Can't we directly conclude from your argument that the obesity epidemy can be entirely solved by fixing the environment, which is probably easier than fixing the genes ?

Heroin harms us because of our genetic makeup, yet we don't talk about how heroin-induced illness has genetic causes. We simply try to keep people away from heroin.

Not necessarily. The point is that given the current environment, some people become obese and others do not. The difference between the two groups may be partly due to genetics.

And actually, we do talk about the genetic basis for opioid addiction. I recall one doctor suggesting that a small percentage of the population are born addicted to opioids from birth whereas most people will have greater difficulty developing opioid addiction.

"And actually, we do talk about the genetic basis for opioid addiction."

Plus, a major health issue with heroin is the shit product being sold. Attempts to restrict access makes it more dangerous to use.

You could fix it by changing the environment - limited food rations, enforced exercise, etc. But the cost to society would probably outweigh the benefits.

That would imply raising food prices specifically targeted at poorer people.

Don't these questions hint at "death" being a leaky abstraction?

It seems that people have their own definition of death with details added to the general concept. Then, when exposed to these hypothetical scenarios, they either say "it is murder" or "it isn't murder", depending on what their personal definition of "death" is.

The problem is that if we redefine death as "no chance of ever coming back", some people would still not be ok with being temporarily disintegrated because they believe it would be someone else who would come back.

So the concept of death should actually be split in two: death as in "I believe it would not be me anymore", and death as in "the functional unit defined as you would not be operational anymore".

Or perhaps "self" is the leaky abstraction.

Sorry, I meant http://www.quirksmode.org

The idea that the constitution shouldn't be too highly regarded even seems like a legitimate point to make in trials:

The charges stemmed from the CCP’s interpretation of Guo’s actions as subversive to its rule. His defense was not to dispute the evidence, but to argue that the published materials were not subversive, and that the constitution covers freedom of speech anyway. The prosecution asserted that the interests of the Party-State take priority.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/27316/

A judicial decision that states that "The interests of the Party-State take priority [over the Constitution]" seems legitimate to you? Are you being sarcastic?

No, I meant that the argument is legitimate in Chinese courts. It wouldn't be in Europe or in the US.

Does this mean some form of mystery about oneself must always remain? Assume complete self-referentiality of a being. Then the ultimate source of one's goals is no longer the black box called "my nature". What is it then? And would it be the same for two completely self-referential being?

(By self-referential I mean one who understands oneself absolutely; one who possess a perfectly accurate map of oneself. There probably is a better word.)

If the human brain functions more or less according to classical physics, with causality running forwards in time, then "one's nature" is just a very complicated function of the local state of the universe - the previous state of one's brain (including the encoding of the consciousness function itself) plus incoming sensory data.

More than once you've probably made a decision, at least in part, by psychoanalyzing yourself (and maybe psychoanalyzing the way that you're psychoanalyzing yourself) - so imagine being able to psychoanalyze yourself in real time, with (near-)perfect accuracy. (There might be information-theoretic problems with trying to simulate your whole brain inside of itself at speed.)

If one is the kind of person who has given serious thought to one's motivations in life (which must include coming to the realization that they are, in a certain fundamental sense, arbitrary) then I don't know that they would necessarily change all that much under these conditions.

"That Alien Message" read like a science fiction short story at first, and then delivered a number of abnormally deep insights. Ideas so new (or ways of seeing so new) get to my brain 5-6 times a year top.

"Twelve virtues" however... well, I started skimming at the fourth virtue. Most of the content was a restatement of things I already agree with.

Maybe your audience (HN, Reddit) is enough into rationality to care more about very rational discussions (like the AI-Box problem) than about discussions of rationality itself (like "Twelve Virtues").

You may enjoy readinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons_Egg