I run a MUD. It's a fantasy setting, but I try to build it on ideas one wouldn't be utterly embarrassed to take a bit seriously. (1/12)
I had to figure out, if these words were not to be simply dismissed with pomo snideness and meant something real, what that would be. (3/12)
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Where I landed is that "good" means: considers the costs imposed on others by the pursuance of one's own interests to matter. (4/12)
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"Evil": considers the costs imposed on others by the pursuance of one's own interests to be irrelevant. (5/12)
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That's it. That's what I actually think "good" and "evil" mean, if they were to mean anything more than cheap us vs. them labelling. (6/12)
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There are meaningfully more intense forms of each that I also worked up — altruism, making a personal goal of benefitting others, & … (7/12)
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…malevolence, harming others even when it has no personal benefit beyond enjoyment of the infliction of harm. (8/12)
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I don't think those extremes are in any way required to meet the most meaningful criteria, though. These things separated by a line… (9/12)
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…that it's easy to cross several times a day and can easily be completely indistinguishable from outside of one's own mind. (10/12)
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Let me just add that if you do the math even a little bit, seeking to impose altruism on others is obviously evil. (11/12)
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So yeah. It would be super cool, dear reader, if you would try to be good, not evil. Thanks for listening to my TED talk. (12/12)
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