Everyone has an ethic (a pattern of how they behave), just as everyone has a diet (a pattern of what they eat). Colloquially, people say “a diet” when they mean a *restrictive* diet, because that’s the context that’s most salient.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @reasonisfun
But the normative has to be a special case of the descriptive. “You should eat this (if you want that outcome)” is a restatement of “this diet causes that outcome.” Same with ethics.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @reasonisfun
I’ve tried to come up with a model of ethics that *isn’t* contiguous with decision theory, and that matches the common intuition that “good people” and “effective/useful people” are different or even disjoint. But I’ve never found a coherent explicit structure!
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @reasonisfun
Ethics is particular, applied decision theory/game theory. Obviously they have to be related
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Replying to @RokoMijicUK @reasonisfun
It’s not obvious how to describe Christianity in that framework. (I’ve made a few stabs, none of which satisfy me.)
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @reasonisfun
Monotheistic religions with an afterlife (Heaven/Hell) where the just are rewarded and the evil are punished are fairly obviously inspired by game theory consdierations.
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Replying to @RokoMijicUK @reasonisfun
That’s really not the aspect I mean.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @reasonisfun
"the meek shall inherit the earth" - everyone had to become more submissive and live in much bigger hierarchies than we are built for (civilization vs tribe, farmer vs forager). So a religion with an aspect of comforting low-status people became popular.
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That's a strategic explanation for the popularity of Christianity, not a strategic *interpretation* of Christianity as saying a true thing about the world. (Which might be the best you can do, of course, if Christianity is not true. I'm not a Christian myself.)
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @reasonisfun
> Christianity as saying a true thing about the world. Many of these ethical truths are truths about what's going on in our heads. For example, if you and I do a one-off PD and you think about defecting on me, but then don't because you're worried about God, then the people ...
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... who invented God were effectively correctly saying that you can Pascal-mug people into cooperating more. The thing about the meek reflects the truth, particular to humans, of the social changes that are caused by evolving from gatherers to farmers and the effects ..
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