OrphanWilde comments on Just One Sentence - Less Wrong

33 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 January 2013 01:27AM

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Comment author: OrphanWilde 05 January 2013 04:23:01AM 3 points [-]

For the obvious example, many of the best scientists working on the Manhattan Project only agreed because they were worried about Germany getting nuclear weapons first and what it would mean; likewise, scientists in Germany were deliberately sabotaging their own research.

There's a safety feature here that this quote, to the extent that it is effective at all, deliberately attempts to remove.

Comment author: TimS 05 January 2013 04:39:48AM 0 points [-]

scientists in Germany were deliberately sabotaging their own research

Brief research suggests this might not be true.

I'm unconvinced that scientific progress is an existential risk, and the increased wealth scientific progress has created has funded or inspired most social progress.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 05 January 2013 05:03:37AM 2 points [-]

Scientific progress for the explicit and deliberate purpose of killing people more efficiently is a different animal than scientific progress more generally. You're engaging in an association fallacy, specifically honor by association (although that fallacy is more often used to refer to individuals or organizations rather than abstract concepts).

Comment author: TimS 05 January 2013 05:38:08AM 2 points [-]

Yes, that is the essence of our disagreement. You think I'm committing an association fallacy, and I think you are artificially dividing science in ways that don't reflect actual historic scientific practice.