= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Morality is Awesome - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (437)
I don't think that follows.
Rocket-boosted mechanical T-Rexes are possible; therefore, they are as "merely real" as anything else. The point of making life awesome is seeing the entire world as one vast game of Calvinball.
Think of the rocket-boosted mechanical T-Rex as a metaphor for indulging your inner child; you can replace it with anything you could imagine doing on a lark with infinite resources. The point of living in a Universe of Awesome is that you can wake up and say "dude, you know what would be awesome? A frikin metal T-Rex with rockets boosters!" And then you and your best friend spend 15 seconds air-guitaring before firing up the Maker and chunking out the parts and tools, then putting it together and flying it around. And then one of you turns to the other and says, "okay, that was awesome for like, five minutes. Now what?"
Actually that last description sounds like it would plateau really fast.
Just because a literal flying t-rex gets old faster than they expected, doesn't mean you couldn't have a great deal of fun in a world like that.
Of course, presumably self imposed challenges (eg videogames that don't just let you win) would be fairly commonplace.
Empirically, that general type of thing is good for at least a week worth of awesome. http://www.burningman.com/
Fair enough, but I still think the "universe as a vast game of Calvinball" description still stands in principle. (Or if you want a less coloquial descriptor, check out Finite and Infinite Games ).
I frankly think the Cambridge Center for the study of Awesome would become run of the mill in a few months, and that's WITH the rest of the world being "ordinary" for comparison purposes.