Joe Carlsmith Audio

Nearby is the country they call life. Text version at: https://joecarlsmith.com/2022/12/23/on-sincerity

Can the epistemology of consciousness save moral realism and redeem experience machines? No.

If your find a button that gives you a hundred dollars if a certain controversial meta-ethical view is true, but you and your family get burned alive if that view is false, should you press the button? No.

Text version here.

Edited for Joe Carlsmith by TYPE III AUDIO.

Infinities puncture the dream of a simple, bullet-biting utilitarianism. But they're everyone's problem.

Text version here.

Edited for Joe Carlsmith by TYPE III AUDIO.

Life in the future could be profoundly good. I think this is an extremely important fact, and one that often goes under-estimated.

Text version here.

Edited for Joe Carlsmith by TYPE III AUDIO.

Making happy people is good. Just ask the golden rule.

Text version here.

Edited for Joe Carlsmith by TYPE III AUDIO.

I find imagining future people looking back on present-day longtermism (the view that positively influencing the long-term future should be a key moral priority) a helpful intuition pump, especially re: a certain kind of “holy sh**” reaction to existential risk, and to the possible size and quality of the future at stake.

Text version here.

Edited for Joe Carlsmith by TYPE III AUDIO.

Sometimes, you can “control” events you have no causal interaction with (for example, if you're a deterministic software twin).

Text version here.

Edited for Joe Carlsmith by TYPE III AUDIO.

If you kill something, look it in the eyes as you do.

Text version here.

Edited for Joe Carlsmith by TYPE III AUDIO.

How can "non-attachment" be compatible with care? We need to distinguish between caring and clinging.

Text version here.

Edited for Joe Carlsmith by TYPE III AUDIO.