He has some great essays and research pieces and has fostered a generally nice community of people who grew out of LessWrong. There aren't many places online to talk about those things in a certain way without it devolving rapidly.
Strangely, a popular formulation of utilitarian ethics attracts utilitarian ethicists, some of whom were eugenicists and the like already by inclination, the rest merely having become so under the suasion of this fringe theory's false axioms.
When your scheme of rules for how human societies should run does nothing to exclude or even discourage the worst atrocities of human history - when that scheme is fairly evaluable on its own terms as declaring those atrocities insufficient! - you've already made a catastrophically terrible mistake. To advocate it thereafter through persuasion rhetorical and otherwise is contemptible, but unsurprising.
As it happens I'm neither an EA nor much of a utilitarian, in the traditional sense, probably closer to a Christian "post-rat". I'd be hard pressed to say that it's worth killing a bunch of people to say, save the universe. I still have had a good time reading Scott and occasionally engaging with other people in the community.
Anything that causes huge suffering, like forcing eugenics on people, is obviously not utilitarian because suffering has negative utility.
Unless you mean things like parents choosing to screen for Down syndrome, which is not what most people call "eugenics" since it's completely voluntary.
throwanem|6 months ago
When your scheme of rules for how human societies should run does nothing to exclude or even discourage the worst atrocities of human history - when that scheme is fairly evaluable on its own terms as declaring those atrocities insufficient! - you've already made a catastrophically terrible mistake. To advocate it thereafter through persuasion rhetorical and otherwise is contemptible, but unsurprising.
rwnspace|6 months ago
klipt|6 months ago
Unless you mean things like parents choosing to screen for Down syndrome, which is not what most people call "eugenics" since it's completely voluntary.