Элиезер Юдковски - Three Worlds Collide

Command Conference. Everyone jumped; the Master of Fandom let out a small shriek.

What did I do what did I do what did I do -

And then the holo vanished.

Akon gasped for breath and slumped over in his chair. Adrenaline was still running riot through his system, but he felt utterly exhausted. He wanted to release his shape and melt into a puddle, a blob like the wrong shapes he'd seen on screen - no, not like that.

"My lord," the Ship's Confessor said softly. He was now standing alongside, a gentle hand on Akon's shoulder. "My lord, are you all right?"

"Not really," Akon said. His voice, he was proud to note, was only slighly wobbly. "It's too hard, speaking to aliens. They don't think like you do, and you don't know what you're doing wrong."

"I wonder," the Master of Fandom said with artificial lightness, "if they'll call it 'xenofatigue' and forbid anyone to talk to an alien for longer than five minutes."

Akon just nodded.

"We're getting another signal," the Lady Sensory said hesitantly. "Holo with sound, another real-time communication."

"Akon, you don't have to -" said the Master of Fandom.

Akon jerked himself upright, straightened his clothes. "I do have to," he said. "They're aliens, there's no knowing what a delay might... Just put it through."

The first thing the holo showed, in elegant Modern English script, was the message:

The Lady 3rd Kiritsugu

temporary co-chair of the Gameplayer

Language Translator version 3

Cultural Translator version 2

The screen hovered just long enough to be read, then dissipated -

Revealing a pale white lady.

The translator's depiction of the Lady 3rd Kiritsugu was all white and black and grey; not the

colorlessness of a greyscale image, but a colored image of a world with little color in it. Skin the color of the palest human skin that could still be called attractive; not snow white, but pale. White hair; blouse and bracelets and long dress all in coordinated shades of grey. That woman could have been called pretty, but there was none of the overstimulating beauty of the fake man who had been shown before.

Her face was styled in the emotion that humans named "serene".

"I and my sisters have now taken command of this vessel," said the pale Lady.

Akon blinked. A mutiny aboard their ship?

And it was back to the alien incomprehensibility, the knife-edged decisions and unpredictable reactions and the deadly fear of screwing up.

"I am sorry if my words offend," Akon said carefully, "but there is something I wish to know."

The Lady 3rd made a slicing gesture with one hand. "You cannot offend me." Her face showed mild insult at the suggestion.

"What has happened aboard your ship, just now?"

The Lady 3rd replied, "The crew are disabled by emotional distress. They have exceeded the bounds of their obligations, and are returning to the ship's Pleasuring Center for reward. In such a situation I and my two sisters, the kiritsugu of this vessel, assume command."

Did I do that? "I did not intend for my words to cause you psychological harm."

"You are not responsible," the Lady 3rd said. "It was the other ones."

"The Babyeaters?" Akon said without thinking.

"Babyeaters," the Lady 3rd repeated. "If that is the name you have given to the third alien species present at this star system, then yes. The crew, apprehending the nature of the Babyeaters' existence, was incapacitated by their share of the children's suffering."

"I see," Akon said. He felt an odd twitch of shame for humanity, that his own kind could learn of the Babyeaters, and continue functioning with only tears.

The Lady 3rd's gaze grew sharp. "What are your intentions regarding the Babyeaters?"

"We haven't decided," Akon said. "We were just discussing it when you arrived, actually."

"What is your current most preferred alternative?" the Lady 3rd instantly fired back.

Akon helplessly shrugged, palms out. "We were just starting the discussion. All the alternatives suggested seemed unacceptable."

"Which seemed least unacceptable? What is your current best candidate?"

Akon shook his head. "We haven't designated any."

The Lady 3rd's face grew stern, with a hint of puzzlement. "You are withholding the information.

Why? Do you think it will cast you in an unfavorable light? Then I must take that expectation into account. Further, you must expect me to take that expectation into account, and so you imply that you expect me to underestimate its severity, even after taking this line of reasoning into account."

"Excuse me," the Ship's Confessor said. His tone was mild, but with a hint of urgency. "I believe I should enter this conversation right now. "

Akon's hand signed agreement to the Lady Sensory.

At once the Lady 3rd's eyes shifted to where the Confessor stood beside Akon.

"Human beings," said the Ship's Confessor, "cannot designate a 'current best candidate' without psychological consequences. Human rationalists learn to discuss an issue as thoroughly as possible before suggesting any solutions. For humans, solutions are sticky in a way that would require detailed cognitive science to explain. We would not be able to search freely through the solution space, but would be helplessly attracted toward the 'current best' point, once we named it. Also, any endorsement whatever of a solution that has negative moral features, will cause a human to feel shame - and 'best candidate' would feel like an endorsement. To avoid feeling that shame, humans must avoid saying

which of two bad alternatives is better than the other."

Ouch, thought Akon, I never realized how embarrassing that sounds until I heard it explained to an alien.

Apparently the alien was having similar thoughts. "So you cannot even tell me which of several alternatives currently seems best, without your minds breaking down? That sounds quite implausible,"

the Lady 3rd said doubtfully, "for a species capable of building a spaceship."

There was a hint of laughter in the Confessor's voice. "We try to overcome our biases."

The Lady 3rd's gaze grew more intense. "Are you the true decisionmaker of this vessel?"

"I am not," the Confessor said flatly. "I am a Confessor - a human master rationalist; we are sworn to refrain from leadership."

"This meeting will determine the future of all three species," said the Lady 3rd. "If you have superior competence, you should assume control."

Akon's brows furrowed slightly. Somehow he'd never thought about it in those terms.

The Confessor shook his head. "There are reasons beyond my profession why I must not lead. I am too old."

Too old?

Akon put the thought on hold, and looked back at the Lady 3rd. She had said that all the crew were incapacitated, except her and her two sisters who took charge. And she had asked the Confessor if he held true command.

"Are you," Akon asked, "the equivalent of a Confessor for your own kind?"

"Almost certainly not," replied the Lady 3rd, and -

"Almost certainly not," the Confessor said, almost in the same breath.

There was an eerie kind of unison about it.

"I am kiritsugu ," said the Lady 3rd. "In the early days of my species there were those who refrained from happiness in order to achieve perfect skill in helping others, using untranslatable 3 to suppress their emotions and acting only on their abstract knowledge of goals. These were forcibly returned to normality by massive untranslatable 4 . But I descend from their thought-lineage and in emergency invoke the shadow of their untranslatable 5 ."