feotakahari: (Default)
feotakahari ([personal profile] feotakahari) wrote2023-09-15 11:40 pm

(no subject)

My central problem with the Dark Forest Hypothesis is that its proponents keep jumping the is-ought gap.

“It’s natural for aliens to hate you, so you should hate aliens.” How does what’s “natural” have anything to do with what you should do?

“Aliens would kill you, so you should kill aliens.” There are humans who think I should die, but I don’t want them dead because of that.

“An alien would never love you, so it’s nonsensical to love aliens.” Spiders don’t love me either, but that doesn’t make me fantasize about all-out war against spiders.

In the end, I think the “oughts” reveal the true reasoning. It’s not that these people believe in hostile aliens and propose action based on it. It’s that they really want to commit genocide and come up with an argument to make it “logical.”

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