Rationality Quotes September 2012

7 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 September 2012 05:18AM

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

  • Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately.  (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments.  If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
  • Do not quote yourself
  • Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
  • No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Comments (1088)

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Comment author: chaosmosis 30 September 2012 01:18:43AM *  5 points [-]

Cultural critics like to speculate on the cognitive changes induced by new forms of media, but they rarely invoke the insights of brain science and other empirical research in backing up those claims. All too often, this has the effect of reducing their arguments to mere superstition.

Steven Johnson, Everything Bad is Good For You

(His book argues that pop culture is increasing intelligence, not dumbing it down. He argues that plot complexity has increased and that keeping track of large storylines is now much more common place, and that these skills manifest themselves in increased social intelligence (and this in turn might manifest itself in overall intelligence, I'm not sure). Here, he's specifically discussing video games and the internet.)

I highly recommend the book, it's interesting in terms of cognitive science as well as cultural and social analysis. I thought it sounded only mildly interesting when I first picked it up, but now I'm thinking more along the lines that it's extremely interesting. At least give it a try, because it's difficult to describe what makes it so good.

Comment author: gwern 01 October 2012 01:06:24AM 3 points [-]

Really? I thought it was very short and not in depth at all; yeah, his handful of graphs of episodes was interesting from the data visualization viewpoint, but most of his arguments, such as they were, were qualititative and hand-wavey. (What, there are no simplistic shows these days?)

Comment author: chaosmosis 01 October 2012 03:02:59AM *  1 point [-]

It was rather broad and not very in depth, but it was largely conceptually oriented. He conceded that there were simplistic shows, but argued that the simplistic shows of today tend to be more complicated than the simplistic shows of yesterday. If you disagree...

Comment author: gwern 01 October 2012 03:09:12AM 3 points [-]

I don't know how I'd refute him - there are so many TV shows, both now and then! One can cherrypick pretty much anything one likes, although I don't personally watch TV anymore and couldn't do it.

(I'm reminded how people online sometimes say 'anime really sucked in time period X', because they're only familiar with anime released in the '00s and '10s, while if you look at an actual full 30+ strong roster of one of their example 'sucking' years like eg. 1991, you'll often see a whole litany of great or influential series like Nadia, City Hunter, Ranma 1/2, Dragon Ball Z, and Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory. Well, yeah, if you forget entirely about them, I suppose 1991 seems like a really sucky year compared to 2010 or whatever.)

Comment author: chaosmosis 01 October 2012 05:23:30AM *  1 point [-]

You could analyze the way that people in the TV business think and talk about complexity, while assuming that they know what they're doing. He seemed to do a bit of this.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 01 October 2012 04:52:04AM 1 point [-]

Does he look at the possibility that people are getting more intelligent for some other reason, and popular art is the result of creators serving a more intelligent audience rather than more complex art making people smarter?

Comment author: Morendil 29 September 2012 04:50:20PM 8 points [-]

New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look. And they are sometimes found when you are doing your most abstract and philosophical thinking, considering why the world is the way that it is and whether there might be an alternative to the dominant paradigm. Rarely can they be found in the temperate latitudes between these two spaces, where we spend 99 percent of our lives.

-- Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise

Comment author: [deleted] 29 September 2012 09:57:18AM *  10 points [-]

For a hundred years or so, mathematical statisticians have been in love with the fact that the probability distribution of the sum of a very large number of very small random deviations almost always converges to a normal distribution. ... This infatuation tended to focus interest away from the fact that, for real data, the normal distribution is often rather poorly realized, if it is realized at all. We are often taught, rather casually, that, on average, measurements will fall within ±σ of the true value 68% of the time, within ±2σ 95% of the time, and within ±3σ 99.7% of the time. Extending this, one would expect a measurement to be off by ±20σ only one time out of 2 × 10^88. We all know that “glitches” are much more likely than that!

-- W.H. Press et al., Numerical Recipes, Sec. 15.1

Comment author: [deleted] 29 September 2012 10:03:14AM 3 points [-]

gravity does not need policemen to make things fall!

-- Iain McKay et al., An Anarchist FAQ, Sec. F.2.1

Comment author: Vaniver 28 September 2012 02:19:00AM 4 points [-]

I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.

-- G.K. Chesterton

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 27 September 2012 12:26:39AM 10 points [-]

As far as I know, Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were indeed unusually incorruptible, and I do hate them for this trait.

Why? Because when your goal is mass murder, corruption saves lives. Corruption leads you to take the easy way out, to compromise, to go along to get along. Corruption isn't a poison that makes everything worse. It's a diluting agent like water. Corruption makes good policies less good, and evil policies less evil.

I've read thousands of pages about Hitler. I can't recall the slightest hint of "corruption" on his record. Like Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, Hitler was a sincerely murderous fanatic. The same goes for many of history's leading villains - see Eric Hoffer's classic The True Believer. Sincerity is so overrated. If only these self-righteous monsters had been corrupt hypocrites, millions of their victims could have bargained and bribed their way out of hell.

-- Bryan Caplan

Comment author: MixedNuts 28 September 2012 09:17:49AM 3 points [-]

Hitler was at least a hypocrite - he got his Jewish friends to safety, and accepted same-sex relationships in himself and people he didn't want to kill yet. The kind of corruption Caplan is pointing at is a willingness to compromise with anyone who makes offers, not any kind of ignoring your principles. And Nazis were definitely against that - see the Duke in Jud Süß.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 28 September 2012 10:01:43AM 4 points [-]

he got his Jewish friends to safety, and accepted same-sex relationships in himself and people he didn't want to kill yet

?

Please provide evidence for this bizarre claim?

Comment author: MixedNuts 28 September 2012 03:22:10PM 6 points [-]

Spared Jews:

  • Ernst Hess, his unit commander in WWI, protected until 1942 then sent to a labor (not extermination) camp
  • Eduard Bloch, his and his mother's doctor, allowed to emigrate out of Austria with more money than normally allowed
  • I've heard things about fellow artists (a commenter on Caplan's post mentions an art gallery owner) but I don't have a source.
  • There are claims about his cook, Marlene(?) Kunde, but he seems to have fired her when Himmler complained. Anyone has Musmanno's book or some other non-Stormfronty source?

Whether Hitler batted for both teams is hotly debated. There are suspected relationships (August Kubizek, Emil Maurice) but any evidence could as well have been faked to smear him.

Hitler clearly knew that Ernst Röhm and Edmund Heines were gay and didn't care until it was Long Knives time. I'm less sure he knew about Karl Ernst's sexuality.

Comment author: TimS 28 September 2012 02:13:12PM 5 points [-]

Wittgenstein paid a huge bribe to allow his family to leave Germany. Somewhere I read that this particular agreement was approve personally be Hitler (or someone very senior in the hierarchy).

That doesn't contradict the general point that Nazi Germany was generally willing to kill and steal from its victims (especially during the war) rather than accept bribes for escape.

Comment author: DanArmak 29 September 2012 07:26:24PM *  4 points [-]

Nazi Germany was generally willing to kill and steal from its victims (especially during the war) rather than accept bribes for escape.

This may have happened some of the time, but everything I read suggests it was the exception and not the rule.

The reason Jews did not emigrate out of Germany during the 30s was that Germany had a big foreign balance problem, and managed tight government control over allocation of foreign currency. Jews (and Germans) could not convert their Reichsmarks to any other currency, either in Germany or out of it, and so they were less willing to leave. And no other country was willing to take them in in large numbers (since they would be poor refugees). This continued during the war in the West European countries conquered by Germany. (Ref: Wages of Destruction, Adam Tooze)

Later, all Jewish property was expropriated and the Jews sent to camps, so there was no more room for bribes - the Jews had nothing to offer since the Nazis took what they wanted by force.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 28 September 2012 01:26:55PM 1 point [-]

The last bit is most famously true of Rohm, though of course there's a dozen different things going on there.

Comment author: chaosmosis 24 September 2012 05:23:01PM 2 points [-]

When one considers how ready are the forces of young men for discharge, one does not wonder at seeing them decide so uncritically and with so little selection for this or that cause: that which attracts them is the sight of eagerness for a cause, as it were the sight of the burning match not the cause itself. The more ingenious seducers on that account operate by holding out the prospect of an explosion to such persons, and do not urge their cause by means of reasons; these powder-barrels are not won over by means of reasons!

Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 24 September 2012 02:35:06PM *  3 points [-]

“You define yourself by what offends you. You define yourself by what outrages you.”

Salman Rushdie, explaining identity politics

Comment author: chaosmosis 24 September 2012 05:20:16PM 1 point [-]

I think "identity politics" is a term of art which covers things other than that which aren't bad, like minority struggles.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 24 September 2012 07:09:57PM 1 point [-]

You've got a point, and it's one that gets into hard issues. It can be quite hard for some people to decide whether they're being unfairly mistreated and to act on it, and the people for whom the decision is easy aren't necessarily sensible. Emotions are not a reliable tool for telling whether acting on a feeling of being unfairly mistreated makes sense.

How do you tell to what extent is a particular instance of people feeling outraged them just getting worked up for the fun of it over something they should endure, and to what extent are they building up enough allies and emotional energy to deal with a problem which (by utilitarian standards?) needs to be dealt with?

Comment author: chaosmosis 24 September 2012 10:24:59PM *  1 point [-]

I don't know how to tell legitimate movements from illegitimate ones, but the term of art "identity politics" refers to both. ID politics is a specific kind of political advocacy, and there are both good ID politics arguments and bad ones. You'd probably just have to investigate the claims they're making on a case by case basis.

But, I wasn't trying to interrogate whether defining yourself by outrage can be good in some instances, I was trying to point out that the term "ID politics" refers to things outside of defining yourself in relation to outrage. Maybe I just misinterpreted what you were saying, but I thought your comment unintentionally hinted that you were unaware the phrase is a specific term of art. There are many types of identity politics that aren't about outrage or opposition.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 24 September 2012 11:45:16PM 3 points [-]

You're quite right, I didn't know about it as a term of art.

I suppose I've mostly heard about the outrage variety of identity politics-- it tends to be more conspicuous.

Comment author: lukeprog 22 September 2012 01:28:25PM 16 points [-]

The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence.

Bill Clinton

Comment author: katydee 22 September 2012 12:13:11AM 6 points [-]

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself.

Marcus Aurelius

Comment author: simplicio 22 September 2012 12:40:27AM 3 points [-]

Meh, there are worse things to be than a mean man.

Comment author: MinibearRex 24 September 2012 01:12:42AM 3 points [-]

There are considerably more worse things to be than a noble one.

Comment author: simplicio 21 September 2012 10:50:15PM 6 points [-]

But since miracles were produced according to the capacity of the common people who were completely ignorant of the principles of natural things, plainly the ancients took for a miracle whatever they were unable to explain in the manner the common people normally explained natural things, namely by seeking to recall something similar which can be imagined without amazement. For the common people suppose they have satisfactorily explained something as soon as it no longer astounds them.

(Baruch Spinoza)

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 19 September 2012 05:24:59AM 11 points [-]

Let us together seek, if you wish, the laws of society, the manner in which these laws are reached, the process by which we shall succeed in discovering them; but, for God's sake, after having demolished all the a priori dogmatisms, do not let us in our turn dream of indoctrinating the people...let us not - simply because we are at the head of a movement - make ourselves into the new leaders of intolerance, let us not pose as the apostles of a new religion, even if it be the religion of logic, the religion of reason.

Pierre Proudhon, to Karl Marx

Comment author: shminux 19 September 2012 04:52:15AM 3 points [-]

More from Scott Adams:

It turns out that the historical data is more like a Rorschach test. One economist can look at the data and see a bunny rabbit while another sees a giraffe. You and I haven't studied the raw data ourselves, and we probably aren't qualified anyway, so we are forced to make our decisions based on the credibility of economists. And seriously, who has less credibility than economists? Chiropractors and astrologists come close.

Comment author: Alicorn 17 September 2012 05:43:03PM 14 points [-]

I've always thought of the SkiFree monster as a metaphor for the inevitability of death.

"SkiFree, huh? You know, you can press 'F' to go faster than the monster and escape."

-- xkcd 667

Comment author: shminux 17 September 2012 10:32:40PM 4 points [-]

I cannot tell if this is rationality or anti-rationality:

Q: What is Microsoft's plan if Windows 8 doesn't take off?

A: You know, Windows 8 is going to do great.

Q: No doubt at all?

A: I'm not paid to have doubts. (Laughs.) I don't have any. It's a fantastic product. ...

Steve Ballmer

Comment author: Desrtopa 17 September 2012 10:36:04PM 14 points [-]

I'd saying telling an interviewer you have sufficient confidence in your product to not need a backup plan is rational, actually not having one isn't.

Comment author: gwern 17 September 2012 10:52:49PM 7 points [-]

I'm reminded of a quote in Lords of Finance (which I finished yesterday) which went something like 'Only a fool asks a central banker about the currency and expects an honest answer'. Since confidence is what keeps banks and currencies going...

Comment author: shminux 17 September 2012 11:02:53PM *  6 points [-]

See, if instead of "I'm not paid to have doubts." he said "I am paid to address all doubts before a product is released", that would have made more sense.

Comment author: chaosmosis 17 September 2012 10:48:43PM *  3 points [-]

I'm not paid to have doubts. (Laughs.) I don't have any.

This comes across as inauthentic and slightly scared to me. At best, he's not great at PR. At worst, he doesn't have any back up plan. So that would support calling it irrationality.

telling an interviewer you have sufficient confidence in your product to not need a backup plan is rational

Well. I was thinking about it, and it seems like not having a backup plan is the kind of thing that would send bad signals to investors and whatnot. It's not clear to me that he's better off doing this than explaining how Microsoft is a fantastically professional company that's innovating and reaching into new frontiers, etc.

actually not having one isn't

I don't know specifically what alternate products would potentially be good ideas for them though. I agree that backup plans are good in general but I don't know if they're good for Microsoft specifically, based on the resources they have. Windows is kind of their thing, I don't know if they could execute on anything else.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 17 September 2012 05:25:47AM 6 points [-]

For nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture.

-William of Ockham

Comment author: wedrifid 17 September 2012 06:11:51AM 2 points [-]

This is an interesting quote for historical reasons but it is not a rationality quote.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 September 2012 10:18:42AM 3 points [-]

It makes a very important reply to anyone who claims that e.g. you should stick with Occam's original Razor and not try to rephrase it in terms of Solomonoff Induction because SI is more complicated.

Comment author: JulianMorrison 17 September 2012 10:57:05AM 1 point [-]

Humans and their silly ideas of what's complicated or not.

What I find ironic is that SI can be converted into a similarly terse commandment. "Shorter computable theories have more weight when calculating the probability of the next observation, using all computable theories which perfectly describe previous observations" -- Wikipedia.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 17 September 2012 07:39:00AM 3 points [-]

I read this as a reminder not to add anything to that map that won't help you navigate the territory. How is this not a rationality quote? Are you rejecting it merely because of the third disjunct?

Comment author: wedrifid 17 September 2012 08:18:38AM *  2 points [-]

I read this as a reminder not to add anything to that map that won't help you navigate the territory.

The quote doesn't say that, this is (only) a fact about your reading.

How is this not a rationality quote? Are you rejecting it merely because of the third disjunct?

I'm not especially impressed with the first two either, nor the claim to be exhaustive (thus excluding other valid evidence). It basically has very little going for it. It is bad epistemic advice. It is one of many quotes which require abandoning most of the content and imagining other content that would actually be valid. I reject it as I reject all such examples.

Comment author: Alicorn 16 September 2012 10:31:22PM 7 points [-]

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.

— Robert A. Heinlein

Comment author: Legolan 17 September 2012 12:38:11AM 4 points [-]

I think that quote is much too broad with the modifier "might." If you should procrastinate based on a possibility of improved odds, I doubt you would ever do anything. At least a reasonable degree of probability should be required.

Not to mention that the natural inclination of most people toward procrastination means that they should be distrustful of feelings that delaying will be beneficial; it's entirely likely that they are misjudging how likely the improvement really is.

That's not, of course, to say that we should always do everything as soon as possible, but I think that to the extent that we read the plain meaning from this quote, it's significantly over-broad and not particularly helpful.

Comment author: Alicorn 17 September 2012 12:50:52AM 2 points [-]

There's also natural inclinations towards haste and impatience. (They probably mostly crop up around different things / in different people than procrastinatory urges, but the quote is not specific about what it is you could put off.)

Comment author: RobinZ 17 September 2012 01:21:20AM 2 points [-]

I'm reminded of the saying, "A weed is just a plant in the wrong place." Different people require different improvements to their strategies.

Comment author: Legolan 17 September 2012 01:20:31AM 2 points [-]

That's certainly a fair point.

I suppose it's primarily important to know what your own inclinations are (and how they differ in different areas) and then try to adjust accordingly.

Comment author: MixedNuts 16 September 2012 10:59:38PM 2 points [-]

Do it today, and fix/retry tomorrow on failure?

Comment author: Alicorn 16 September 2012 11:37:04PM 1 point [-]

Perhaps it's a one-time thing.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 16 September 2012 06:10:49PM 12 points [-]

When a precise, narrowly focused technical idea becomes metaphor and sprawls globally, its credibility must be earned afresh locally by means of specific evidence demonstrating the relevance and explanatory power of the idea in its new application.

Edward Tufte, "Beautiful Evidence"

Comment author: simplicio 17 September 2012 02:46:46AM *  3 points [-]
  • Evolution
  • Relativity
  • Foundational assumptions of standard economics

...what else?

Comment author: RichardKennaway 20 September 2012 11:08:00AM 4 points [-]
  • Bayes' theorem
  • Status
  • Computation
  • Utility
  • Optimisation
Comment author: benelliott 18 September 2012 07:13:33PM 2 points [-]

Quantum physics

Comment author: [deleted] 15 September 2012 05:58:02PM *  11 points [-]
The Perfect Way is only difficult
for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike;
all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference,
and Heaven and Earth are set apart;
if you want the truth to stand clear before you,
never be for or against.
The struggle between "for" and "against"
is the mind's worst disease.

-- Jianzhi Sengcan

Edit: Since I'm not Will Newsome (yet!) I will clarify. There are several useful points in this but I think the key one is the virtue of keeping one's identity small. Speaking it out loud is a sort of primer, meditation or prayer before approaching difficult or emotional subjects has for me proven a useful ritual for avoiding motivated cognition.

Comment author: Emile 16 September 2012 07:29:58PM *  3 points [-]

For the curious, it's the opening of 信心铭 (Xinxin Ming), whose authorship is disputed (probably not the zen patriarch Jiangzhi Sengcan). In Chinese, that part goes:

至道无难,惟嫌拣择。
但莫憎爱,洞然明白。
毫厘有差,天地悬隔。
欲得现前,莫存顺逆。
违顺相争。是为心病。

(The Wikipedia article lists a few alternate translations of the first verses, with different meanings)

Comment author: J_Taylor 15 September 2012 06:24:11PM *  1 point [-]

Case in point:

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot!

-- Ro-Man

Comment author: lukeprog 15 September 2012 07:56:22AM 6 points [-]

You don’t have to know all the answers, you just need to know where to find them.

Albert Einstein (maybe)

Cf. this and this.

Comment author: allandong 14 September 2012 07:30:46PM 3 points [-]

Warning: Your milage may vary.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -George Bernard Shaw

Comment author: RobinZ 15 September 2012 03:25:12AM 2 points [-]

Sadly, duplicate.

Comment author: taelor 14 September 2012 07:16:44AM *  18 points [-]

Oh, right, Senjōgahara. I've got a great story to tell you. It's about that man who tried to rape you way back when. He was hit by a car and died in a place with no connection to you, in an event with no connection to you. Without any drama at all. [...] That's the lesson for you here: You shouldn't expect your life to be like the theater.

-- Kaiki Deishū, Episode 7 of Nisemonogatari.

Comment author: pragmatist 14 September 2012 02:34:36PM *  4 points [-]

If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means -- must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?

Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. -- Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. -- But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? -- If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. -- No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.

That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

Comment author: [deleted] 14 September 2012 10:48:16AM 8 points [-]

the fact that ordinary people can band together and produce new knowledge within a few months is anything but a trifle

-- Dienekes Pontikos, Citizen Genetics

Comment author: RomanDavis 14 September 2012 07:54:13AM 6 points [-]

Users always have an idea that what they want is easy, even if they can't really articulate exactly what they do want. Even if they can give you requirements, chances are those will conflict – often in subtle ways – with requirements of others. A lot of the time, we wouldn't even think of these problems as "requirements" – they're just things that everyone expects to work in "the obvious way". The trouble is that humanity has come up with all kinds of entirely different "obvious ways" of doing things. Mankind's model of the universe is a surprisingly complicated one.

Jon Skeet

Comment author: shminux 13 September 2012 10:50:21PM *  3 points [-]

I'll risk a bit of US politics, just because I like the quote:

While some observers might find his lack of philosophical consistency a problem, I see it as a plus. He's a pragmatist. If he were running for the job of Satan he would say he's in favor of evil, at least until he got the job and installed central air conditioning in Hell. To put it more bluntly, it's not his fault that so many citizens are idiots and he has to lie to them just to become a useful public servant.

Scott Adams on one of the two presidential candidates being skilled at the art of winning (with some liberal use of dark arts).

Comment author: chaosmosis 13 September 2012 04:07:35PM *  4 points [-]

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.

Ambrose Bierce

Comment author: katydee 13 September 2012 05:07:40AM *  15 points [-]

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

Ernest Hemingway

Comment author: wedrifid 13 September 2012 08:37:48AM 7 points [-]

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

Excellent. A shortcut to nobility. One day of being as despicable as I can practically manage and I'm all set.

Comment author: WingedViper 19 September 2012 04:54:11PM *  3 points [-]

It does not state which (!) former self, so I would expect some sort of median or mean or summary of your former self and not just the last day. So I'm sorry but there is no shortcut ;-)

Comment author: mfb 12 September 2012 07:35:22PM *  5 points [-]

All the world's major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14. Dalai Lama

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 12 September 2012 07:52:24PM 5 points [-]

That's intriguing, but it also sounds like a case of non-apples.

Comment author: mfb 15 September 2012 02:09:41PM 4 points [-]

Well, it is a necessary step to find other fruits.

Comment author: mrglwrf 11 September 2012 07:00:03PM 18 points [-]

You know those people who say "you can use numbers to show anything" and "numbers lie" and "I don't trust numbers, don't give me numbers, God, anything but numbers"? These are the very same people who use numbers in the wrong way.

"Junior", FIRE JOE MORGAN

Comment author: JQuinton 11 September 2012 02:01:34PM 20 points [-]

"If your plan is for one year plant rice. If your plan is for 10 years plant trees. If your plan is for 100 years educate children" - Confucius

Comment author: Sarokrae 18 September 2012 05:49:06AM 7 points [-]

...If your plan is for eternity, invent FAI?

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 September 2012 01:53:02PM 2 points [-]

Depends how you interpret the proverb. If you told me the Earth would last a hundred years, it would increase the immediate priority of CFAR and decrease that of SIAI. It's a moot point since the Earth won't last a hundred years.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 September 2012 01:57:50PM 5 points [-]

Sorry, Earth won't last a hundred years?

Comment author: Mitchell_Porter 18 September 2012 11:04:28PM 3 points [-]

The idea seems to be that even if there is a friendly singularity, Earth will be turned into computronium or otherwise transformed.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 18 September 2012 03:21:48PM 4 points [-]

I am surprised that this claim surprises you. A big part of SI's claimed value proposition is the idea that humanity is on the cusp of developing technologies that will kill us all if not implemented in specific ways that non-SI folk don't take seriously enough.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 September 2012 11:01:14PM 1 point [-]

Of course you're right. I guess I haven't noticed the topic come up here for a while, and haven't seen the apocalypse predicted so straightforwardly (and quantitatively) before so am surprised in spite of myself.

Although, in context, it sounds like EY is saying that the apocalypse is so inevitable that there's no need to make plans for the alternative. Is that really the consensus at EY's institute?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 19 September 2012 01:15:13AM 1 point [-]

I have no idea what the consensus at SI is.

Comment author: MugaSofer 18 September 2012 02:01:51PM 5 points [-]

Nanotech and/or UFAI.

Comment author: katydee 12 September 2012 12:11:49AM 3 points [-]

A scientist, like a warrior, must cherish no view. A 'view' is the outcome of intellectual processes, whereas creativity, like swordsmanship, requires not neutrality, or indifference, but to be of no mind whatsoever.

Buckaroo Banzai

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 September 2012 12:52:23AM 5 points [-]

...

...

dur....

....

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 01:56:09PM 2 points [-]

What?

Comment author: katydee 12 September 2012 01:33:57AM *  1 point [-]

I'll take the new -5 karma hit to point out that this comment shouldn't be downvoted. It is an interesting critique of the post it replies to.

Comment author: TimS 12 September 2012 02:33:33PM 2 points [-]

interesting?

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 01:56:46PM 2 points [-]

Probably it would be even more interesting if I could understand it.

Comment author: katydee 12 September 2012 02:20:50PM 15 points [-]

Eliezer posted a comment that's essentially devoid of content. This satirizes the original quote's claim that one should be of "no mind whatsoever" by illustrating that mindlessness isn't particularly useful-- a truly mindless individual (like that portrayed in the comment) would have no useful contributions to make.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 02 October 2012 05:53:33AM 1 point [-]

"No mind" is ordinary mind.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 04:10:14PM *  3 points [-]

That went completely over my head. (I guessed he was alluding to some concept whose name began with “dur”, but I couldn't think of any relevant one.)

Comment author: gwern 12 September 2012 01:38:11AM *  5 points [-]

How is it a critique? The quote is an adequate expression of Eliezer's own third virtue of rationality, and I daresay if anyone had responded as uncharitably as that to his "Twelve Virtues", he would have considered 'dur' to be an adequate summary of that person's intellect.

Comment author: thomblake 12 September 2012 01:36:25PM 2 points [-]

How is it uncharitable? Eliezer is emptying his mind as recommended by Doctor Banzai. Not sure how it's a "critique" though.

Comment author: RomanDavis 14 September 2012 07:55:32AM *  1 point [-]
Comment author: Vaniver 12 September 2012 01:44:20AM *  6 points [-]

The critique is of the phrase "but to be of no mind whatsoever."

The uncharitable interpretation is that something without a mind is a rock; the charitable interpretation is to take "mind" as "opinion."

I ended up downvoting the criticism because it doesn't apply to the substance of the quote, but to its word choice, and is itself not as clear as it could be.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 September 2012 01:43:50PM 16 points [-]

The criticism is that a martial artist or scientist is actually trying to attain a highly specific brain-state in which neurons have particular patterns in them; a feeling of emptiness, even if part of this brain state, is itself a neural pattern and certainly does not correspond to the absence of a mind.

The zeroth virtue or void - insofar as we believe in it - corresponds to particular mode of thinking; it's certainly not an absence of mind. Emptiness, no-mind, the Void of Musashi, all these things are modes of thinking, not the absence of any sort of reified spiritual substance. See also the fallacy of the ideal ghost of perfect emptiness in philosophy.

Comment author: robertskmiles 18 September 2012 06:09:02PM 1 point [-]

Cf. Mushin

Comment author: Vaniver 12 September 2012 02:48:11PM 9 points [-]

And this critique I upvoted, because it is both clear and a valuable point. I still think you're using an uncharitable definition of the word "mind," but as assuming charity could lead to illusions of transparency it's valuable to have high standards for quotes.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 01:52:42PM *  1 point [-]

See also the fallacy of the ideal ghost of perfect emptiness in philosophy.

You've mentioned this before, and I don't really know where it comes from. Do you have any specific philosopher or text in mind, or is this just a habit your perceive in philosophical argument? If so, in whose argument? Professional or historical or amateur philosophers?

Aside from some early-modern empiricists, and maybe Stoicism, I can't think of anything.

Comment author: Fyrius 12 September 2012 01:27:28PM 7 points [-]

I'm amazed how you guys manage to get all that from "dur". My communication skills must be worse than I thought.

Comment author: katydee 12 September 2012 05:04:15AM 4 points [-]

I agree that the response was not particularly charitable, but it's nevertheless generally a type of post that I would like to see more of on LessWrong-- I think that style of reply can be desirable and funny. See also this comment.

Comment author: juliawise 11 September 2012 06:42:31PM *  8 points [-]

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.

But other hearts in other lands are beating,

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

-Lloyd Stone

Comment author: V_V 11 September 2012 07:27:14PM 5 points [-]

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

obviously he never visited the British Isles :D

Comment author: Alicorn 11 September 2012 07:18:38PM 3 points [-]

Duplicate, please delete the other.

Comment author: RobinZ 11 September 2012 06:30:18PM 8 points [-]

Intelligence about baseball had become equated in the public mind with the ability to recite arcane baseball stats. What [Bill] James's wider audience had failed to understand was that the statistics were beside the point. The point was understanding; the point was to make life on earth just a bit more intelligible; and that point, somehow, had been lost. "I wonder," James wrote, "if we haven't become so numbed by all these numbers that we are no longer capable of truly assimilating any knowledge which might result from them."

Michael Lewis, Moneyball, ch. 4 ("Field of Ignorance")

Comment author: Athrelon 11 September 2012 03:50:48PM *  7 points [-]

The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic...Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere "understanding". Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritansm; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.

CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Comment author: [deleted] 11 September 2012 10:07:40AM *  18 points [-]

To use an analogy, if you attend a rock concert and take a box to stand on then you will get a better view. If others do the same, you will be in exactly the same position as before. Worse, even, as it may be easier to loose your balance and come crashing down in a heap (and, perhaps, bringing others with you).

-- Iain McKay et al., An Anarchist FAQ, section C.7.3

Comment author: alex_zag_al 11 September 2012 01:13:28PM 31 points [-]

Tropical rain forests, bizarrely, are the products of prisoner's dilemmas. The trees that grow in them spend the great majority of their energy growing upwards towards the sky, rather than reproducing. If they could come to a pact with their competitors to outlaw all tree trunks and respect a maximum tree height of ten feet, every tree would be better off. But they cannot.

Matt Ridley, in The Origins of Virtue

Comment author: [deleted] 11 September 2012 10:09:31AM 9 points [-]

If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.

-- Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 11 September 2012 03:46:46AM 3 points [-]

Fictional shows are merely gripping lies.

-Bryan Caplan, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids

Comment author: Desrtopa 11 September 2012 03:58:41AM 4 points [-]

I'd pick gripping lies over most nonfictional shows, which are mainly irrelevant or misleading truths.

Comment author: khafra 10 September 2012 07:06:52PM 11 points [-]

I particularly like the reminder that I'm physics. Makes me feel like a superhero. "Imbued with the properties of matter and energy, able to initiate activity in a purely deterministic universe, it's Physics Man!"

-- GoodDamon (this may skirt the edge of the rules, since it's a person reacting to a sequence post, but a person who's not a member of LW.)

Comment author: RobinZ 11 September 2012 01:49:57AM 2 points [-]

...and, more importantly, not on LessWrong.com.

Comment author: lukeprog 09 September 2012 11:56:38PM 23 points [-]

The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can’t easily be measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can’t be measured easily isn’t important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can’t easily be measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.

Charles Handy describing the Vietnam-era measurement policies of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara

Comment author: lukeprog 09 September 2012 11:47:06PM 14 points [-]

...the 2008 financial crisis showed that some [mathematical finance] models were flawed. But those flaws were based on flawed assumptions about the distribution of price changes... Nassim Taleb, a popular author and critic of the financial industry, points out many such flaws but does not include the use of Monte Carlo simulations among them. He himself is a strong proponent of these simulations. Monte Carlo simulations are simply the way we do the math with uncertain quantities. Abandoning Monte Carlos because of the failures of the financial markets makes as much sense as giving up on addition and subtraction because of the failure of accounting at Enron or AIG’s overexposure in credit default swaps.

Douglas Hubbard, How to Measure Anything

Comment author: ChristianKl 09 September 2012 10:49:29PM 12 points [-]

“The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.”

― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Comment author: Fyrius 12 September 2012 01:44:57PM 1 point [-]

Well. Surely that's only part of the real purpose of the scientific method.

Comment author: lukeprog 09 September 2012 01:36:00AM 34 points [-]

A problem well stated is a problem half solved.

Charles Kettering

Comment author: thomblake 10 September 2012 08:01:58PM 3 points [-]

A problem sufficiently well-stated is a problem fully solved.

Comment author: SilasBarta 09 September 2012 01:41:22AM *  1 point [-]

Wow, I didn't even know that's a quote from someone! I had inferred that (mini)lesson from a lecture I heard, but it wasn't stated in those terms, and I never checked if someone was already known for that.

Comment author: [deleted] 09 September 2012 09:09:20AM *  5 points [-]

Your life has a limit, but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger. If you understand this and still strive for knowledge, you will be in danger for certain.

--Zhuangzi, being a trendy metacontrarian post-rationalist in the 4th century BC

Comment author: [deleted] 09 September 2012 09:17:02AM *  2 points [-]

Zhuangzi says knowledge has no limit, one could spend his entire life making a good map of a vast and diverse territory and it would not be enough to make a good map.

If one does not know this and makes maps for travel, he may be travelling to safe lands. This is weak evidence one is in danger.

If one knows this and still makes such maps, this is strong evidence one is in danger, for to travel to safe lands he would not make such foolhardy attempts.

Comment author: lukeprog 09 September 2012 12:46:27AM 13 points [-]

If a thing can be observed in any way at all, it lends itself to some type of measurement method. No matter how “fuzzy” the measurement is, it’s still a measurement if it tells you more than you knew before.

Douglas Hubbard, How to Measure Anything

Comment author: tgb 10 September 2012 10:55:34PM *  1 point [-]

This is the second time I've come across you mentioning Hubbard. Is the book good and, if so, what audience is it goo for?

Comment author: lukeprog 10 September 2012 11:55:19PM 1 point [-]

How to Measure Anything is surprisingly good, so I added it here.

Comment author: chaosmosis 09 September 2012 12:34:36AM 11 points [-]

"You're very smart. Smarter than I am, I hope. Though of course I have such incredible vanity that I can't really believe that anyone is actually smarter than I am. Which means that I'm all the more in need of good advice, since I can't actually conceive of needing any."

  • New Peter / Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind
Comment author: Fyrius 12 September 2012 02:02:55PM 3 points [-]

That's a modest thing to say for a vain person. It even sounds a bit like Moore's paradox - I need advice, but I don't believe I do.

(Not that I'm surprised. I've met ambivalent people like that and could probably count myself among them. Being aware that you habitually make a mistake is one thing, not making it any more is another. Or, if you have the discipline and motivation, one step and the next.)

Comment author: chaosmosis 13 September 2012 04:09:06PM 2 points [-]

I love New Peter. He's so interesting and twisted and bizarre.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 September 2012 08:41:56AM 24 points [-]

The following quotes were heavily upvoted, but then turned out to be made by a Will Newsome sockpuppet who edited the quote afterward. The original comments have been banned. The quotes are as follows:

If dying after a billion years doesn't sound sad to you, it's because you lack a thousand-year-old brain that can make trillion-year plans.

— Aristosophy

One wish can achieve as much as you want. What the genie is really offering is three rounds of feedback.

— Aristosophy

If anyone objects to this policy response, please PM me so as to not feed the troll.

Comment author: [deleted] 09 September 2012 08:40:12AM 8 points [-]

I do find some of Will Newsome's contributions interesting. OTOH, this behaviour is pretty fucked up. (I was wondering how hard it would be to implement a software feature to show the edit history of comments.)

Comment author: Document 09 September 2012 04:18:34AM 12 points [-]

Edited how?

Comment author: Davorak 12 September 2012 02:25:03PM 8 points [-]

If I remember correctly the second quote was edited to be something along the lines of "will_newsome is awesome."

Comment author: wedrifid 08 September 2012 09:31:05AM 16 points [-]

The following quotes were heavily upvoted, but then turned out to be made by a Will Newsome sockpuppet who edited the quote afterward. The original comments have been banned. The quotes are as follows:

Defection too far. Ban Will.

Comment author: Armok_GoB 08 September 2012 06:08:32PM 5 points [-]

Will is a cute troll.

Hmm, after observing it a few times on various forums I'm starting to consider that having a known, benign resident troll might keep away more destructive ones. No idea how it works but it doesn't seem that far-fetched given all the strange territoriality-like phenomena occasionally encountered in the oddest places.

Comment author: wedrifid 08 September 2012 06:26:02PM *  9 points [-]

Will is a cute troll.

I've heard this claimed.

This behavior isn't cute.

Hmm, after observing it a few times on various forums I'm starting to consider that having a known, benign resident troll might keep away more destructive ones. No idea how it works but it doesn't seem that far-fetched given all the strange territoriality-like phenomena occasionally encountered in the oddest places.

This would be somewhat in fitting with findings in Cialdini. One defector kept around and visibly punished or otherwise looking low status is effective at preventing that kind of behavior. (If not Cialdini, then Greene. Probably both.)

Comment author: Incorrect 08 September 2012 06:27:10PM 3 points [-]

If dying after a billion years doesn't sound sad to you, it's because you lack a thousand-year-old brain that can make trillion-year plans.

If only the converse were true...

Comment author: lukeprog 09 September 2012 01:29:05AM *  1 point [-]

[oops; this was a repeat]

Comment author: Alejandro1 09 September 2012 01:40:43AM 2 points [-]
Comment author: RobertLumley 07 September 2012 07:53:37PM 5 points [-]

"How many lives do you suppose you've saved in your medical career? … Hundreds? Thousands? Do you suppose those people give a damn that you lied to get into Starfleet Medical? I doubt it. We deal with threats to the Federation that jeopardize its very survival. If you knew how many lives we’ve saved, I think you’d agree that the ends do justify the means.”

Luther Sloan to Juilian Bashir in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Inquisition”, written by Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller

Comment author: Vaniver 07 September 2012 08:05:28PM 9 points [-]

"How many lives do you suppose you've saved in your medical career? … Hundreds? Thousands? Do you suppose those people give a damn that you lied to get into Starfleet Medical? I doubt it.

Presuming that Starfleet Medical has limited enrollment, and that if he hadn't lied, a superior candidate would have enrolled, then that superior candidate would have saved those hundreds or thousands, and then a few more.

Comment author: Alicorn 07 September 2012 08:07:02PM *  12 points [-]

He was lying about having had gene therapy. He was a superior candidate by virtue of same but it would have kept him out because Starfleet is anti-gene-therapy-ist. (At least I assume so - I remember the character had the therapy and had to hide it, but not whether it came out in that episode or something else did.)

Comment author: Vaniver 07 September 2012 08:16:05PM 13 points [-]

He was lying about having had gene therapy.

That is much more justifiable than the standard case of lying on applications.

He was a superior candidate by virtue of same but it would have kept him out because Starfleet is anti-gene-therapy-ist.

I can imagine Star Robin Hanson writing an angry blog post about what this implies about Starfleet's priorities.

Comment author: taelor 11 September 2012 05:49:54AM *  1 point [-]
Comment author: GLaDOS 07 September 2012 08:22:17PM *  12 points [-]

I can imagine Star Robin Hanson writing an angry blog post about what this implies about Starfleet's priorities.

Have you seen any Star Trek? Star Robin Hanson would have a lot of angry posts to write.

Comment author: Vaniver 07 September 2012 08:47:04PM 1 point [-]

Have you seen any Star Trek?

Some, as a child.

Comment author: Alicorn 07 September 2012 08:24:08PM *  6 points [-]

There was a (flimsy) historical reason - there had been wars about "augments" in the past; the anti-augments won (somehow), determined the war was about "people setting themselves above their fellow humans", and discouraged more people augmenting themselves/their children in this way by (ineffectively) making it a net negative.

Comment author: CronoDAS 10 September 2012 12:34:06AM *  1 point [-]

I read somewhere that, in Star Trek land, genetic engineering of intelligent beings is highly correlated with evil, either because it's being done for an evil purpose to begin with or because the engineered beings themselves end up as arrogant, narcissistic jerks with a strong tendency toward becoming evil. The latter implies that there's a technical problem with the genetic engineering of humans that hasn't been solved yet, which Bashir was lucky to have avoided.

Comment author: CCC 10 September 2012 06:35:38AM 4 points [-]

It might not be a technical problem. It might merely be that most augments are raised by people who keep telling them that they're genetically superior to everyone else and therefore create in them a sense of arrogance and entitlement. Which is only made worse by the fact that they actually are stronger, healthier and smarter than everyone else (but not by as big a margin as they tend to imagine).

Comment author: katydee 07 September 2012 02:15:02AM 36 points [-]

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Solzhenitsyn

Comment author: gjm 16 September 2012 10:00:35PM 2 points [-]
Comment author: Nisan 13 September 2012 12:19:09PM 4 points [-]

But the line dividing Kansas and Nebraska cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to grow corn on his own heart?

— Steven Kaas

Comment author: shminux 07 September 2012 06:19:58PM *  16 points [-]

But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

If only it were a line. Or even a vague boundary between clearly defined good and clearly defined evil. Or if good and evil were objectively verifiable notions.

Comment author: beberly37 10 September 2012 04:08:06PM 2 points [-]

I think the intermediate value theorem covers this. Meaning if a function has positive and negative values (good and evil) and it is continuous (I would assume a "vague boundary" or "grey area" or "goodness spectrum" to be continuous) then there must be at least one zero value. That zero value is the boundary.

Comment author: shminux 10 September 2012 04:54:51PM 3 points [-]

It would indeed cover this if goodness spectrum was a regular function, not a set-valued map. Unfortunately, the same thoughts and actions can correspond to different shades of good and evil, even in the mind of the same person, let alone of different people. Often at the same time, too.

Comment author: simplicio 13 September 2012 01:01:24AM *  1 point [-]

Unfortunately, the same thoughts and actions can correspond to different shades of good and evil, even in the mind of the same person [emphasis mine]

This shows that there is disagreement & confusion about what is good & what is evil. That no more proves good & evil are meaningless, than disagreement about physics shows that physics is meaningless.

Actually, disagreement tends to support the opposite conclusion. If I say fox-hunting is good and you say it's evil, although we disagree on fox-hunting, we seem to agree that only one of us can possibly be right. At the very least, we agree that only one of us can win.

Comment author: simplicio 08 September 2012 12:05:22AM 4 points [-]

Or even a vague boundary between clearly defined good and clearly defined evil.

You don't think even a vague boundary can be found? To me it seems pretty self-evident by looking at extremes; e.g., torturing puppies all day is obviously worse than playing with puppies all day.

By no means am I secure in my metaethics (i.e., I may not be able to tell you in exquisite detail WHY the former is wrong). But even if you reduced my metaethics down to "whatever simplicio likes or doesn't like," I'd still be happy to persecute the puppy-torturers and happy to call them evil.

Comment author: FeepingCreature 12 September 2012 11:20:34AM *  2 points [-]

You don't think even a vague boundary can be found? To me it seems pretty self-evident by looking at extremes; e.g., torturing puppies all day is obviously worse than playing with puppies all day.

Animal testing.

And even enjoying torturing puppies all day is merely considered "more evil" because it's a predictor of psychopathy.

Comment author: alex_zag_al 06 September 2012 07:56:42PM 49 points [-]

There is something about practical things that knocks us off our philosophical high horses. Perhaps Heraclitus really thought he couldn't step in the same river twice. Perhaps he even received tenure for that contribution to philosophy. But suppose some other ancient had claimed to have as much right as Heraclitus did to an ox Heraclitus had bought, on the grounds that since the animal had changed, it wasn't the same one he had bought and so was up for grabs. Heraclitus would have quickly come up with some ersatz, watered-down version of identity of practical value for dealing with property rights, oxen, lyres, vineyards, and the like. And then he might have wondered if that watered-down vulgar sense of identity might be a considerably more valuable concept than a pure and philosophical sort of identity that nothing has.

John Perry, introduction to Identity, Personal Identity, and the Self

Comment author: DanielLC 10 September 2012 05:33:12AM 24 points [-]

He bought the present ox along with the future ox. He could have just bought the present ox, or at least a shorter interval of one. This is known as "renting".

Comment author: ciphergoth 26 January 2013 11:30:58AM 1 point [-]

Which future ox did he buy?

Comment author: asparisi 07 September 2012 02:55:20AM *  9 points [-]

.... he who works to understand the true causes of miracles and to understand Nature as a scholar, and not just to gape at them like a fool, is universally considered an impious heretic and denounced by those to whom the common people bow down as interpreters of Nature and the gods. For these people know that the dispelling of ignorance would entail the disappearance of that sense of awe which is the one and only support of their argument and the safeguard of their authority.

Baruch Spinoza Ethics

Comment author: Document 09 September 2012 07:57:42PM 1 point [-]
Comment author: CronoDAS 06 September 2012 11:05:03AM 24 points [-]

“The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.” This may sound like the pronouncement of some bong-smoking anarchist, but it was actually Arthur C. Clarke, who found time between scuba diving and pinball games to write “Childhood’s End” and think up communications satellites. My old colleague Ted Rall recently wrote a column proposing that we divorce income from work and give each citizen a guaranteed paycheck, which sounds like the kind of lunatic notion that’ll be considered a basic human right in about a century, like abolition, universal suffrage and eight-hour workdays. The Puritans turned work into a virtue, evidently forgetting that God invented it as a punishment.

-- Tim Kreider

The interesting part is the phrase "which sounds like the kind of lunatic notion that’ll be considered a basic human right in about a century, like abolition, universal suffrage and eight-hour workdays." If we can anticipate what the morality of the future would be, should we try to live by it now?

Comment author: thomblake 28 September 2012 02:25:39PM 3 points [-]

If we can anticipate what the morality of the future would be, should we try to live by it now?

If we can afford it.

Moral progress proceeds from economic progress.

Comment author: TimS 28 September 2012 03:15:17PM 1 point [-]

Morality is contextual.

If we have four people on a life boat and food for three, morality must provide a mechanism for deciding who gets the food. Suppose that decision is made, then Omega magically provides sufficient food for all - morality hasn't changed, only the decision that morality calls for.


Technological advancement has certainly caused moral change (consider society after introduction of the Pill). But having more resources does not, in itself, change what we think is right, only what we can actually achieve.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 September 2012 03:17:01PM 2 points [-]

If we have four people on a life boat and food for three, morality must provide a mechanism for deciding who gets the food.

That's an interesting claim. Are you saying that true moral dilemmas (i.e. a situation where there is no right answer) are impossible? If so, how would you argue for that?

Comment author: [deleted] 29 September 2012 08:02:18AM 2 points [-]

My view is that a more meaningful question than ‘is this choice good or bad’ is ‘is this choice better or worse than other choices I could make’.

Comment author: MixedNuts 28 September 2012 03:31:43PM 3 points [-]

I think they are impossible. Morality can say "no option is right" all it wants, but we still must pick an option, unless the universe segfaults and time freezes upon encountering a dilemma. Whichever decision procedure we use to make that choice (flip a coin?) can count as part of morality.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 September 2012 03:39:51PM 2 points [-]

I take it for granted that faced with a dilemma we must do something, so long as doing nothing counts as doing something. But the question is whether or not there is always a morally right answer. In cases where there isn't, I suppose we can just pick randomly, but that doesn't mean we've therefore made the right moral decision.

Are we ever damned if we do, and damned if we don't?

Comment author: Strange7 30 September 2012 05:24:49AM 3 points [-]

When someone is in a situation like that, they lower their standard for "morally right" and try again. Functional societies avoid putting people in those situations because it's hard to raise that standard back to it's previous level.

Comment author: taelor 12 September 2012 10:09:16AM *  1 point [-]

If we can anticipate what the morality of the future would be, should we try to live by it now?

The question is, can we? Does anyone happen to have any empirical data about how good, for example, Greco-Romans were at predicting the moral views of the Middle Ages?

Additionally, is merely sounding "like the kind of lunatic notion that’ll be considered a basic human right in about a century" really a strong enough justification for us to radically alter our political and economic systems? If I had to guess, I'd predict that Kreider already believes divorcing income from work to be a good idea, for reasons that may or may not be rational, and is merely appealing to futurism to justify his bottom line.

Comment author: DanielLC 11 September 2012 02:56:10AM 3 points [-]

If we had eight-hour workdays a century ago, we wouldn't have been able to support the standard of living expected a century ago. I'm not sure we could have even supported living. The same applies to full unemployment. We may someday reach a point where we are productive enough that we can accomplish all we need when we just do it for fun, but if we try that now, we'll all starve.

Comment author: CronoDAS 11 September 2012 03:40:02AM *  7 points [-]

If we had eight-hour workdays a century ago, we wouldn't have been able to support the standard of living expected a century ago.

Is that true? (Technically, a century ago was 1912.)

Wikipedia on the eight-hour day:

On January 5, 1914, the Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from nine hours to eight, moves that were not popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's productivity, and a significant increase in profit margin (from $30 million to $60 million in two years), most soon followed suit.

Comment author: DanielLC 11 September 2012 04:07:51AM 1 point [-]

The quote seemed to imply we didn't have them a century ago. Just use two centuries or however long.

My point is that we didn't stop working as long because we realized it was a good idea. We did because it became a good idea. What we consider normal now is something we could not have instituted a century ago, and attempting to institute now what what will be normal a century from now would be a bad idea.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 September 2012 05:26:53AM 5 points [-]

like abolition, universal suffrage and eight-hour workdays.

One of these things is not like the others.

Comment author: DanArmak 07 September 2012 06:18:07PM *  3 points [-]

One of these things is not like the others.

Yes, no state has ever implemented truly universal suffrage (among minors).

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 07 September 2012 06:38:08AM *  4 points [-]

One of these things is not like the others.

In Jasay's terminology, the first is a liberty (a relation between a person and an act) and the rest are rights {relations between two or more persons (at least one rightholder and one obligor) and an act}. I find this distnction useful for thinking more clearly about these kinds of topics. Your mileage may vary.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 September 2012 08:05:35AM *  1 point [-]

I was actually referring to the the third being what I might call an anti-liberty, i.e., you aren't allowed to work more than eight-hours a day, and the fact that is most definitely not enforced nor widely considered a human right.

Comment author: DanArmak 07 September 2012 06:25:02PM 4 points [-]

How is that different from pointing out that you're not allowed to sell yourself into slavery (not even partially, as in signing a contract to work for ten years and not being able to legally break it), or that you're not allowed to sell your vote?

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 07 September 2012 09:04:20AM *  4 points [-]

I'd say each of the three can be said to be unlike the others:

  • abolition falls under Liberty
  • universal suffrage falls under Equality
  • eight-hour workdays falls under Solidarity
Comment author: arundelo 07 September 2012 12:19:57PM 3 points [-]
Comment author: [deleted] 07 September 2012 08:19:16AM 3 points [-]

I thought eight-hours workdays were about employers not being allowed to demand that employees work more than eight hours a day; I didn't know you weren't technically allowed to do that at all even if you're OK with it.

Comment author: Vaniver 07 September 2012 08:13:08PM 3 points [-]

See Lochner v. New York. Within the last five years there was a French strike (riot? don't remember exactly) over a law that would limit the workweek of bakers, which would have the impact of driving small bakeries out of business, since they would need to employ (and pay benefits on) 2 bakers rather than just 1. Perhaps a French LWer remembers more details?

Comment author: fortyeridania 07 September 2012 01:28:58PM 6 points [-]
  1. You are allowed to work more than eight hours per day. It's just that in many industries, employers must pay you overtime if you do so.
  2. Even if employers were prohibited from using "willingness to work more than 8 hours per day" as a condition for employment, long workdays would probably soon become the norm.
  3. Thus a more feasible way to limit workdays is to constrain employees rather than employers.

To see why, assume that without any restrictions on workday length, workers supply more than 8 hours. Let's say, without loss of generality, that they supply 10. (In other words, the equilibrium quantity supplied is ten.)

If employers can't demand the equilibrium quantity, but they're still willing to pay to get it, then employees will have the incentive to supply it. In their competition for jobs (finding them and keeping them), employees will be supply labor up until the equilibrium quantity, regardless of whether the bosses demand it.

Working more looks good. Everyone knows that; you don't need your boss to tell you. So if there's competition for your spot or for a spot that you want, it would serve you well to work more.

So if your goal is to prevent ten-hour days, you'd better stop people from supplying them.

At least, this makes sense to me. But I'm no microeconomist. Perhaps we have one on LW who can state this more clearly (or who can correct any mistakes I've made).

Comment author: Slackson 07 September 2012 08:51:08AM 2 points [-]

It would be very hard to distinguish when people were doing it because they wanted to, and when employers were demanding it. Maybe some employees are working that extra time, but one isn't. The one that isn't happens to be fired later on, for unrelated reasons. How do you determine that worker's unwillingness to work extra hours is not one of the reasons they were fired? Whether it is or not, that happening will likely encourage workers to go beyond the eight hours, because the last one that didn't got fired, and a relationship will be drawn whether there is one or not.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 06 September 2012 04:24:08PM 16 points [-]

If we can anticipate what the morality of the future would be, should we try to live by it now?

Not if it's actually the same morality, but depends on technology. For example, strong prohibitions on promiscuity are very sensible in a world without cheap and effective contraceptives. Anyone who tried to live by 2012 sexual standards in 1912 would soon find they couldn't feed their large horde of kids. Likewise, if robots are doing all the work, fine; but right now if you just redistribute all money, no work gets done.

Comment author: [deleted] 07 September 2012 12:56:57AM *  6 points [-]

Lack of technology was not the reason condoms weren't as widely available in 1912.

Comment author: shminux 06 September 2012 06:08:34PM *  5 points [-]

Right idea, not a great example. People used to have lots more kids then now, most dying in childhood. Majority of women of childbearing age (gay or straight) were married and having children as often as their body allowed, so promiscuity would not have changed much. Maybe a minor correction for male infertility and sexual boredom in a standard marriage.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 06 September 2012 07:50:38PM 7 points [-]

You seem to have rather a different idea of what I meant by "2012 standards". Even now we do not really approve of married people sleeping around. We do, however, approve of people not getting married until age 25 or 30 or so, but sleeping with whoever they like before that. Try that pattern without contraception.

Comment author: CCC 07 September 2012 07:49:29AM 2 points [-]

We do, however, approve of people not getting married until age 25 or 30 or so, but sleeping with whoever they like before that.

You might. I don't. This is most probably a cultural difference. There are people in the world to day who see nothing wrong with having multiple wives, given the ability to support them (example: Jacob Zuma)

Comment author: Desrtopa 06 September 2012 06:41:11PM 5 points [-]

Strong norms against promiscuity out of wedlock still made sense though, since having lots of children without a committed partner to help care for them would usually have been impractical.

Comment author: Alicorn 06 September 2012 05:42:53PM 3 points [-]

Anyone who tried to live by 2012 sexual standards in 1912 would soon find they couldn't feed their large horde of kids.

Not if they were gay.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 September 2012 05:18:04AM 1 point [-]

If we can anticipate what the morality of the future would be, should we try to live by it now?

Are you sure you can. It's remarkably easy to make retroactive "predictions", much harder to make actual predictions.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 06 September 2012 03:54:05PM 7 points [-]

If you are a consequentialist, you should think about the consequences of such decision.

For example, imagine a civilization where an average person has to work nine hours to produce enough food to survive. Now the pharaoh makes a new law saying that (a) all produced food has to be distribute equally among all citizens, and (b) no one can be compelled to work more than eight hours; you can work as a volunteer, but all your produced food is redistributed equally.

What would happen is such situation? In my opinion, this would be a mass Prisoners' Dilemma where people would gradually stop cooperating (because the additional hour of work gives them epsilon benefits) and start being hungry. There would be no legal solution; people would try to make some food in their free time illegally, but the unlucky ones would simply starve and die.

The law would seem great in far mode, but its near mode consequences would be horrible. Of course, if the pharaoh is not completely insane, he would revoke the law; but there would be a lot of suffering meanwhile.

If people had "a basic human right to have enough money without having to work", situation could progress similarly. It depends on many things -- for example how much of the working people's money would you have to redistribute to non-working ones, and how much could they keep. Assuming that one's basic human right is to have $500 a month, but if you work, you can keep $3000 a month, some people could still prefer to work. But there is no guarantee it would work long-term. For example there would be a positive feedback loop -- the more people are non-working, the more votes politicians can gain by promising to increase their "basic human right income", the higher are taxes, and the smaller incentives to work. Also, it could work for the starting generation, but corrupt the next generation... imagine yourself as a high school student knowing that you will never ever have to work; how much effort would an average student give to studying, instead of e.g. internet browsing, Playstation gaming, or disco and sex? Years later, the same student will be unable to keep a job that requires education.

Also, if less people have to work, the more work is not done. For example, it will take more time to find a cure for cancer. How would you like a society where no one has to work, but if you become sick, you can't find a doctor? Yes, there would be some doctors, but not enough for the whole population, and most of them would have less education and less experience than today. You would have to pay them a lot of money, because they would be rare, and because most of the money you pay them would be paid back to state as tax, so even everything you have could be not enough motivating for them.

Comment author: khafra 07 September 2012 07:46:35PM 3 points [-]

If you are a bayesian, you should think about how much evidence your imagination constitutes.

For example, imagine a civilization where an average person gains little or no total productivity by working over 8 hour per day. Imagine, moreover, that in this civilization, working 10 hours a day doubles your risk of coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in this civilization. Finally, imagine that, in this civilization, a common way for workers to signal their dedication to their jobs is by staying at work long hours, regardless of the harm it does both to their company and themselves.

In this civilization, a law preventing individuals from working over 8 hours per day is a tremendous social good.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 08 September 2012 09:57:24AM 2 points [-]

Work hour skepticism leaves out the question of the cost of mistakes. It's one thing to have a higher proportion of defective widgets on an assembly line (though even that can matter, especially if you want a reputation for high quality products), another if the serious injury rate goes up, and a third if you end up with the Exxon Valdez.

Comment author: [deleted] 07 September 2012 01:08:46AM 2 points [-]

the higher are taxes, and the smaller incentives to work

You mean “incentives to fully report your income”, right? ;-) (There are countries where a sizeable fraction of the economy is underground. I come from one.)

how much effort would an average student give to studying, instead of e.g. internet browsing, Playstation gaming, or disco and sex?

The same they give today. Students not interested in studying mostly just cheat.

Comment author: Legolan 06 September 2012 04:44:21PM 2 points [-]

Systems that don't require people to work are only beneficial if non-human work (or human work not motivated by need) is still producing enough goods that the humans are better off not working and being able to spend their time in other ways. I don't think we're even close to that point. I can imagine societies in a hundred years that are at that point (I have no idea whether they'll happen or not), but it would be foolish for them to condemn our lack of such a system now since we don't have the ability to support it, just as it would be foolish for us to condemn people in earlier and less well-off times for not having welfare systems as encompassing as ours.

I'd also note that issues like abolition and universal suffrage are qualitatively distinct from the issue of a minimum guaranteed income (what the quote addresses). Even the poorest of societies can avoid holding slaves or placing women or men in legally inferior roles. The poorest societies cannot afford the "full unemployment" discussed in the quote, and neither can even the richest of modern societies right now (they could certainly come closer than the present, but I don't think any modern economy could survive the implementation of such a system in the present).

I do agree, however, about it being a solid goal, at least for basic amenities.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 07 September 2012 07:05:18AM 5 points [-]

Even the poorest of societies can avoid holding slaves or placing women or men in legally inferior roles.

To avoid having slaves, the poorest society could decide to kill all war captives, and to let starve to death all people unable to pay their debts. Yes, this would avoid legal discrimination. Is it therefore a morally preferable solution?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 September 2012 01:11:55PM 8 points [-]

How do you envision living by this model now working?
That is, suppose I were to embrace the notion that having enough resources to live a comfortable life (where money can stand in as a proxy for other resources) is something everyone ought to be guaranteed.
What ought I do differently than I'm currently doing?

Comment author: RichardKennaway 06 September 2012 12:53:24PM 6 points [-]

If we can anticipate what the morality of the future would be, should we try to live by it now?

Not if the morality you anticipate coming into favour is something you disagree with. If it's something you agree with, it's already yours, and predicting it is just a way of avoiding arguing for it.