Solvent comments on Rationality Quotes February 2012 - Less Wrong

5 [deleted] 01 February 2012 09:03PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (401)
Tags: quotes

Comments (401)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Solvent 02 February 2012 06:03:59AM 68 points [-]

And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity. The ideas Earthlings held didn’t matter for hundreds of thousands of years, since they couldn’t do much about them anyway. Ideas might as well be badges as anything.

Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Comment author: Stabilizer 03 February 2012 05:38:50AM 5 points [-]

...the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity.

The most beautiful explanation of Hansonian signalling I've seen.

Comment author: IlyaShpitser 04 February 2012 06:15:18AM 3 points [-]

With all due respect to Robin, this very thread supplies prior art for this idea :).

Comment author: Stabilizer 04 February 2012 11:00:27AM 4 points [-]

Having an inkling about the existence of gravity is different from figuring out the motions of all the planets. Hanson actually built the idea into useful models. He gets the name. :D

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit