Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Who Wants To Start An Important Startup? - Less Wrong

41 Post author: ShannonFriedman 16 August 2012 08:02PM

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Comment author: ShannonFriedman 15 August 2012 07:29:46PM 8 points [-]

If you're playing the biggest game you can, you should keep getting into quagmires by continually putting your limits to the test. A favorite quote of mine from the cofounder of the coaching school and leadership program I attended:

"If you're not failing half the time, you're not trying hard enough."

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 August 2012 03:05:23AM 9 points [-]

If you've never been arrested, you're too law-abiding.

Comment author: [deleted] 16 August 2012 09:12:21AM 5 points [-]

Or law enforcement in your country is too crappy.

Comment author: [deleted] 17 August 2012 08:44:15PM *  3 points [-]

(Crappy may not be the best word, though, because it's not always a bad thing: a country where whoever shares copyrighted material (e.g. on a P2P) without the consent of the copyright holder ends up in prison with probability 1 minus epsilon would be a helluva dystopia IMO.)

Comment author: DaFranker 17 August 2012 08:56:21PM *  2 points [-]

If you think of "crappy" in terms of "bad", and bad in terms of "not instrumentally rational", then an anti-crappy law enforcement seems like it wouldn't do something this twisted and society-disrupting.

Comment author: [deleted] 17 August 2012 10:10:31PM 2 points [-]

Well, let's say that in the great-grandparent by crappy I meant “not instrumentally rational for its own (stated) goals (i.e. enforcing the law)”, and then I replied to myself pointing out that what's not instrumentally rational for its own stated goals can still be instrumentally rational for the goals of humanity.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 17 August 2012 10:07:55PM 6 points [-]

Then you should be even less law-abiding.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 16 August 2012 08:17:30AM *  13 points [-]

If you've never been slowly and publicly tortured to death and then resurrected in order to experience it again, due to having pissed off Mexican drug lords, the Pope, the International Red Cross, the Chinese Communist Party, 4chan, the CIA, Clippy, an FAI, Lord Voldemort, the goddess Takhisis, and whoever it is that's running our simulation, all at once, you're too risk averse.

Comment author: [deleted] 16 August 2012 09:15:10AM 4 points [-]
Comment author: Will_Newsome 31 August 2012 10:27:25PM -2 points [-]

Your list is conspicuously lacking the scariest entity. I would rather get tortured by all of those at once than give the slightest insult to God.

Comment author: arundelo 01 September 2012 12:34:29AM 5 points [-]

I agree, God is kind of a dick that way.

Oh crap!

Comment author: Will_Newsome 01 September 2012 10:07:51AM 0 points [-]

I think Lesswrong is a pretty cool guy. eh downvotes christains and doesnt afraid of god.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 16 August 2012 03:09:08AM 4 points [-]

If you've never never been arrested, you're too law-breaking. #umeshumeshisms

Comment author: Epiphany 16 August 2012 03:44:13AM *  -1 points [-]

Failure doesn't imply risk. You can fail at challenging your friends to seemingly impossible debates or thinking of solutions to seemingly impossible problems. If you fail at those, you've lost nothing - the time is a valid investment in intellectual development. Have you never tried to solve a problem that seems impossible, Eliezer?

Try it. It's a blast.

Comment author: wedrifid 16 August 2012 03:57:21AM 6 points [-]

Have you never tried to solve a problem that seems impossible, Eliezer?

Now that you mention it.

Comment author: Epiphany 16 August 2012 06:20:17AM *  3 points [-]

Ooh. I like it. Thanks. Say, do you know if Eliezer has posed any impossible challenges to the group? It would be REALLY fun to solve them as a team. (:

Edit: I made one.