Welcome to the nonlinear library, where we use text-to-speech software to convert the best writing from the rationalist and ea communities into audio.
This is: Working With Monsters, published by johnswentworth on the LessWrong.
This is a fictional piece based on Sort By Controversial. You do not need to read that first, though it may make Scissor Statements feel more real. Content Warning: semipolitical. Views expressed by characters in this piece are not necessarily the views of the author.
I stared out at a parking lot, the pavement cracked and growing grass. A few cars could still be seen, every one with a shattered windshield or no tires or bashed-in roof, one even laying on its side. Of the buildings in sight, two had clearly burned, only blackened reinforced concrete skeletons left behind. To the left, an overpass had collapsed. To the right, the road was cut by a hole four meters across. Everywhere, trees and vines climbed the remains of the small city. The collapsed ceilings and shattered windows and nests of small animals in the once-hospital behind me seemed remarkably minor damage, relatively speaking.
Eighty years of cryonic freeze, and I woke to a post-apocalyptic dystopia.
“It’s all like that,” said a voice behind me. One of my. rescuers? Awakeners. He went by Red. “Whole world’s like that.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Bioweapon?”
“Scissor,” replied a woman, walking through the empty doorway behind Red. Judge, he’d called her earlier.
I raised an eyebrow, and waited for elaboration. Apparently they expected a long conversation - both took a few seconds to get comfortable, Red leaning up against the wall in a patch of shade, Judge righting an overturned bench to sit on. It was Red who took up the conversation thread.
“Let’s start with an ethical question,” he began, then laid out a simple scenario. “So,” he asked once finished, “blue or green?”.
“Blue,” I replied. “Obviously. Is this one of those things where you try to draw an analogy from this nice obvious case to a more complicated one where it isn’t so obvious?”
“No,” Judge cut in, “It’s just that question. But you need some more background.”
“There was a writer in your time who coined the term ‘scissor statement’,” Red explained, “It’s a statement optimized to be as controversial as possible, to generate maximum conflict. To get a really powerful scissor, you need AI, but the media environment of your time was already selecting for controversy in order to draw clicks.”
“Oh no,” I said, “I read about that. and the question you asked, green or blue, it seems completely obvious, like anyone who’d say green would have to be trolling or delusional or a threat to society or something. but that’s exactly how scissor statements work.”
“Exactly,” replied Judge. “The answer seems completely obvious to everyone, yet people disagree about which answer is obviously-correct. And someone with the opposite answer seems like a monster, a threat to the world, like a serial killer or a child torturer or a war criminal. They need to be put down for the good of society.”
I hesitated. I knew I shouldn’t ask, but. “So, you two.”
Judge casually shifted position, placing a hand on some kind of weapon on her belt. I glanced at Red, and only then noticed that his body was slightly tensed, as if ready to run. Or fight.
“I’m a blue, same as you,” said Judge. Then she pointed to Red. “He’s a green.”
I felt a wave of disbelief, then disgust, then fury. It was so wrong, how could anyone even consider green... I took a step toward him, intent on punching his empty face even if I got shot in the process.
“Stop,” said Judge, “unless you want to get tazed.” She was holding her weapon aimed at me, now. Red hadn’t moved. If he had, I’d probably have charged him. But Judge wasn’t the monster here. wait.
I turned to Judge, and felt a different sort of anger.
“How can you just stand there?”, I asked. “You know that he’s in the wrong, that he’s a monster, that he deserves to be put down, preferabl...
view more