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Comment by suddenlybananas | Hacker News Reader

I genuinely don't understand how some people are so self-hating.

What's self-hating about acknowledging a fact? There's literally nothing a human can do that can't be done by another entity/group with even near-equivalent intelligence, alien or artificial.

We don't even know if that is true, and even if it were true, that doesn't mean that humans aren't special. We don't have to devalue ourselves. Our values can and should be 100% anthropocentric in my view.

It's interesting that you think that acknowledging we aren't special means we're devaluing ourselves.

I don't really see how going from humans are special to humans aren't special is anything but a devaluing.

Humans value each other, through the myriad forms of relationships we - strive to - maintain. They may change, but they'll never completely disappear, no matter what. There's just nothing objectively special about any of it, as other organisms also - can - have relationships. Same for the things we do: it can all be done by some non-human entity, be it another organic specie, alien or machine. Become comfortable with the facts as your mental stability likely depends on it now more than ever.

I'm talking about the value of humans qua humanity, not the individual people that I value. I think you're being willfully obtuse.

Not at all. There's as much value in human qua human as there is value in cat qua cat, or oak tree qua oak tree, ie there is value in the human species in as much as humans are distinct/unique as such.

How often do you say that to your wife?

You're - deliberately? - confusing scope. There's the objective and the subjective. Humans not being objectively special doesn't mean one human can't be considered special by another. And if my wife doesn't get that distinction, well... I'd probably question my choice in partner.

Nobody claims we are objectively special, whatever would that even mean. Person said they feel awful which is clearly subjective and you proceeded to bash him for that. You are on hackernews, we are aware we are atoms.

Person made a claim about intelligence becoming a product (arguably it has been on the market for a long time; see knowledge workers) "that you can [now] quantify and buy with electricity". That points to the rhetoric often pushed that humans are [objectively] special, because intelligence. Or at least were. And it's the reality wakeup call that's driving that feeling of awfulness/despair/outrage/whatever else, as has been posted about here and elsewhere multiple times.

This is a problem of wealth distribution and it's fair to feel in a such way if your edge as an employee is being taken away. Being or feeling special is irrelevant.

You're shifting. Nothing was said here about job security. As stated, this is someone who feels awful because intelligence is now a thing that's available to machines. A similar - albeit lighter - tone to this[0], where in the article the author describes being in some "spiritual crisis", and that "The creation (or even the pursuit) of novel mathematics is one way that humans have historically accessed the ineffable and encountered the divine and mystical". Have a look at some of the comments, if you never saw it before.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49048681

This is a 2 months old thread and written by someone else. It only shows you like putting others down.

If someone believes deeply that they can fly if they jump off a cliff and flap their arms, is it putting them down to tell them it's fiction and things will end badly if they try?

I hardly see any mortal danger here in a way you do. If you really want to help try making your comments sound less aggressive. Now it seems as if you are jumping out of a bush and beating people up with a club because you think they are headed for the cliff. You must have already noticed what are you trying to say is rarely taken at a face value because of that.

Even if there's no immediate mortal danger, there's still potential danger. Like said person may live on the plains with no intention of going anywhere with a cliff. But they eventually may. Or they could infect others with their belief, like how cults tend to work.

I really don't want anyone to take anything I say at face value. What I want is for people to generally be more logical and think things through on their own, particularly things in which there's at least potential danger. And sad to say I've instead been seeing a lot of kool aid drinking, even around here.

How do you get "self-hating" out of that? I think you're projecting your own attitudes about AI onto the parent comment. Saying "humans aren't special in terms of evaluation criteria <X>" is not self-hating, it's potentially a statement of fact.

I'm imagining that someone like you would have argued that animals weren't conscious, or couldn't communicate, back in the day, because humans were "special" that way.

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