Yvain comments on Rationality quotes: May 2010 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: ata 01 May 2010 05:48AM

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Comment author: Yvain 01 May 2010 04:35:56PM *  4 points [-]

Reading the quote and your explanation, I thought of this:

Through my mind flashed the passage:

"Do nothing because it is righteous, or praiseworthy, or noble, to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do, and which you cannot do in any other way."

Doing what it seemed good to do, had only led me astray.

So I called a full stop.

And I decided that, from then on, I would follow the strategy that could have saved me if I had followed it years ago: Hold my FAI designs to the higher standard of not doing that which seemed like a good idea, but only that which I understood on a sufficiently deep level to see that I could not do it in any other way.

-- My Bayesian Enlightenment

Comment author: CronoDAS 01 May 2010 08:41:13PM 6 points [-]

"Do nothing because it is righteous, or praiseworthy, or noble, to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do, and which you cannot do in any other way."

If I took that advice literally, I wouldn't do much of anything at all.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 May 2010 03:40:06AM 0 points [-]

I'm resisting googling this... Ursula K. Le Guin, right? Though it sounds like something out of the Dhammapada.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 02 May 2010 06:24:35AM 1 point [-]

Yes, the Farthest Shore. here or here