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Comment by d_silin | Hacker News Reader

Considering the amount of pointless suffering in human life, I've inclined to believe that no super-intelligent mind will simulate reality like ours, on ethical grounds alone.

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You didn't play a lot of Rollercoaster Tycoon did you? Why would the entity controlling the simulation care about simulated suffering?

My hypothesis is that ethics has to evolve to match technology development for any advanced civilization, to avoid self-destruction.

Animals in factory farms disagree with you.

Maybe the purpose of the simulation is to learn what can go wrong, or what's wrong in order to avoid self-destruction or solve a self-destruction situation in the far future.

I played a lot of Rollercoaster Tycoon and always cleaned up the vomit. I put out the fires in the Sims and made sure the burglar didn’t burgle.

Well, if it's a simulation there's no "suffering" in some way, anymore than Grand Theft Auto is suffering because people get shot and beaten.

It's just bits playing the "suffering" mode.

s/bits/atoms

There's no real distinction between bits and atoms in a simulation. Atoms are just bits.

I meant that you could make the same argument for non-simulated reality.

True, but traditionally we do ascribe moral agency / capacity for suffering to persons made of atoms (as opposed to bits).

Traditionally we used to kill animals (or even people) to satisfy gods. We learn.

If you are assuming you are made of atoms and consciousness is emergent property that is not breaking any laws of physics, then.. well instead of giving up and deleting it, I'll just say you know exactly how the argument goes but if you feel simulated atoms don't cause suffering they way real ones do I'm unlikely to change your mind. I think that's 1=2 though.

There's already some people claiming moral rights on behalf of video game characters.

https://www.vox.com/2014/4/23/5643418/this-guy-thinks-killin...

Yes, but if those people are similated, their moral claims don't matter either :-)

It might not be on purpose...

You may want to read some Stanislav Lem, about Trurl and Klapauzius. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cyberiad

SSC has an interesting take on theodicy that addresses this claim: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/15/answer-to-job/

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