (at our current rate) before we are even close enough for that to be considered viable.

[@briciolaa]

the issue with incest is that it's not what people think it is. it's in the majority of cases the result of gross power imbalance, for instance, fathers assaulting and impregnating their own daughters or an older sibling forcing themselves on a younger sibling. it's not just about health and their offspring. healthy family dynamics dont result in incest. its a matter of abuse

[@aj7515]

The "child soldier" take doesn't even need a second guess, the child is weak, the adult is not, do the math- it's like saying why not send your grandfather to fight instead, he's old and is going to die anytime soon anyways and is not like he's contributing alot in society anymore. And you'd have to be a fool to send someone who is weaker than you to protect you or fight for you.

[@TheRepublicOfUngeria]

To me, whether incest should be permissable or not comes down to whether or not we think a State ought to enforce eugenic standards for breeding. If there is no proper interest in The State enforcing genetic standards, then incest should not be banned. If there is a proper interest in The State enforcing genetic standards, then that would not only make the banning of incest proper, but it would also prompt the question as to how far we should go in enforcing eugenic standards for breeding. Why wouldn't it also be proper to force everyone to get a genetic test, and, before you reproduce with someone, you have to compare your genotypes from that test to find out how particularly risky your particular pairing would be, and, if the test shows that your pairing would be much liklier to result in a disabled baby than an averaged pairing, should that couple not be banned from breeding as vociferously as we would ban incestuous pairings? Because, at the end of the day, the logic is the same: you are preventing particular people from breeding because you have demonstrated that their pairing is uniquely dangerous to the health of the prospective child.

[@sheridan5175]

Nothing to do with level of risk, but rather excessive red tape and government overreach. I'm not going to apply to have a child, that's weird and authoritarian.

[@user-lt2zu4qo8z]

I second another point being the massive problem in possibly grooming when talking about parent to child incest. But beyond that, it's alright. Has problems but about as bad as our current rules

[@phantomknight1395]

Finally another person I can respect.

[@klajdiklb1520]

​@@user-lt2zu4qo8zand if they are adults. What if the child maniplutes the parent? It's totally possible for a very smart teenager to do it to a non so smart parent? There's no reason whatsoever it can't happen.

[@electricant55]

@Minimmalmythicist not even close, a random woman over 40s has way higher risk than first generation incest

[@Rave.-]

2 solo videos from Alex in 1 week? Whatever this is, I love it.

[@bengeurden1272]

This isn't YouP**n, this is KZbin.. somebody needs to remind you once in a while 😁

[@touristykindaguy]

Couldn't agree more

[@MrVenzetti]

A point to your AI opinion. The conversation on the differences between how an AI takes art and turns it into new pieces and how a human being does the same thing is almost endless, as someone who has made music all my life I could jump down that rabbit hole for hours, and I would say that the difference is immense. But, the main thing that made me want to comment though is the offhanded statement of "you can't just live your life in complete isolation, learn how a musical scale works, and then create a pop song out of nothing". You absolutely can, and while music is of course a thing that is heavily influenced by its history and it's surroundings, music can and has been made in isolation. If you look at all the musical traditions across the world, what a scale is defined as can change depending on where you are, which shows that these musical traditions came from something unique, with different sensibilities and preferences, these forms of musical expression were made isolated from each other. Even if you use the word isolation to mean a complete empty void where nothing but the creator exists, I can hum, and find the noise pleasing, I can create music from that nothingness. I can even create music about that nothingness. Maybe you could hammer home that you meant specifically you need context and inspirations to make pop music specifically, but as soon as you talk about a genre you are not talking about creating simply music, you are creating something within confines. The thing that, famously, AI -- at least how it stands now -- is stuck inside, while we are able to create the confines itself and outside the constraints. It saddens me to see both your praise for a new sort of Geocentrism as an interesting idea, an idea that is very human-centric and gives us this unique power of experience and sentience, while ignoring that those aspects of life go into the things we create. Stories, music, art, culture itself is an expression of that -- for lack of a less weighted term -- humanity.

[@julianb4333]

I’m an AI engineer and I agree. I see gen AI as an interpolation system (in the mathematical sense, not the musical sense). The only originality an AI can add is noise. Humans have an additional tool that is emotional feedback which would indeed make it possible to create without any exposure to inspiration.

[@die_cuteste]

the moment ai becomes sentient this argument of “they’re just doing the same as humans” will apply, but at that point we’ll have way more pressing ethical concerns, with them being sentient and all that

[@TapeBandit710]

@@julianb4333 The emotional feedback is a good point. I'd also add that humans can add to their creation of art using experiences of their life that are separate from other art they've perceived/learned from. Generative AI *only* "knows" the art that it's been trained on, but a person knows that as well as what it feels like to fall in love, lose a parent, have to get through a double shift on a Monday while hungover after your shitty ex crashed a party you were at and you ended up getting blackout drunk and walking home barefoot at 2:30am.

[@Apersonl0l]

the AI take should have been a volcano, a cartoon character eats something and smokes and fire bursts out of their mouth nose and ears spicy take

[@TAEYYO]

Yeah that caught my attention as well. It might be rare, but you can still find artists and musicians who created despite being completely isolated. It's funny too because I've noticed while AI can make music, I've yet to hear it create the kind of music I like. The reason is I have very peculiar taste in music, and the AI just hasn't had much exposure to certain types of music.

[@addison1238]

Alex, Been watching your videos for a while now, I remember being a kid in middle school and learning what I thought about my own beliefs in the context of a lutheran family and finally converting to atheism through your videos. I remember trying to learn how to play "with you" because I thought that song was the shit. To see you grow to where you are now with the level of success and knowledge you gained from your studies alongside my own growing up and almost finishing my own degree has been a pleasure. Keep it up.

[@A_Stereotypical_Heretic]

3:30 I did the my heritage test, my ethnicity came back as nicotine 🤷

[@naomistarlight6178]

Oh you're Scottish too fam?

[@christianbenesch1]

Yes the Nicotine Empire was in a century long struggle with the Byzantine Empire.

[@A_Stereotypical_Heretic]

@@christianbenesch1 oh I thought I was a descendant of Nicodemus

[@A_Stereotypical_Heretic]

@@naomistarlight6178 sure am. 57% nicotine, 40% alcohol and 3% filthy English

[@A_Stereotypical_Heretic]

@@naomistarlight6178 sure am, 57% nicotine, 40% alcohol and 3% filthy Saxon

[@muplin]

Alex just want to let you know that you are a legend, love your work! You inspire me!

[@lgrr6985]

It took me embarrassingly long to understand that the words on the thumbnail weren't supposed to be read as one word.

[@davidkistler6749]

Child soldiers: Putting aside my emotional and ethical qualms on the proposition, it still fails when measured against the sort of cold economic thinking that it is appealing to. Part of creating a good society is creating a functioning society, which requires a degree of sustainability. If we do not care for and value children, in 25 years we will not have the same number of valuable, capable young adults that this proposition says we should care about.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

Exactly. It's like speed-dialling the Chinese one-child policy.

[@TribuneAquila]

Additionally, a society that employs adult soldiers will probably defeat a society of child soldiers as stated in its own argument, the adults are more functional.

[@LeahsThings]

You've brought up ethical emotivism a few times, and I think my critique of it is that what people just "feels wrong" can vary widely by their local norms. I think trans rights is a current case where this point of view can be disastrous: there are a lot of people who are new to the idea of transgender people existing, don't feel comfortable with trans people, and this discomfort comes across as feeling "wrong" and "bad" to them... That seems to be enough for folks to actively try to legislate away transgender folks' rights to healthcare, to be in public spaces (of which the ability to use a public toilet is incredibly important), and to be basically treated with dignity. Approaching from a more utilitarian view, it should be obvious (I would hope) that fearmongering about and restricting the rights of transgender people does more net harm, but I think people who allow their discomfort to lead their morals can justify it.

[@MrCmon113]

"Philosophical geocentrism" is minty af. It's even less minty than me being stationary and everything else moving.

[@ericberman_]

Child soldier functionalism is defeated by functionalism: adult soldiers are physically and mentally superior and will easily defeat child army.

[@lexaray5]

For someone who's not a moral realist, Alex frequently assumes that we share intuitions about morality. Especially if you're an emotivist, what morality is "really about" is entirely subjective and changes from person to person. I actually do have an intuitive need to weigh suffering against wellbeing. I always have, for as long as I have memories. It's not a "cold calculus." I care so much about people's subjective experiences that I want to do my best to get it as right as possible. And going off of vibes isn't as effective as stopping to consider all the potential impacts. It's extremely weird to me that others don't have this intuition, but you don't see me claiming that their intuitions are impossible. Edit: apparently I need to explicitly state that I'm criticizing Alex's view on utilitarianism, not emotivism. He seems to think that utilitarianism is not emotive enough ("it misses what ethics is really about") despite ultimately being based on emotion/intuition/desire like every other ethical theory.

[@_Squiggle_]

I think your utilitarian worldview is ultimately based on how you feel though. Why do you believe that other people's happiness is important except that it feel right to you?

[@lexaray5]

@_Squiggle_ oh absolutely! I don't deny that for a second. I just think that if you acknowledge as much, I don't know how you can make statements about what ethics is "really about" without the qualifier "to me." Or how you can talk about "our intuitions" rather than "my intuitions."

[@markadams7046]

@@lexaray5 People tend to project what would be their own motives onto others, but maybe I'm just projecting.

[@sadderwhiskeymann]

@OP i am curious as to what your answer for the trolley problem is. The original one (5 lives Vs one+your involvement)

[@thefuturist8864]

Moral anti-realism doesn’t necessarily imply relativism, and it’s important to bear in mind that ‘subjective’ and ‘relative’ don’t mean the same thing. We could all be emotivists and also all believe that the human psyche is identical, or near-identical, in all who possess it; this means that it’s at least conceivable that we can be emotivist and also believe in shared moral intuitions.

[@EnglishMike]

"The strong defending the weak" (argument against child soldiers) is a very important ethic in a social species like ours. Where it holds, it ensures that the vast majority of people can live in relative safety compared to places where the strong only look after themselves. Protecting other people's children is just a part of that.

[@ErinMagner82]

Adults have also already had the chance to produce offspring, and war was often a way of thinning the unmarried male population to prevent them from becoming restless and violent within the community.

[@aguspuig6615]

This also goes with the idea that, the strongest people were once weak people who were protected and trained to become strong, instead of left to fend for themselves. If i throw a kid in hte streets, he will probably survive, and he will probably become a certain kind of ''strong'' he will have a specific kind of independent mindset and toughness, however that kid will probably not be as well fed as he could be, so physically speaking he will be less strong and beautifull. He will not have the same role models he otherwise could have, so he wont be as morally strong. And even a normal child with parents can decide to challenge themselves physically and mentally to become as mentally tough as the kid thats left in the streets, but with all the other advantages of a more sheltered life. This idea that hardship breeds character makes mediocre and resentfull people, the absolute elite of humanity right now are often children of middle to upper class parents with enough money and good values that allow for optimal development. If a kid knows he might be sent to war at anytime, he wont have the mental bandwith to learn an instrument or philosophy, or even become a top athlete, hell be tougher than a decent amount of people but beyond that he wll be worse, and when it comes time for him to have children, he wont be able to raise them better than he already is, so its just a downward spiral for all human qualities besides the readiness to die in war, not a good tradeoff even from the most utilitarian view.

[@MicahMicahel]

@@ErinMagner82medieval days the rich fought and poor stayed at home. They had a warrior knight system. The more ypu had to lose the more you had to fight. Nobles and rich people were legally required to carry swords so they can fight to defend land any time an invasion happened. It was not uncommon that the king himself would lead the battle in frint of every other soldier. We live in the opposite world but always claim people were so dumb and wicked back then.

[@ErinMagner82]

@MicahMicahel well I think that was true for Poland but I remember Poland having an unusually strong army because of that and that's why they were decisive in the Siege of Vienna. But the nobles funded the war and the army still did consist of peasants, it's just that warriors would be an upper class and engaged in regular defense.

[@juanausensi499]

@@MicahMicahel That's a very naive way to think of the feudal system. There is also a much cynical way: people with money can afford weapons, horses and armor, and, thanks to that, extract goods and services from the people without money. They justified their extractive position like the mafia does, selling their 'protection'. Wars were band-conflicts between those extractive groups, not between the poor.

[@Khazorin]

I didn't perceive the words in the thumbnail as seperate words at first. I was confused because I thought he was gonna talk about "Child soldier incest Spongebob geocentrism"

[@Leith_Crowther]

Alex said that the fact some ethical views can get you to permit incest, even though incest is always wrong, is a demonstration that those views are wrong. I can say that the fact emotivism can get you to saying incest is always wrong, even though incest is not always wrong, demonstrates a problem with emotivism. Alex just makes an argument from “Nuh-uh/Uh-huh.”

[@Drcoconut4777]

His point was not that incest is always wrong. His point was that peoples reaction when seeing that their worldview would permit incest is either to go OK I guess incest is right or wait I know that incest is wrong even though I can’t prove it through some ethical argument, so my assumptions about ethics must be wrong.

[@Leith_Crowther]

@@Drcoconut4777If that’s all he was saying, then he was saying nothing. That’s a real “no shit, Sherlock” thing to say. But I don’t think that’s all he was saying.

[@sparklestarspompomunicorn]

i disagree with the ai take. humans understand what’s going on, but ai- which, as it is, is, by definition, not ai, it’s a generative image program- just reproduces warped watermarks onto uncanny stock photos if you ask for stock photos. it doesn’t understand. it’s literally taking parts of other images. ai can’t look at that pope innocent portrait and do what francis bacon did, even though that’s very clearly inspiration. how the program works is important to understand here.

[@sagar696]

A moustache without a beard is like having frosting on a cupcake without the cake.

[@sadderwhiskeymann]

I have to respectfully disagree sir. Alex's mustache is only 2nd to mrThoughty2's. It is a moral duty of society to preserve, for the reason of being an example for future generations to see what an intelligent, intellectual man should look like and be immediately recognized among a group of ppl. Think of the goat, Nietzsche. Who would benefit from his work had he shaved that glorious stache??

[@AbsurdlyGeeky]

New idea: a Mennonite punk band called "Unfrosted Cupcakes"

[@richardrickford3028]

Alex's moustache is Indian Spicy

[@crackpotjones]

Fake ass checkmark

[@superevilvillain]

the geocentrist take reminds me of my favourite stupid-but-accidentally-profound tweet which goes "Looking up at the stars always reminds me that stars are so small just little dots who cares. And I am enormous", which is the exact opposite of the specks on a floating rock in space mindset and I kind of love it

[@3Prayt]

Oh, man. You got this, you are nailing this new post-KZbin-post-TV KZbin based content and the delivery. I'm impressed.

[@Idk-se3sy]

that first one is actually making sense in a terrible way

[@EnglishMike]

It does until you realize that there is great benefit to human society as a whole when the strong (those with the power) defend the weak. You're much more likely to be in the "weak" category (it's a numbers game), so it is greatly to our benefit when society as a whole places greater value on defending the defenseless.

[@Plasmapigeon]

@@EnglishMike This still places more value on the strong, take a trolly problem with one productive age 30 man vs. a 3 month old baby, many would say the moral option is to save the baby over the functioning member of society. The difference comes down to defending the weak vs. sacrificing for the weak.

[@UntoTheDepths]

​@@Plasmapigeon except that the value of the strong in this context is in defending the vulnerable, to the point of sacrifice if need be. If we don't allow the strong to go to war, instead we have the weak do so, because the strong are valuable and the weak aren't, then the value of the strong ceases to be.

[@Plasmapigeon]

@@UntoTheDepths But by this logic the weak then become the strong because they are sacrificing themselves for the strong (which are now the weak). The ability to sacrifice in your example is not exclusive to the strong, yet you say it's the only value the strong have. I'm saying, at a surface level glance, the strong have other values that make them worth prioritizing over the weak.

[@UntoTheDepths]

@@Plasmapigeon I'd argue that the weak don't sacrifice for others (self-sacrifice), which is a part the the reason they belong in the "weak" category. Cowardice and being overly selfish is a moral weakness whereas self-sacrifice is a moral strength. Sacrifice is the value of the strong in the context I commented under. If you want to expand upon the values of the strong we can get into that.

[@robdoghd]

6:12 i guess i can't convince you scientifically why a human brain with feelings is different than a really big algorithm that needs a gallon of water to draw a picture, but more importantly when someone publishes artwork and they consent to an audience of human beings, not robots, u should be cool and respect that

[@aguspuig6615]

No hate on the commenter, but i think the spongebob hot take is the definition of mint, absolute zero. Its yet another ''this piece of media is a critique of our materialist capitalist system''. Sure its one of the infinite themes in sponge bob, but that applies to anything set in the modern world, or in this case an imitation of the modern world

[@nigglewiggle4214]

The geocentrism argument is minty asf, considering that it’s essentially the way we all view the universe anyway.

[@brixan...]

Not at all. Some believe there is other life, making us not the only observers. Some accept the fact that we are so tiny and insignificant as part of a worldview like Nihilism. And so on…

[@Elrog3]

No, it isn't minty. Its whatever the opposite of spicy is.

[@thechosenone5644]

Arguments over semantics seem to usually be about deeply held values and what words SHOULD mean. The geocentrism one seems so mild to me because it offers a neat perspective, makes everyone think “That’s cool,” and then everybody moves on because nobody cares lol

[@nigglewiggle4214]

@@thechosenone5644 geocentrism in this sense could be further extrapolated to the feeling every observer inescapably experiences- that of being the center of the universe because you perceive things relative to yourself. The “observable universe” is centered on earth, not the sun, not any other point. because that’s where we are. In this sense geocentrism is not much a statement.

[@zjaeriqsanders1731]

@@Elrog3so, minty

[@spheniscusdemersus]

Since last Sunday I can call myself an official fan of O’Connor’s videos.

[@naw-_-]

Congratulations:)

[@Knytz]

nice

[@Samuel43510]

A woman in Florida once shot her son in the back of the head at a gun range because he hadn’t been old enough to have sinned yet, but she already resigned herself to the belief that she had sinned and was going to hell regardless. She guaranteed his trip to heaven while not altering her situation any. Also emotivism is wrong, but I can’t possibly explain why here.

[@hmkhgx8068]

Could you give a link to the story?

[@hegeliandianetik2009]

She was obsessed with a mythical afterlife denying both her and her son to enjoy life on earth

[@akhiltrc9708]

⁠@@hegeliandianetik2009Or, she helped her son escape the troubles of life, an Antinatalist would argue.

[@Samuel43510]

@ her actions were logical according to Christianity

[@rufusmazzoli]

​@@Samuel43510 Logical to Christianity? Jesus didn't condemn murder at all didn't He?

[@sagar696]

1:12 wronger should totally be a word 😅

[@fauxie3090]

Yes, "wronger" is a word that is in common usage. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists the first printed use of "wronger" in 1375, and the earliest known use of the noun "wronger" is from around 1449. :) "Wronger" is an adjective that means not according to a moral standard, or sinful or immoral. :) While "more wrong" has been more popular than "wronger" for most of the time, both forms are correct and in common usage.

[@homosecularis]

As always, thanks for the content, Pablo Escobar.

[@jackgadoury52]

*Paul O'Scobar, as we found out from his heritage test.

[@SineN0mine3]

0:40 Last time i checked it would be approximately 9 months from tomorrow, under ideal circumstances. The point still stands, it takes 9 months plus 30 years to make a 30 year old.

[@bassfishbone]

5:30 I feel like there’s a difference between someone taking inspiration from art and an AI generating art because a person can bring their own experiences and creativity into the art, which an AI could never replicate

[@bassfishbone]

and the music example is not very good because there are a finite number of patterns in pop music so some chord progressions or melodies are going to repeat in different songs from time to time

[@olivetree9920]

That is just a bald assertion. Who is to say an AI can't do that? By what metric are you measuring creativity and experience other than your feelings? I say it can, so what now?

[@ErinMagner82]

AI is also copy protected from using content produced by major corporations whereas the general public has to hide their content on private platforms that limit their reach just to avoid having it mass produced by robots working for millions of people and creating content within seconds.

[@alans98989]

I work in both the music and software industry. I think the original take is completely correct. Creativity is a vague concept. The standards for copyright infringement when it comes to AI art should be the same as with human art. If someone listens to a bunch of Stevie Wonder songs and then writes one that sounds stylistically similar but doesn't directly copy any of them, that would not be considered plagiarism. Same should apply to AI music.

[@bassfishbone]

@@alans98989 In the video, Alex refers to the Ed Sheeran - Marvin Gaye lawsuit which claimed that Sheeran ripped off a song from Gaye for using a similar chord progression and melody. The songs are stylistically very different (acoustic pop vs R&B) so I don’t think it’s fair to say Sheeran made the song because he listened to too much Marvin Gaye. However, an AI trained only on Marvin Gaye’s music, would replicate everything from the inflection of his voice to the chords he used in his songs.

[@lexaray5]

I take issue with attempting to apply emotivism, a meta-ethical theory (describes what category ethical statements fall under), as an ethical theory (a way to decipher right from wrong or determine how one should act).

[@DavidsFeverDream]

The problem with AI is that if you have a copyright dispute with another artist, you can settle it in court, but in the status quo, there aren't many regulations on AI, so Gen AI programs can basically commit copyright infringement without any consequences.

[@412spikeface]

The problem isn't AI art- it's passing off AI art as your own art. Plus the lack of an artist's consent for their art to be used in the dataset.

[@naomistarlight6178]

There's also the fact that a human artist can and should be expected to credit their inspirations and influences, but AI rips us artists off with no credit and no links back to the original.

[@RavenThePlayer]

Missed the point entirely.

[@warptens5652]

the problem with regular art is the lack of an artist's consent for their art to be used in the dataset that trains other artists

[@logancamp9098]

I'd like a bit of clarification on the ethical emotivism standpoint on incest mentioned here. You essentially stated that despite there not being a good reason to condemn it as wrong, simply having that "icky feeling" about it is enough to say that it *is* wrong. To me, that sounds awfully and uncomfortably similar to the reasoning many people have that leads to viewing things like gay sex as wrong. Is there any reason that exact same argument couldn't be used to justify homophobia, and if not, does my current "icky feeling" towards ethical emotivism mean that using ethical emotivism is wrong?

[@Raadpensionaris]

Morality is subjective, so no, you can't reach that conclusion

[@spiralsausage]

I always thought he was not making the active argument of "this thing feels icky therefore it's wrong QED" but rather a commentary on the whole concept of morality, saying it is based on feelings and therefore isn't actually "real" or objective.

[@Isleuntothyself_]

who else thought the words in the thumbnail were all connected and not four separate topics

[@siondafydd]

On the one about child soldiers, one story from history is that during WWII, when Britain was rationing food they prioritiesed and allowed children to have more food. This was because they knew that after the war they would need those children who would then be in about teens, so you could have a large amount of unstinted adults for the future. So aside from them simply not being effective at all in war, you would also have post-war problems as there would be a gap with the adults from the war being older, there would be less new adults who would have grown up during the war.

[@moneywalrus2069]

I think the child soldiers question CAN be explained logically. Children are still forming and spongelike. They absorb everything about their upbringing and all of it becomes a core part of who they are and who theyre going to be. War definitely does disturb and affect ALL who participate in it, but adults are better equipped to deal with the ugliness and have a better chance of not letting it affect them. Its a slim chance of course but its a better chance than that of a child.

[@pneumonoultramicroscopicsi4065]

Emotivism means there are no ethics except your whims, and your whims are often based on things you are used to or brought up into

[@WhyamIinYourfeed-q5n]

Grinding to 1M Respect

[@lcatalamusic]

The common generative-AI-apologist statement that AI isn't doing anything that humans aren't doing I find disingenuous in multiple ways: 1) the artists actually consented and generally were compensated for me "training" on their creation -- ie: I actually pay to watch movies, read books, listen to music, etc. I don't break into a library and steal the entire fantasy section as "training" for my own attempts to write a fantasy novel. 2) the "training" is simply not of the same nature; gen-AI doesn't understand what it's doing and so is only ever trying to copy *surface patterns*, whereas humans who "train" on other artists' production try to understand the *underlying rules and structures* so that they can produce stuff that reflects their own interests and not just be really good parrots 3) gen-AI by its very nature is seeking to reproduce patterns as faithfully as possible, which is antithetical to originality -- that is, to *intentional* and *meaningful* deviations from an existing pattern. The better gen-AI gets at its task, the *less* original its output is. The best gen-AI in the world trained on classical murder mysteries will never come up with Columbo, because the whole point of Columbo is to break the long established pattern of "the audience finds out who the killer is at the end".

[@warptens5652]

"the artists actually consented" What? If I post some creative OC on twitter, everybody who sees my work will be influenced by it, wether I like it or not. The pictures get into their brain and rearange their neural network. The only effective way to not consent is to keep your art to yourself. "I actually pay to watch movies..." If I learn to draw from looking up pictures on google, entirely for free, and then make money selling my art, am I a thief?

[@warptens5652]

"trying to copy surface patterns, whereas humans [] try to understand the *underlying rules and structures" When an artist decides to study the "surface patterns" and then reuse them in a fashion that is disconected from the original "underlying rules and structures", we call that innovative and cool and it's art. But if an AI does the same thing, it's bad.

[@warptens5652]

"The best gen-AI in the world [] will never come up with Columbo, because the whole point of Columbo is to break the long established pattern..." This is a very weird argument. You say the best AI is the one that doesn't innovate at all, but then you say it's bad because it doesn't innovate? You're just contradicting yourself. Being 100% faithful is bad, sure, and that just means the best AI isn't 100% faithful. Which they aren't anyways. Generative AI can break away from people having 5 fingers, of course they can also break away from murder mysteries revealing who the killer is at the end.

[@aguspuig6615]

Then using AI is about as wrong as pirating movies or games...

[@SmileyEmoji42]

Regarding (1) Everything the AI is trained on you could have seen for free - How do you think they get it? They just crawl the web and it was only on the web so that actual humans could view it for free. (3) You can easily make current AI genuinely original simply by modifying the model weights by a random amount. This is actually much easier than for humans who, whatever they may think, are always using their unconscious knowledge (See any magicians act that start with "Think of a number ....." )

[@PrinceLectures-j5f]

Children have potential value. Maybe we take that into account as well. We not only evaluate based on present capabilities but also on the potential for future value?

[@Ронан-25]

Yes, but since it's easy to make those babies with the same potential value, value of babies overall decreases. What now???

[@emperorsascharoni9577]

Exactly we train adults who mostly aren’t capable of doing much else to be soldiers and train kids to be useful to society. Those soldiers will be more effective than poorly trained children. After that though it would probably be efficient to immediately start training children and making as many as the budget allows for a continual supply of sacrificial pieces. Morbid ideas but that would probably be what we’d do if we were purely rational beings.

[@dogsteve]

Future value of children is not the only thing to consider, since it requires resources to raise children into the state when they can provide that value. Raising children into adults is a long-term investment. The reasoning for an adult being more valuable is because the cost of raising the person (education, food, healthcare, time, etc) has already been mostly paid.

[@spiralsausage]

​@@Ронан-25 I am not a mathematician but I feel like we've created some sort of scenario where you have infinity+1 vs just infinity, where infinity represents the number of people you can reproduce. The children can still eventually easily create more children, you're just saving an older human being in the process

[@Ducksen]

Alex have you played a game called The Coffin of Andy & Leyley?

[@imogengannon6]

I did not expect this crossover.

[@fahrenheit2101]

Lmao

[@dima13693]

1:32 yes absolutely morality is based on functional value. The same way a neural network is mathematical. Our emotional reaction is just a long term calculation and the time it took to evolve into these emotions, optimizing for our survival. Ethical emotivism can also be reduced to the computation that is evolution.

[@calebrockstedt]

Also, on the incest thing, the stats are not even likely to create disabled babies by default. From memory, it's something like a 3% increase in the chance of negative genetic mutation, and so mothers older than 35 already have a higher risk of disabled children than the increased risk factor from incest alone.

[@valmid5069]

*"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy"* ----Christian Minister Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[@enjoyer328]

On AI Human referencing art is meaningfully different different from AI The take that it isn’t seems to be coming from ppl that are not deeply involved with art. - The way we practice or learn from each other in art is very specific. You ask a million questions and try to answer them trying to think like the artist you are studying, the process feels like a conversation of problem solving. And after we learn what do we do? Do we just replicate others' art endlessly? No, we incorporate technique or mindset into parts of our own work. Is it fully original no ofc nothing is as you said, but what makes it ours is the reflection of our life experiences, likes and skill level into the artwork. - So what at the end of the say you copied from someone somehow why is it different from the AI. Well we are all artists duh we give each other a pass cuz we know how deep the study process is and the fulfillment of learning. And even if we didn’t we can’t copyright shit, other people have lived similar lives, found similar techniques you can’t be sure almost ever, but we don’t care. All we would do is be intrigued if someone has a similar taste like us or be glad someone found inspiration in us enough to sit down and learn our thought process. - And that is the heart of the issue, why did an artist do it cuz they loved something and wanted to learn/recreate or adapt that is their goal - Be for real what is the goal of doing an AI artwork: it's a quick product for free or to compete with the people you stole from for money. Typing words is not showing me you want to learn or that you love my art enough for you to pick up a pencil and even try, not only that but you want to compete with me with my own work. How can I give this a pass? - And worst of all it's useless. This technology is a full waste of energy. Keep that where it belongs in research and medicine. TLDR; we don't care if its an artist cuz it comes from interest and respect + it doesn't hurt us and we care when its AI cuz its from a place of greed + it hurts us

[@toxicpink17]

mfks really think im about to sue a 12 year old for copying me, but i just wouldn't care if a billion dollar company scrapes our work with no permission and go on with it. even if they were doing the same "copy" (they aren't doing the same) don't you guys see the problem of putting these 2 examples next to each other and treating them the same?

[@billyjoelbeans]

Its not whether its right or wrong, its whether its meaningfully different, and I don't believe it is, except in order of magnitude, as you stated. This does read like special pleading, though. Yes it hinders you. Yes it encroaches on your field. But so do other artists(sometimes). The specific parameters of the neural network *is* your guesswork. The neural network is doing something functionally similar to the process you mentioned. Every network is different. AI art is a means for people without skill or time to be able to invest the energy in a way they are comfortable with. In essence, its a powertool. The complaints here, I'd imagine, are functionally similar to complaints about needing less hands in the field to farm, with the industrial revolution, for example. Good art can come out of AI, and its actually a skill to invoke it properly. I actually think its a good thing, In a word: It gives more people access to "make"(as this is your contention, but I think make works perfectly fine) beautiful things without giving up early.

[@cleancut3301]

This is so hard to read without any punctuation. I still don’t understand what you think the meaningful distinction is between the two, it just seems like you’re saying ‘I like one and I don’t like the other one’

[@_Squiggle_]

AIs "learn" by discovering patterns in art and so do people. I don't think AI is copying art at all, instead it's discovering patterns and then combining them with noise to produce new images. I think you are ultimately saying that AI images have low value, which is not really a hot take.

[@imagineme9]

Or personality is from meat being shocked what makes you think a machine/human can't do the same

[@thisisnotagameco]

51% English, 49% Irish, 52% Mexican facial hair.

[@aidenhill960]

Lord Jesus bless you thisisnotagameco!

[@bobthellama6988]

1:47 I want to point out that Earth is not an inertial reference frame and hence NOT a valid reference point when doing any type of physics. so an indian spicy take, but one that doesn't really hold up to our current understanding of physics

[@Mii.2.0]

The thumbnail is CRAZY!

[@gilberito635]

that ai take i think will only be valid once we have true ai and they alone are making art consciously without a human typing prompts into it and then getting mad when people call them out because they put no effort into the art "they" made

[@_Squiggle_]

Interesting. So, the human adding the prompt is what makes AI images different than human-produced images?

[@yashuppot3214]

The emotivism argument that incest is wrong because it's icky is an argument many people would use against homosexuality, yet I doubt Alex would be as quick to agree in that case.

[@AM_o2000]

That's a distortion of the emotivist argument. The emotivist doesn't say that X is actually wrong because people don't like it. The emotivist says that when people say that X is wrong, that means nothing more than they don't like it. In other words, there's no objective right or wrong.

[@Knytz]

​@@AM_o2000There is no objective right or wrong in anything since morality is something we like do define and debate

[@AM_o2000]

@@Knytz Exactly, but I took objection with your initial formulation. It's not that an emotivist would argue "it's wrong because it's icky". The emotivist would argue "it's not wrong; it's just icky".

[@gecko736]

that was a really smooth ad transition

[@Tevin_]

People who are against abortion should add 9 months to their age…

[@ruiafonsoteixeirafernandes1313]

Alex, what is your take on the problem of the Laplace demon? In this case I am talking of the problem that emerges when you take the position that Laplace suggested (an intelligence capable of knowing every position and speed of every particle in the universe, and with this, it would be able to see the future entirely) the problem is, if that intelligence is programed to be rebel or to deny the future, in this case it would go against what it predicted that it would do, but this of course creates a loop and a logical problem, the thing is, this doesn't necessarily create any problems on the deterministic view because its impossible( for what we know at least) to know every position and speed of all the particles in the world in the same instant, because of how observation in the quantum realm works. But a more interesting idea, would be if we develop this problem to the Christian god, because it wouldn't be limited by observation, god technically is omniscient so it has exactly the same position as the Laplace demon, falling exactly to the same logical issue. I have worked around this idea for a while, and I believe it proves that an omniscient and omnipotent being with free will, cannot exist. Most christians argue that god is not in time so he doesn't fall to the same problem, even though I don't really see how that takes the problem away, because there clear instances of actions, like the creation of our universe, and if he had an instance of action ( even if he isn't just in a point of time) he still falls to the same problem. I would be really glad if you contemplated around this idea.

[@tyemaddog]

Why either rebel or deny though? What about neutral?

[@SoilKilonova]

He already has stated that he believes an Omniscient and Omnipotent god cannot exist if free will exists.

[@libberator5891]

By definition, the Earth is the center of the observable universe

[@drewpeacock9087]

Not necessarily

[@AHandleWasAlreadyTaken]

Bro ai just predicts where pixels are likely to go based on words, if that’s the same as drawing art then why don’t I start from noise? Why do I have to think first? Why do I start with a plan?

[@Maggy54321]

Having a child not as easy as you’re making sound… miscarriage and infertility are more common than people like to think. 25% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. Not to mention the mental toll that it causes to the mother and also the father who is trying to care for his partner while dealing with his own grief. I will just “have another one tomorrow” was reality but it’s not. I know it’s not really the point, but I think it’s important to spread more awareness about this. When it happens to you it feels really lonely, but the stats show that it’s common.

[@JaviSoto]

I find the first question easiest to answer from an evolutionary perspective: our brains evolved to feel certain things towards babies because if we didn’t care about them we’d go extinct lol

[@ThiagoGlady]

Incest is actually one of the topics that a lot of people feels like its wrong, but only with themselves. I don't see people getting mad when they meet some married relatives, for example.

[@DevourerSated]

The same thing occurs with lots of things of the sexual nature, especially specific kinks/fetishes.

[@Mo95793]

It's also very culturally dependent, growing up in a family with a muslim background, people around around me regularly made fun of the "goddless west" marrying their sisters either indirectly (because no one there knows who their parents are) or some times even directly (those godless heathens have sex with their mothers and sisters). Yet since I was like 4 or 5 I was all but officially engaged to my first cousin, and our parents are still abit sore that me didn't actually get married 😂 In my cultural at least 1st and 2nd cousin marriages are seen as superior because they keep it in the family, I think it's a culture of honor thing. That internal visceral disgust reaction is totally absent from this, it is not suppressed it is literally just not there.

[@shenanigans3710]

@@Mo95793 Cousin marriages were perfectly normal in the West until very recently - Einstein and Darwin were both married to cousins. I don't really know why it stopped. Interesting question!

[@Mo95793]

@shenanigans3710 yeah i bet that's a great topic for a video essay, unless there is some mundane answer we just didn't think of, like the cultural sensibility towards the age of marriage

[@dolltron6965]

I think the issue gets mixed up when people say something along the lines of ' it does not seem morally wrong in situation X and Y so therefore shouldn't be illegal' Because law, social order, crime and punishment for a certain thing is a different argument, people think that laws automatically are the same as morality or individual morality. A good example is gambling 'well what is wrong with sticking $10 on black at roulette' ...well nothing is wrong but it might be wrong for a casino to arrive and turn your town into a tourist place for degenerates and attract crime, it could still be a social ill or something you discourage and set rules against. With law you have to consider a wider perspective.

[@ConvictedFelon2024]

Okay, a few points here: 1. 0:11 This case completely falls apart once you consider that, from a purely _practical_ standpoint (not even moral), children don't make good soldiers. You're telling me that a six-year-old who doesn't even know where to start when told to clean his room is capable of operating heavy artillery, flying a fighter jet or aiming an AR-15 at the appropriate target on command? 😂 2. 1:45 I would very much like to know what evidence the commenter and Alex have that intelligent life doesn't exist _anywhere else_ in a universe that is 93+ _billion_ light-years across, with planets just like Earth that potentially number in the trillions. 3. 3:00 Factually incorrect. It has long been established that genetics plays a critical role in shaping who we are. The question currently being asked is whether it is _totally_ determinative of all that we do (the nature vs. nurture debate), and I strongly lean towards no. 4. 4:58 This is clearly false. If the human creative process was sufficiently similar to that of AI, the arts (visual, music, architecture, and so on) would not exist. Unless one believes that humans learned art from another intelligent species (tying back to a previous take for a moment 😂), art _must_ have come into existence at some point in the past (caveman drawings?) purely due to a conscious creativity that AI, in its current stage of development, cannot replicate. In other words, AI requires input (a database consisting of prior works of art) to produce output (new AI-generated artwork)-- humans do not. 5. 6:18 This assumes that 1) children are not "predestined" to go to hell regardless (as Calvinists believe) and 2) children cannot hold any sincere religious convictions of their own (in which case the vast majority -- Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on -- will just go to hell sooner anyway) and/or that they won't be trapped in purgatory (as Catholic doctrine teaches). 6. 7:43 As a committed _classical_ utilitarian (not a negative one like the commenter at 9:49 arguing from a harm reduction standpoint) whose only objective is to maximize the well-being of sentient creatures (as opposed to minimizing suffering), I believe to my core that there is nothing ethically objectionable about two consenting adults engaging in whatever activity produces happiness in private no matter who they are. End of conversation. 7. 10:28 As a moral semi-realist, I am not vulnerable to such an interpretation. 😂 8. 11:09 Ayn Rand sucks. Ask any academic philosopher, they'll tell you. Nobody who has actually studied her work has ever accused her philosophy of being coherent.

[@_Squiggle_]

I think humans require input to be able to be creative as well. The dataset cavemen used was the images their eyes were able to see

[@andymccallum8090]

However Ayn Rands promotion of free market ideas and her fight against collectivism certainly don't suck.

[@fahrenheit2101]

Humans absolutely require and are always receiving input. The input just doesn't have to be pre-existing works of the same type.

[@Drcoconut4777]

Each person is the center of their own universe at least philosophically. The only frame of reference you can have is your own so even if there are other observers to each individual observer, they are their own center. I am essentially applying the philosophy of solipsism to a planetary scale so we are our center of the universe and even if they are other life forms out out there, they are their own center of the universe.

[@llopl28]

The creative input was just the “photos” that the cavemen’s eyes took. Without those eyes they would not have been able to produce those drawings

[@aeiouaeiou100]

2:33 Pageau take

[@TheIsaacMtz]

Caught that as well!

[@knaughtsmith9611]

My philosophical hot take, there is not enough of a physical difference between thought and emotion, and they can be fundamentally linked on a subconscious level in such a way that they cannot be completely separated. Due to this I believe that it is not helpful to make concrete lines between the two.

[@Hans-qq7jd]

Your ad transitions are a piece of art!

[@cmdr.o7]

it's kind of a mistake to view moral choices in a vacuum or from a single position any choice is part of an emerging pattern and choices you make might seem irrelevant from our narrow perspective, but observing the ripple effect it can have through time is what shapes functional morality. Incest might seem innocuous in principle, but the ripple effect is increased chance of genetic degeneration in a population over time, we are always dealing with probabilities and influential downstream effects that said, we don't have a perfect way to gauge the validity until we explored potential dead ends (with death/survival being the ultimate deciding factor)

[@DevourerSated]

We don’t forcefully abort children who we know 1.are going to be born with disabilities, or 2. are carrying dna that has a high chance of a specific genetic abnormality. That specific reason for outlawing incest doesn’t hold up under critique.

[@cmdr.o7]

@@DevourerSated 'we' don't do that because just a few hundred years ago nature took care of that for us, ensuring less viable genetics would not survive at significant scale. Whether it's a good & moral thing to allow certain disabilities and heritable diseases to permeate is yet to be seen, we might just be pushing the issues to future generations if fast forward 1000 years and the world was a horror show of genetic disorders and abnormalities, morals would likely be very different it's about understanding consequences over time, not altruistic grandstanding in the present (im not advocating for any kind of lawmaking, it's an organic thing just as our human morals are - if anything people should make such decisions themselves, but it's unnatural for most individuals to consider future consequences)

[@SpektralJo]

If you make the agrument a numbers game this would require a sufficiently large part of the population to be genuinely interested in incest in the first place, which I find highly dubious.

[@matt69nice]

It's also a mistake to assume that incest always results in children; I think you have to separate the morality of intimate acts from the morality of creating children as products because they are not equivalent acts. Intimate acts have no impact of the gene pool unless they result in children.

[@cmdr.o7]

@@matt69nice this is what i'd argue is the mistake people make, seeing things in a vacuum - sure, you can perfectly say that it's fine as long as there is no offspring, but we are discussing morality, morality has a purpose, which is setting the norms and boundaries so that the *probability of such outcomes over time* does not increase. It's quite simple really, if you normalize a thing, it becomes more frequent and the sample size gets larger, more accidents happen and there you go, that's how organic systems function, everything has natural consequences. like, if homosexuality is as normal and prevalent as hetero relationships, less babies will be born, if more incest accidents occurs, higher risk of bad geneology, it's just math and probability. It's also clear from studies on islands with small populations, inbreeding is a problem. there is not even a value judgement there, but 80% of humans are only acting on social norms alone as guiding principle, because we don't have any evolutionary pressure anymore (and we also have tendency towards nihilism/pleasure-seeking without purpose)

[@AggravatedAstronomer]

Disappointing take on AI, I know it's a fast paced video but there are so many things that could have been touched on like: - There's no compelling evidence that AI is actually intelligent or aware or feels emotion, and good reason to think that 'AI' is simply a marketing term to evoke science fiction and futurism in place of words like 'algorithm' and 'machine learning'. People are already anthropomorphizing AI, and that's good for business. - Can something be considered art if the author is simply the unfeeling churning of statistical algorithms? - Can you really say it's the same thing for a person to grow up exposed to a variety of art and transmute the abstract impressions of that art into something entirely new, which has intention, humour, vision and finely tuned details that all work together in an original way? AI simply recognises patterns via statistical analysis based on a perfectly remembered and vast data set and guesses what should go next to what. This data only captures the structure of art, whilst a human memory revolves more strongly around the emotions a person felt when they experienced it, and the values and aspirations it played into. AI has nothing like any of that relationship with the art it's trained on. It is unfeeling statistically correct slop churned out with no intention or attention or aspiration. It's the Soylent Green of art.

[@joanabug4479]

That really was a disappointing take and the first thing is that people place the blame on "AI" when really the issues should be split into those regarding the person doing the prompting and those regarding the scraping to do the dataset and customising the generating tool (like when they remove "Pixar" from the list of words you can use to generate an image :) ). If they had to remove artists still living or those who haven't died 80 years ago and aren't in the public domain yet or whatever, the dataset would be laughably small... and they know it. Oftentimes people just get those mixed up and think that if one gets a pass then so should the other. Big brands are already ahead of it, making sure the algorithm won't recognise whatever you wanted when you type in "Disney". They've protected themselves well. What can a beginner artist without a lawyer do? Nothing, ofc, just watch how his work gets their watermark removed without any notice. People stopped posting their works anywhere online just for this reason alone. I'm sure a great deal of democratisation (whatever AI fans claim AI brings) was lost when professional artists are now only in few local galleries. It just shows how little Alex knows about the subject. Or he would rather ignore the "real" part of it - he's doing a Jordan Peterson level of work with this one. edit: let's not forget about the big no-no's of midjourney: sure, it's reasonable that you can't use terms to creative aggresive imagery, or abusive or whatnot, but guess what other random terms are banned from use? Xi JinPing, Putin...

[@ThingsAreGettingTooSpicy]

No, "AI" is just the actual term for it. Artificial Intelligence is a whole academic field that has been around since at least the 1970s (at least that's when the core training technique underpinning what we have today was invented). The business world adopted a product of science, not the other way around. There is a simple mathematical proof you can do to show that no, these programs cannot just be "perfectly remembering" everything. I'll use Stable Diffusion as an example, here goes: Training Dataset (LAION-2B) Size: 100 TB Model Size: 5 GB Keep in mind that 100TB dataset is already compressed, and yet the AI has somehow "perfectly remembered" its contents despite throwing away 99.995% of it. You talked about guessing what should go next, which sounds like you are talking about language models, but those work in an entirely different way to image generators, which don't do anything word by word; they affect the entire image a little bit on each step. But regarding LLMs, if you'd like to see what "recognizing patterns via statistical analysis" actually looks like, try using your phone's autocomplete. You'll see that this is not anything like what we have now. And finally, even if we accept calling how it actually works a statistical trick, you still haven't proven that isn't how human brains work under the hood. What we call emotions might just be effectively vectors of numbers that alter the most likely next word we produce.

[@patu8010]

@@joanabug4479 I think that's a different topic. Disney and other companies don't want AI to generate images of their copyrighted characters. Artists don't want AI companies to steal their *style*.

[@AggravatedAstronomer]

@@ThingsAreGettingTooSpicy I understand that this is the scientific field of study's name for it, but the way it is used commercially right now to indicate true intelligence is still a misnomer because it's not supported by evidence, and there's no doubt this term is deployed in this way because it's good marketing and not because it's an accurate representation of the truth. The name AI is currently still aspirational, we are not there yet. That requires the ability to think; to be conscious. Digital compression is not analogous to the imperfect and impressionistic recall of human memory. Yes I refer to LLMs but this line of reasoning applies just as well to music and image generators because it is the passionless algorithmic following and blending of patterns, there are different sophisticated mechanisms but without thought or emotion or inspiration that's all they can be at the highest level. And finally you've reached the crux of it by asserting that I have to prove that AI does not operate the same as a human mind; not so. This is a positive claim proponents of AI make all the time, and the burden of proof is on the claimant. It's not my job to prove it's not true, it's your job to prove it is. And that evidence simply does not exist.

[@Random-ly1kg]

Yes. Thank you. I gasped when I saw the question and sighed when I heard the response. A bit disappointing tbh

[@karl-erlendmikalsen5159]

Art might not be produced in a vacuum, but AI aren't people. AI are owned by someone, and has no personhood. AI is a fancy brush. And what it's painting is copies. And the people owning the AI are doing a plagiarism.

[@ThingsAreGettingTooSpicy]

The vast majority of AI images are not copies of existing work, they are actually new images. They have recurring styles, and sometimes people's styles are clearly ripped off, but the image is unique, that's kinda the whole point.

[@Llama_charmer]

@@ThingsAreGettingTooSpicy In theory AI can "create" an image which has never existed, those pixels or colour patterns have never existed before. Even if it has "taken inspiration" from various sources so do we. Its an interesting point which i want to disagree with but ive never heard it worded that way and im inclined to agree right now

[@karl-erlendmikalsen5159]

​@@ThingsAreGettingTooSpicy what is a new image in this context? Because the "AI's" that we're using now aren't really AI's. They can't actually make new things. They can only really combine existing artworks directly. They can't find a new style. They can't create a novel motif. An image being unique isn't the point. If I create a copy of the Mona Lisa, that copy is unique. That is not in question. It is still a copy of the Mona Lisa.

[@warptens5652]

​@@karl-erlendmikalsen5159 "what is a new image in this context?" you answer this. Give your criteria for what counts as a "new image". You won't. Because if you did, you'd see that generative AIs can do it.

[@warptens5652]

"They can't actually make new things. They can only really combine existing artworks directly. They can't find a new style. They can't create a novel motif. " These are empty statements. It doesn't matter to you how the picture actually is, you'll just say it's not novel. If you learned that mona lisa was made by aliens using generative AI trained on the artwork of the time, you'd say mona lisa wasn't novel, was just plagiarism. Even tho when a human made mona lisa by training its biological neural network on the environment of the time, for some reason, it's no longer plagiarism, now it's creativity.

[@MrJenpaul123]

Ai can't see art meaningfully, its an imitation, patterns of codified zeros and ones. There's a distinction, how about it stays like that, why not hang that distinction above your head. AI art sells aesthetics, they don't sell art. If you proceed to debate that's its purely subjective in person's view, you abandon the first distinction. If you abandon the first distinction, you might as well say, AI are humans. But they are not. The moment you thought of AI you think of artificial. You can't just switch the definitions.

[@thegreenstache6163]

I'd love to see Alex and Adam Neely have a conversation about how art is made in relation to that AI art question and how copyright should work. Adam also covers some questions about if music 'belongs' to a certain culture and when or if it becomes multicultural or no longer tied to a specific culture. A kind of aesthetics or philosophy of music podcast episode sounds interesting.

[@Sitbear]

The problem with incest laws is they are functionally identical to eugenics. I do, in fact, believe children have a right to be “born well.”

[@SmileyEmoji42]

If you believe that the life of people born disabled is less valuable than able bodied people then you must also agree that less resources should be spent on extending their lives than those of able bodied people. If you don't then your argument fails. (This is an iconvenient problem with the NICE healthcare cost effectiveness assessment based on QALYs)

[@Sitbear]

@ Where did you get that idea from? Reread my original comment and tell me where exactly I said disabled people’s lives were less valuable.

[@snapgab]

Not necessarily, because the genetic risks of inbreeding aren't the only possible argument against incest. Another, far stronger IMO, argument against incest is the argument related to power dynamics and consent. According to that argument, incest shouldn't be allowed just because the risk of abuse is too great, similar to why a prison guard shouldn't be allowed to date prisoners, a therapist shouldn't be allowed to date their own patients, etc. The way laws around incest work shows that this argument is used to motivate those laws, rather than some kind of eugenics argument. Because incest between adopted parents and their children is also illegal, even after their children have grown up and are over the age of consent.

[@connorgrynol9021]

@@snapgabwell that’s specifically with a child and parent or maybe a significantly older sibling and their much younger sibling. If, for instance, you had twin siblings that argument falls apart. Or siblings separated from birth who met again as adults. In either of these cases, you can’t really appeal to power dynamics.

[@snapgab]

@@connorgrynol9021 I agree when it comes to siblings separated from birth, I don't think incest should be banned in that case. The only thing they share is genetic, but my argument against incest isn't about genetics. I don't entirely agree when it comes to twin siblings though, I think there's still a lot of potential for abuse there, due to certain family dynamics. Even just the fact that nobody wants to tear their family apart can create an avenue of abuse, because that dynamic can mean that even if the relationship is non-consensual, the victim is afraid to report their abuser because they don't want to destroy their family. So incest between siblings of the same age should still at the very least be strongly discouraged IMO. But yeah, by far the worst kind of incest is between parents and children, or uncles and nieces, stuff like that, that's where the dynamic is so likely to be abusive that it should definitely be fully banned, for reasons that have nothing to do with genetics.

[@troutfish8590]

6:10 I could not disagree more with this take. “Why can’t AI take from multiple sources like a human does?” Because it is AI. In a perfect world I would agree that there is no harm, but we don’t live in a perfect world. We live a world where humans get fulfillment and virtue from creating something. We also live in a world where people need to have a profession of some kind to be able to survive. Automating this process and taking it away from living humans from my perspective is morally abhorrent in both a personal and economic standpoint. On top of that it is taking the working artist work and using it to push them out of what fulfills them in life and puts food on the table. By moving to an ecosystem that has generative AI as a widely accepted tool or process, you are effectively turning people into consumers when they would be creators. Which from a psychological and personal perspective is much less beneficial and is more harmful to the person. In my opinion it is harmful to the creative spirit of humanity itself. This level of spice of that take should put your ass in the fucking hospital.

[@_Squiggle_]

Do you think all automation is harmful to society or just automation that displaces artists? What makes an artist's job more valuable than a plumber, or a programmer, or a factory worker?

[@troutfish8590]

@ Great question. I think automating something that defines or grows human experience is immoral in a broad sense. Obviously what defines human experience is a slippery concept that means something different depending on the person and perspective. With something like art or creation in general there is a long tradition of the act of creation adding meaning to one’s life, and adding a depth that wouldn’t have been there without creating something new. With a more blue collar job like plumbing that becomes a grey area. Non-plumbers would certainly just see plumbing as meaningless labor or work so they think “Why not automate plumbing?” It would save time and free up that persons time for something else. But that plumber might get all of their meaning from solving problems related to that. Their “music” in life comes from the satisfaction of making a very clean and efficient piping system work for people. That the act itself adds to the person’s life, and if something means that much to someone should we deprive it systematically? This concept could be applied to basically any type of profession. So from that angle any type of automation could be taking away something from a person’s experience and meaning in life. But obviously there is a lot of automations in our life that are useful, and someone might have enjoyed doing something industrial by hand in the past that is now a widely accepted automation. In practice, I think it depends on the case at hand. I think we should not be taking away opportunities from real individuals to have real experiences of creation from a philosophical level. From an economic perspective it is taking away creative opportunities from the individual and giving it to cooperations with comparatively way more power already. But ultimately I have no idea on where the line is. I am just an artist and professional artist that is in love with the act of creating itself, and my heart bleeds for the implications going forward for human made art in the commercial space.

[@_Squiggle_]

@@troutfish8590 Thanks for having a balance and nuanced take on this issue. I think I ultimately believe that automation of image creation outweights the negative impact of artist job loss. But I realize there is a give take

[@CorralSummer]

​@@_Squiggle_ lemme ask you this Is your ultimate wish for society that we eventually sit in pods with all our needs are handled by robots and we simply experience a digital specifically designed to make us happy? Because the ultimate conclusion to automating everything is that. Art isn't a necessity for survival, it's something we do to add meaning to our lives, that's the sole thing it is for. So why are we trying to automate it?

[@lxram9139]

@@CorralSummer That scenario sounds like a dream for artists. All the mundane needs are taken care of and they can spend all their time creating art, wihthout restraining themselves in any way, i.e. to make their art better suited for the market.

[@bruhdabones]

3:00 is just intersubjectivity

[@tony.h321]

I think the long-term (physical) outcome of incest is evident in animal (particularly dog) breeding. In terms of a distinct (generational) decline in general health and fitness (with genetic problems being inherited). It's a long-term issue rather than a short-term one, and should seen and dealt with as such. Allowing it with the blasé attitude of "its not hurting anyone" is short-sighted. Even in a highly controlled society, there is little control of what people do in private, and the mistakes they will likely make, leading to pregnancy. Basing anything on the inherently faulty attitude of "hoping things will work out" is generally a bad (at the very least risky) idea.

[@avaboyer9297]

Thanks for reading my spicy take and sharing your thoughts!

[@okiioppai]

The most common response I've seen to the question of "Why is a child's death worse than an adult's death?" mentions some aspect of potentiality. I'm curious if you think the prospective future of a child is worthy of consideration. If so, would the same be said regarding a fetus?

[@markjuckenburg6006]

that child or fetus has the same chance of adding nothing to society as it does adding to society plus it needs to be invested in. a full grown adult is already contributing to society with no need of investment of time or money

[@CharlieQuartz]

@@markjuckenburg6006 This view assumes a very short term growth mindset. If we didn't prioritize the potential futures of the next generation, the survival of the species would diminish and there'd be no assurance of a continued societal production value for individuals who live to old age.

[@_Squiggle_]

But the child thirty years later will be more valuable than the adult 30 years later. In the end, their value would even out. And if we think that education is improving overtime then children might be slightly more valuable in the long run

[@okiioppai]

@@_Squiggle_ Every abortion and discarded sperm cell is also wasted potential for the future. Is it wrong to abstain from procreation or have abortions? I think there is a problem with giving too much credence to the prospect of the future. There's infinitely many ways to create this value. I think potentiality is a flawed argument whether it's regarding sperm cells, fetuses, or children. It's most pragmatic to judge subjects based on their current merits. For what it's worth, I think there are other valid reasons for why a child's death could be worse. A child's death could be more detrimental to the parents mental health and leave them unsatisfied in their pursuit of raising a child. Also, in certain circumstances, a child's death could be indicative of a failure of societal regulations. (E.G. If we let a child walk into a lion's den at a zoo, as opposed to an adult voluntarily doing the same.)

[@snapgab]

I feel like that's an overly binary way of looking at it, potentiality can be a factor, without being the ONLY factor. The future potential of a child helps make their death extra tragic, but the fact that they've already been born also makes their death extra tragic, because they're already conscious, they've experienced the joys of life, possibly already experienced fear of death too, etc, by being conscious, they have something to lose. A fetus has potentiality, but doesn't really have a consciousness yet, doesn't really have any experiences yet and doesn't really have anything to lose. Which is why I'd say that the death of a fetus is less tragic, it's the combination of potentiality and consciousness/experience that makes the death of a child so tragic, they've lived long enough to know what it is they're losing if they die.

[@DrewReuschlein]

5:34 really? There isn’t a meaningful difference AT ALL between a human being inspired to make their own art consuming an entire lifetime’s worth of art and a machine spitting it out at the press of a button? I mean, in your own description the process for a human is so much more in depth and requires so many more steps. No, you can’t create art in a vacuum, but surely there is something meaningful about the presence of a human’s perception in questioning what qualifies as art to begin with, right?

[@viewsandrates]

Alex is not an artist. It's troublingly easy for non artists to lack insight and empathy for why they're wrong when they equate what AI does to what the conscious/sentient can do.

[@olivetree9920]

​@@viewsandrates Good news! I'm an artist with a studio and gallery work and everything and I say Alex is 100% correct. Glad to clear it up for you

[@GoeTeeks]

It astounds me how people tend to forget that the imagination aspect of AI art still comes from humans. Humans provide prompts, guidance, and ultimately select which piece(s) of art to use and present. Like, yeah, most of the legwork is done by AI that uses references of lots of different work, but humans still give it some guidance. And the more guidance they give, the better the piece of work usually ends up being.

[@Random-ly1kg]

​@@GoeTeeks That is nowhere near the level of control and _dialogue_ that an artist have with a piece tho. Artists don't randomly spawn pieces on a whim, it really is a process. Art is a process. AI skips over that part entirely and goes straight to the final result. It's the difference between the chef at the restaurant and the customer that orders the dishes, literally. The customer might have some control over what the final dish will be, but only one of them is a cook.

[@lxram9139]

@@viewsandrates I am always baffled by the the fact that so many artists simultaneously insist that AI couldn't possibly do what they do, while also maintaining that AI steals their job. If your art can get replaced by AI slop, was it really art in the first place?

[@Brownyman]

Abrahamic monotheism is not primarily a religious system. It is a political conspiracy. The story of the Exodus occurred in history however all of the details were deliberately reversed in the Holy Bible, in one of the first propaganda spin stories, in order to make the monotheists look like the victims and the Egyptians look like the aggressors. In reality, it was the monotheists who were the aggressors and the Egyptians were the victims. In the 13th dynasty of Egypt - 3,500 years ago - people known by modern historians as the Israelite pharaohs, AKA “shepherd kings” or "Hyksos", conquered northern Egypt taking control of its throne for their own purposes. This foreign occupation lasted for about 300 years until a pharaoh descended of those original conquerors named Amenhetep the 4th tried to force monotheism on the Egyptian population; taking as his new name, one of several aliases, Akhenaten. An alias referencing his singular god “Aten”. For the native Egyptians, who had long suffered the machinations of their foreign rulers, this was the last straw. Five Egyptian generals funded by the southern treasury of Egypt launched a military coup and exiled Amenhetep along with his Levitical priesthood. It was after his expulsion that, realizing he couldn’t work openly anymore, Amenhetep took his last alias - “Moses”; a name truncation derived from one of his relatives named Thutmoses. From that point, the propaganda of the Holy Bible was written.

[@_Squiggle_]

I don't think that a political conspiracy and a religion are necessarily mutually exclusive. Regardless of its origin, the Abrahamic faiths are still religions. Also, having a single story be factually incorrect does not exclude any spiritual significance from other unrelated books in the Bible (or other scripture). In fact, it doesn't even preclude spiritual significance from being in the factually incorrect story

[@johnjameson6751]

I am sympathetic to the idea that that the Hyksos settling, rule, defeat and expulsion in lower Egypt inspired the biblical stories in in the latter part of Genesis, and in Exodus, but the details here don't seem right to me, so I would be interested to know your sources. Yes, the Hyksos arrived at the end of the 13th Dynasty, but they took the throne of the contemporary 14th Dynasty in Avaris. The 13th Dynasty moved from Memphis and Itjtawy to Thebes and were succeeded by the 16th, 17th and 18th Dynasties, who ruled upper Egypt. The Hyksos ruled lower Egypt from Avaris for about 100 years (the 15th Dynasty). The 17th Dynasty in Thebes attacked Hyksos cities with some success, and the Hyksos were finally defeated by Ahmose I, the first ruler of the 18th Dynasty. Akhenaten ruled about 200 years later and was descended from Ahmose I, so was on the wrong side of the conflict to be an heir to the Hyksos legacy. He was buried in Egypt. So I don't think he can be identified as Moses just because he was decended from a line of Thutmoses and Ahmoses, and established a brief period of monotheistic worship of Aten. Some scholars think he could have been the Pharoah of Exodus (there was a plague towards the end of his reign) while others think that the Amarna letters (which began with Akenaten) show contact with Israelites, perhaps even Saul and David. None of this invalidates your overall thesis that Exodus may have been in part propaganda to portray the Israelites as victims rather than oppressors. Certainly their conquering behaviour after leaving Egypt suggests that !

[@hmkhgx8068]

The most important philosophical question of our time: Spongebob