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Comment by terryf | Hacker News Reader

There is no "should" there are only "is" or "is not"

The universe has no need to be fair.

Sure, but almost everyone already knows this. It’s not hugely relevant in a discussion about how things could be better.

It says that we have to fight for whatever rights we think how things "should" be, they're not just gonna happen.

I think people, broadly, have driven life to be fairer, and that we should continue to do so

There are evolutionary benefits to groups that cooperate and improve fairness internally.

But if an AI surpasses humans in every way, is there any evolutionary benefit for the AI to cooperate with humans?

The topic was why should only some people benefit from AI. Not why would AI cooperate with humans.

> The universe has no need to be fair.

Human societies have a strong need for fairness, however. Unfair societies collapse.

> Unfair societies collapse.

I don’t think we have the data to disprove the stronger claim “societies collapse”, and I don’t think being unfair (whatever that means) makes societies collapse earlier. Did slavery hasten the fall of Rome, for example, or the Gulag the fall of the USSR?

As to “whatever that means”, I think that’s hard, if not impossible, to define objectively. Catholic dogma says the Pope is the representative of god, for example, so catholics (less so in modern times, I think) don’t question his decisions. Many would call that unfair, even if the pope would be elected 100% by merit.

This is how you get the french revolution.

I mean of course the universe has no need to be fair - that's a frankly asinine observation in the context of a discussion about social policy and resource distribution.

the universe doesn't require opposition to slavery either but I'll be bold and assume you oppose it anyway

in addition, there is also "stupid" and "not stupid"

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