I've heard a surprising number of people criticize parenting recently using some pretty harsh labels. I've seen people call it a form of "Stockholm syndrome" and a breach of liberty, morally unnecessary etc. This seems kind of weird to me, because it doesn't really match my experience as a child at all.
I do agree that parents can sometimes violate liberty, and so I'd prefer a world where children could break free from their parents without penalties. But I also think that most children genuinely love their parents and so wouldn't want to do so. I think if you deride this as merely "Stockholm syndrome" then you are unfairly undervaluing the genuine nature of the relationship in most cases, and I disagree with you here.
As an individual, I would totally let an intent aligned AGI manage most of my life, and give me suggestions. Of course, if I disagreed with a course of action it suggested, I would want it to give a non-manipulative argument to persuade me that it knows best, rather than simply forcing me into the alternative. In other words, I'd want some sort of weak paternalism on the part of an AGI.
So, as a person who wants this type of thing, I can really see the merits of having parents who care for children. In some ways they are intent aligned GIs. Now, some parents are much more strict, and freedom restricting, and less transparent than what we would want in a full blown guardian superintelligence -- but this just seems like an argument that there exist bad parents, not that this type of paternalism is bad.
Yeah, that's one argument for tradition: it's simply not the pit of misery that its detractors claim it to be. But for parenting in particular, I think I can give an even stronger argument. Children aren't little seeds of goodness that just need to be set free. They are more like little seeds of anything. If you won't shape their values, there's no shortage of other forces in the world that would love to shape your children's values, without having their interests at heart.
2Matthew Barnett
Toddlers, yes. If we're talking about people over the age of say, 8, then it becomes less true. By the time they are a teen, it becomes pretty false. And yet people still say that legal separation at 18 is good.
If you are merely making the argument that we should limit their exposure to things that could influence them in harmful directions, then I'd argue that this never stops being a powerful force, including for people well into adulthood and in old age.
Huh? Most 8 year olds can't even make themselves study instead of playing Fortnite, and certainly don't understand the issues with unplanned pregnancies. I'd say 16-18 is about the right age where people can start relying on internal structure instead of external. Many take even longer, and need to join the army or something.