= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
cupholder comments on The Fundamental Question - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (277)
Maybe instead of imagining your actions as having some probability of 'making the difference,' try thinking of them as slightly boosting the probability of a positive singularity?
At any rate, the survival of someone wheeled in through the doors of a hospital might depend on the EMTs, the nurses, the surgeons, the lab techs, the pharmacists, the janitors and so on and so on. I'd say they're all entitled to take a little credit without being accused of having a savior complex!
um... can you please explain what the difference is, between "having some probability X of making the difference between success and failure, of achieving a positive Singularity" and "boosting the probability of a positive Singularity, by some amount Y"? To me, these two statements seem logically equivalent. Though I guess they focus on different details...
oh, I just noticed one obvious difference: X is not equal to Y
Yeah, what I wrote was intended as an alternative way of thinking about the situation that might make you feel better, rather than an accusation of wrongness.
I guess I'll still need to think about this some more...
some random observations:
if X > 0, then Y > 0
if Y > 0, then X > 0
I was about to question whether maybe X = Y after all, but further thought reveals that X isn't clearly defined, and I really would be better off focusing on Y, because Y is more clearly defined than X, and thinking about Y seems to trigger less panic than thinking about X.
So, yeah, thanks again for your comment. It was helpful. :)
No problem!