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Ezekiel comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong
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Well, his point only makes any sense when applied to the metaphor since a better answer to the question
is:
"where would Sisyphus get a robot in the middle of Hades?"
Edit: come to think of it, this also works with the metaphor for human struggle.
I thought the correct answer would be, "No time for programming, too busy pushing a boulder."
Though, since the whole thing was a punishment, I have no idea what the punishment for not doing his punishment would be. Can't find it specified anywhere.
I don't think he's punished for disobeying, I think he's compelled to act. He can think about doing something else, he can want to do something else, he can decide to do something else ... but what he does is push the boulder.
The version I like the best is that Sisyphus keeps pushing the boulder voluntarily, because he's too proud to admit that, despite all his cleverness, there's something he can't do. (Specifically, get the boulder to stay at the top of the mountain).
My favorite version is similar. Each day he tries to push the boulder a little higher, and as the boulder starts to slide back, he mentally notes his improvement before racing the boulder down to the bottom with a smile on his face.
Because he gets a little stronger and a little more skilled every day, and he knows that one day he'll succeed.
In the M. Night version: his improvements are an asymptote - and Sisyphus didn't pay enough attention in calculus class to realize that the limit is just below the peak.
Or maybe the limit is the peak. He still won't reach it.
In some versions he's harassed by harpies until he gets back to boulder-pushing. But RobinZ's version is better.
Borrowing one of Hephaestus', perhaps?
Now someone just has to write a book entitled "The Rationality of Sisyphus", give it a really pretentious-sounding philosophical blurb, and then fill it with Grand Theft Robot.
He can build it. It would be pretty hard to do while pushing a boulder up a hill, but he has all the time in the world!
Does he have any suitable raw materials?
It's a hill, not a mountain. It presumably has plants, which could be burned for fuel. It's possible that there's no metal in the hill, but he could make the robot out of stone. Once he gets the prototype running, he can search for better materials as it slowly pushes the rock up the hill. He just has to get back before the fuel runs out.
Of course he could.
Answer: Because the Greek gods are vindictive as fuck, and will fuck you over twice as hard when they find out that you wriggled out of it the first time.
Who was the guy who tried to bargain the gods into giving him immortality, only to get screwed because he hadn't thought to ask for youth and health as well? He ended up being a shriveled crab like thing in a jar.
My highschool english teacher thought this fable showed that you should be careful what you wished for. I thought it showed that trying to compel those with great power through contract was a great way to get yourself fucked good an hard. Don't think you can fuck with people a lot more powerful than you are and get away with it.
EDIT: The myth was of Tithonus. A goddess Eos was keeping him as a lover, and tried to bargain with Zeus for his immortality, without asking for eternal youth too. Ooops.
I'm no expert, but that seems to be the moral of a lot of Greek myths.
King Midas, too.
I'd say this captures the spirit of Less Wrong perfectly.