Alicorn comments on Luminosity (Twilight fanfic) discussion thread - Less Wrong

12 Post author: FAWS 25 August 2010 08:49AM

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Comment author: Alicorn 29 August 2010 04:29:47PM 7 points [-]

Paperclips aren't usually sold one at a time. If you habitually keep paperclips around, even with the intention of unbending them as you need them, then you will increase net expected demand for intact paperclips.

Comment author: whpearson 29 August 2010 04:56:48PM 5 points [-]

Also an unbent paperclip can be easily rebent to paperclip-ness. So it hasn't undergone information theoretic destruction.

Comment author: Pavitra 29 August 2010 05:45:36PM 1 point [-]

But it nevertheless is a non-paperclip, even if only temporarily. It's no different from a bit of newly-manufactured wire that could be bent into a paperclip but hasn't been yet, or a bit of liquid metal ready to be loaded into a paperclip-shaped mold.

Comment author: thomblake 30 August 2010 01:20:13PM 3 points [-]

We don't have a fully-specified printout of Clippy's utility function. It could be that unbent paperclips are just a little annoying, or that extruded unbent wire is much better than kittens.