quotation
Cultivation
Despite centuries of terrible research by terrible people, sophotechnology has not provided either protein or machine intelligences with any viable technique to sandbox evil. Istar Essenye, wakener
ethics
quotation
Quotables I
(Random things said with no other place to go, so I shall save them and post them in eights from time to time.) Good, in the moral sense, is difficult and may be impossible to define objectively. I prefer to concern myself with ethical correctness, which is at least calculable.
complexity
The Complexity of Complexity
In the first volume of our work, reason and natural philosophy have appropriately laid waste to the claims of imbeciles and nihilists by virtue of an inarguable demonstration that the most fundamental rules of ethics are implicit in the very nature of ethical actors themselves, insofar as an examination the
Admiralty Intelligence
Career Limiters
Among the most loathed and dreaded phrases in the Imperial Military Service lexicon is this: “intervention outwith mission parameters is not required”. That phrase is your lords and masters at CORECOM, usually prompted by advice from Admiralty Intelligence, ISS, the bright chaps at External Clarification & Rectification, or even the
ethics
By Example
The Master said: First, do no evil. Then, do good. This is the Way. The Student said: What if I must do evil in order to do good? The Master immediately struck the Student with his staff, knocking him senseless. And it was good. – The Book of Five Leaves
technepraxic
Technepraxic #4
Having established as an ethical principle that to be sophont is to be entitled as of right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, it must necessarily follow that the proper function, in accordance with virtue, of the technical organs of a civilization is the abolishment of death,
ethics
Praxis
Why aren’t artificial intelligences programmed for honesty and loyalty? So that they may be honest and loyal. - Cyberethics in Koans, Airil Konohana
governance
Today's Quotations
We are, undeniably, tool-using creatures. Eldrae sómintár. More, we are undeniably creative creatures, builders and makers – eldrae mahavár – who build in order to have tools, and have tools in order to build. An endless cycle of creation. Observe, too, the lesser Flames: the problem-solving ingenuity of the bandal, the hunting
ethical calculus
Eq*y
“A computational system has reached the threshold of making ethical judgements when it no longer parses the equity operator as the semantic equivalent of the equality operator.” – Introduction to Polymorphic Software (3rd ed.), Sarval Estantel
education
The Other Dismal Science
“Good morning, ye earnest seekers of wisdom. I am Reader Olíäth Rian, and I am your primary instructor for this class. Welcome to EX0487, Introduction to the Exosophontology of Mass Coercion. For our foreign students who are now looking confused, you may have seen this class listed under ‘political science’
ethics
Response: The Path of the Righteous Man...
…is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost
paracoercion
Paracoercion
“…as to your avowed intention to institute a Universal Income, we welcome such systems – as evidenced by our own Citizen’s Dividend – as an excellent answer to paracoercive states. (Para-, in this case, meaning “not really”, but having initially solved the ethical problems of true coercion, which is to say