The Nonlinear Library LW - Universal Love Integration Test: Hitler by Raemon
Jan 11, 2024
13:35
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Universal Love Integration Test: Hitler, published by Raemon on January 11, 2024 on LessWrong.
I'm still not satisfied with this post, but thought I'd ship it since I refer to the concept a fair amount. I write this more as "someone who feels some kernel of univeral-love-shaped thing", but, like, i dunno man i'm not a love expert.
tl;dr
I think "love" means "To care about someone such that they are an extension of yourself (at least to some degree)." This includes caring about the things they care about on their own terms (but can still include enforcing boundaries, preventing them from harming others, etc).
I think "love" matters most when it's backed up by actual actions. If you merely "feel like you care in your heart", but don't take any actions about that, you're kind of kidding yourself. (I think there is still some kind of interesting relational stance you can have that doesn't route through action, but it's relatively weaksauce as love goes)
What, then, would "Universal Love" mean? I can't possibly love everyone in a way that grounds out in action. I nonetheless have an intuition that universal love is important to me. Is it real? Does it make any sense?
I think part of what makes it real is having an intention that if I had more resources, I would try to take concrete actions to both help, and connect with, everyone.
In this post I explore this in more detail, and check "okay how actually do I relate to, say, Hitler? Do I love him?".
My worldview was shaped by hippies and nerds. This is basically a historical accident - I could have easily been raised by a different combination of cultures. But here I am.
One facet of this worldview is "everyone deserves compassion/empathy". And, I think, my ideal self loves everyone.
(I don't think everyone else's ideal self necessarily loves everyone. This is just one particular relational stance you can have to the world. But, it's mine)
What exactly does this mean though? Does it makes sense?
I can't create a whole new worldview from scratch, but I can look for inconsistencies in my existing worldview, and notice when it either conflicts with itself, or conflicts with reality, and figure out new pieces of worldview that seem good according to my current values. Over the past 10 years or so, my worldview has gotten a healthy dose of game theory, and practical experience with various community organizing, worldsaving efforts, etc.
I aspire towards a robust morality, which includes having compassion for everyone, while still holding them accountable for their actions. i.e The sort of thing theunitofcaring blog talks about:
I don't know how to give everyone an environment in which they'll thrive. It's probably absurdly hard, in lots of cases it is, in practical terms, impossible. But I basically always feel like it's the point, and that anything else is missing the point. There are people whose brains are permanently-given-our-current-capabilities stuck functioning the way my brain functioned when I was very sick.
And I encounter, sometimes, "individual responsibility" people who say "lazy, unproductive, unreliable people who choose not to work choose their circumstances; if they go to bed hungry then, yes, they deserve to be hungry; what else could 'deserve' possibly mean?" They don't think they're talking to me; I have a six-figure tech job and do it well and save for retirement and pay my bills, just like them. But I did not deserve to be hungry when I was sick, either, and I would not deserve to be hungry if I'd never gotten better.
What else could 'deserve' possibly mean? When I use it, I am pointing at the 'give everyone an environment in which they'll thrive' thing. People with terminal cancer deserve a cure even though right now we don't have one; deserving isn't a claim about what we have, but about what we would wa...
I'm still not satisfied with this post, but thought I'd ship it since I refer to the concept a fair amount. I write this more as "someone who feels some kernel of univeral-love-shaped thing", but, like, i dunno man i'm not a love expert.
tl;dr
I think "love" means "To care about someone such that they are an extension of yourself (at least to some degree)." This includes caring about the things they care about on their own terms (but can still include enforcing boundaries, preventing them from harming others, etc).
I think "love" matters most when it's backed up by actual actions. If you merely "feel like you care in your heart", but don't take any actions about that, you're kind of kidding yourself. (I think there is still some kind of interesting relational stance you can have that doesn't route through action, but it's relatively weaksauce as love goes)
What, then, would "Universal Love" mean? I can't possibly love everyone in a way that grounds out in action. I nonetheless have an intuition that universal love is important to me. Is it real? Does it make any sense?
I think part of what makes it real is having an intention that if I had more resources, I would try to take concrete actions to both help, and connect with, everyone.
In this post I explore this in more detail, and check "okay how actually do I relate to, say, Hitler? Do I love him?".
My worldview was shaped by hippies and nerds. This is basically a historical accident - I could have easily been raised by a different combination of cultures. But here I am.
One facet of this worldview is "everyone deserves compassion/empathy". And, I think, my ideal self loves everyone.
(I don't think everyone else's ideal self necessarily loves everyone. This is just one particular relational stance you can have to the world. But, it's mine)
What exactly does this mean though? Does it makes sense?
I can't create a whole new worldview from scratch, but I can look for inconsistencies in my existing worldview, and notice when it either conflicts with itself, or conflicts with reality, and figure out new pieces of worldview that seem good according to my current values. Over the past 10 years or so, my worldview has gotten a healthy dose of game theory, and practical experience with various community organizing, worldsaving efforts, etc.
I aspire towards a robust morality, which includes having compassion for everyone, while still holding them accountable for their actions. i.e The sort of thing theunitofcaring blog talks about:
I don't know how to give everyone an environment in which they'll thrive. It's probably absurdly hard, in lots of cases it is, in practical terms, impossible. But I basically always feel like it's the point, and that anything else is missing the point. There are people whose brains are permanently-given-our-current-capabilities stuck functioning the way my brain functioned when I was very sick.
And I encounter, sometimes, "individual responsibility" people who say "lazy, unproductive, unreliable people who choose not to work choose their circumstances; if they go to bed hungry then, yes, they deserve to be hungry; what else could 'deserve' possibly mean?" They don't think they're talking to me; I have a six-figure tech job and do it well and save for retirement and pay my bills, just like them. But I did not deserve to be hungry when I was sick, either, and I would not deserve to be hungry if I'd never gotten better.
What else could 'deserve' possibly mean? When I use it, I am pointing at the 'give everyone an environment in which they'll thrive' thing. People with terminal cancer deserve a cure even though right now we don't have one; deserving isn't a claim about what we have, but about what we would wa...