astray comments on Rational Me or We? - Less Wrong

116 Post author: RobinHanson 17 March 2009 01:39PM

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Comment author: astray 18 March 2009 04:11:51PM 4 points [-]

Darwin was almost preempted by Wallace. Newton and Leibniz arrived at the same calculus independently, and similar work was done by Seki Kowa at the same time. They were merely there first and most prominently, but not uniquely. I think to satisfy importance, we want cut vertex scientists and academics.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 March 2009 06:09:05PM 2 points [-]

What constitutes a "cut vertex" here depends entirely on how far you want to take the counterfactual. Who do you shoot so that humanity makes no further progress, ever?

Comment author: MichaelHoward 18 March 2009 08:31:41PM 9 points [-]

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov?