why exactly do you need a deity to tell you to love your fellow man? Do you need god in your life to want to love your children? I think this is not quite right. I don't expect that the desire to create these tools independent of outcome in the valley is simply about greed , and for companies like anthropic, the ability to use AGI fear as a means to drive investment in themselves from VC class that lives the idea of obliterating human labor. We need less money in tech - we'll probably get it soon enough.
> why exactly do you need a deity to tell you to love your fellow man?
Because that is not a given, as shown by the entirety of human history. Without God, the only arguments for love, or what is right, is just what people think/feel/agree on at a certain time and place, which has a lot of variations and is definitely not universal.
> Do you need god in your life to want to love your children?
Most people don't need God to love their children, and the ones that don't might not be convinced otherwise by God.
That said, what do you do exactly for that love? Do you cheat and steal to guarantee their future over others? If not because of some "benefit to society" logical argument that would convince no-one, why would one even care about that and not exploit society for their own benefit?
Almost everyone loves themselves and their family above all others. Only God can tell you to love your neighbors and even your enemies.
There are still many societies around the world where most people are mostly self centered and you can see the results. You are taking for granted many values you have, as if you arrived to them logically and indipendently instead of learning them from your parents and a society that derived them from God for centuries.
Decoupled from the social systems built by organized religion, our “elites” are taking society to a horrific place.
Could you build up traditions and social structures over time without any deity that would withstand the hedonism and nihilism driving modern culture? Perhaps. But it would require time measured in generations we don’t have.
At the very least , it takes generations to build up shared traditions and values across a society. If you want an atheistic version of that, you would need to start now and it’s going to take a long time to build.
Writing off an entire facet of life as toxic, is toxic.
Anything taken to extreme can be harmful, but some of the most grounded and successful (as in, living well) people I know are those with a self-aware religious foundation to lean on. People may bring up examples of religious cults as a reason to discard all religion, but surely the same could be said for the many secular cults. We shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater, as they say.
We don't need religion for that, humanism exists a way of living for instance.
I don't think (most) people treat science "as a religion".
Some tech leaders seem to have swap Ayn Rand (who if you look at the early days definitely acted like a cult leader), to this AI doomer cult, and as a result seem to be acting terribly.
Religion was much wider spread in the 1800s, but that didn't stop industrialists acting terribly.
fooblaster|2 months ago
DeusExMachina|2 months ago
Because that is not a given, as shown by the entirety of human history. Without God, the only arguments for love, or what is right, is just what people think/feel/agree on at a certain time and place, which has a lot of variations and is definitely not universal.
> Do you need god in your life to want to love your children?
Most people don't need God to love their children, and the ones that don't might not be convinced otherwise by God.
That said, what do you do exactly for that love? Do you cheat and steal to guarantee their future over others? If not because of some "benefit to society" logical argument that would convince no-one, why would one even care about that and not exploit society for their own benefit?
Almost everyone loves themselves and their family above all others. Only God can tell you to love your neighbors and even your enemies.
There are still many societies around the world where most people are mostly self centered and you can see the results. You are taking for granted many values you have, as if you arrived to them logically and indipendently instead of learning them from your parents and a society that derived them from God for centuries.
jimbokun|2 months ago
Decoupled from the social systems built by organized religion, our “elites” are taking society to a horrific place.
Could you build up traditions and social structures over time without any deity that would withstand the hedonism and nihilism driving modern culture? Perhaps. But it would require time measured in generations we don’t have.
lawn|2 months ago
You can have morality without religion. Religion arguably makes it worse too.
jimbokun|2 months ago
inamorty|2 months ago
jimbokun|2 months ago
Joe-Dart|2 months ago
Anything taken to extreme can be harmful, but some of the most grounded and successful (as in, living well) people I know are those with a self-aware religious foundation to lean on. People may bring up examples of religious cults as a reason to discard all religion, but surely the same could be said for the many secular cults. We shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater, as they say.
stuaxo|2 months ago
I don't think (most) people treat science "as a religion".
Some tech leaders seem to have swap Ayn Rand (who if you look at the early days definitely acted like a cult leader), to this AI doomer cult, and as a result seem to be acting terribly.
Religion was much wider spread in the 1800s, but that didn't stop industrialists acting terribly.
I don't think the theory holds water at all.
jimbokun|2 months ago