Rationality Quotes November 2012

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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Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB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.

(That said, I've never really thought of "moral progress" as that-which-should-be-optimised anyhow.)

Then why is "moral progress" a useful concept?

It describes how to compute that-which-should-be-optimized.

As a descriptor that people find useful when analyzing cultures.
Because not being itself my entire utility function doesn't mean it or related components thereof doesn't have a significant part in it.
It's still only marginally useful. For example I don't believe I have ever used the phrase before and if I have it was because it was necessary to guess the password of a teacher.

Very nearly everything does not happen to be that-which-should-be-optimised.

3A1987dM14y

Shoes aren't that-which-should-be-optimized either, but that doesn't mean that the concept of shoe is not useful.

3Eliezer Yudkowsky14y

It describes how to compute that-which-should-be-optimized.

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