Stanislav Fort: naive mathematical utilitarianism fails out-of-distribution, like Newtonian gravity
inductionheads · x · 2026-09-21
Responding to a viral essay arguing insects matter more than people in aggregate, researcher Stanislav Fort argues:
- Morality isn't solved; any model of it is only a limited approximation
- Like Newtonian gravity failing near black holes, naive mathematical utilitarianism yields crazy conclusions out-of-distribution
- The sane reaction is not to "bite the bullet" but to recognize the underlying theory doesn't generalize to the regime you're using it in
- Taking theories to extremes isn't rationality — it's a failure to appreciate their limits, with premature mathematization lending false rigor
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