Rationality Quotes February 2013

2 Post author: arundelo 05 February 2013 10:20PM

Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply:

  • Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted 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  • Do not quote yourself.
  • Do not quote comments or posts from Less Wrong itself or from Overcoming Bias.
  • No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Comments (563)

Sort By: Controversial
Comment author: deathpigeon 05 February 2013 11:33:59PM *  0 points [-]

Gods? There are no 'gods', young bravo. There is only one God, and his name is Death - Him of Many Faces. And there is only one prayer that one says to him - 'Not Today'.

Syrio Forel, Game of Thrones based on A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin

Comment author: shminux 10 February 2013 08:43:13PM 0 points [-]

Even the most rational among us believe we have something called a "mind" that is capable of something called "free will" which all feels a bit like magic. We have a sense that our minds can cook up thoughts and ideas on its own, without the benefit of external stimulation. The belief is that we can think ourselves into whatever frame of mind we need. We think we can use our "willpower" to overcome sadness, or focus on what is important, whatever. My view is the opposite. I believe our internal sensation of "mind" is nothing but the end result of external stimulation interacting with our DNA. By my view, we are moist robots and we have five senses that act as our operator interface. To me, it makes no sense to try and think my way to happiness when I can just take my dog for a walk and come back feeling great.

We'll be a lot happier when we stop believing in magic and start figuring out which types of stimulations create which reactions.

Scott Adams

Comment author: insufferablejake 18 February 2013 08:43:48AM 1 point [-]

Selection is the key to social harmony. Surround yourself with true friends who love you just as you are. If you don't see any around, quest for them.

Bryan Caplan

Comment author: gwern 02 March 2013 06:28:54PM 2 points [-]

This sounds almost horrifically dystopian, in a sort of Friendship is Optimal way.

Comment author: TobyBartels 11 February 2013 02:05:57AM 0 points [-]

I wouldn't be surprised if this has come up before:

Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity.

The ideas Earthlings held didn't matter for hundreds of thousands of years, since they couldn't do much about them anyway. Ideas might as well be badges as anything.

They even had a saying about the futility of ideas: ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’

And then Earthlings discovered tools. Suddenly agreeing with friends could be a form of suicide or worse. But agreements went on, not for the sake of common sense or self-preservation, but for friendliness.

Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead. And even when they built computers to do some thinking for them, they designed them not so much for wisdom as for friendliness. So they were doomed. Homicidal beggars could ride.

―Kurt Vonnegut (attributed to Kilgore Trout), in Breakfast of Champions

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 11 February 2013 05:44:36PM 3 points [-]
Comment author: blogospheroid 08 February 2013 02:00:22PM 0 points [-]

Romance is for the evening, when the day's work of contributing to civilization is done. When all the drudgery of adult endeavors -- cooperation and competition and accountability and all of that -- can be put aside. The stars come out, a chill breeze blows, and the snapping of a twig out there can suddenly send chills up your spine!

Romance renounces accountability and so-called "objective reality!" It sees no need for them. And when that mind-set ruled our daylight hours, warping politics and business and the way we perceived our real-life neighbors... horror ensued. In almost every other culture and society, the romantic tendency to view our own worldview as perfect and the enemy as subhuman reigned. Until the Enlightenment came to show us - oh so painfully and gradually - how to utter the great words of science and decency: "I suppose I might be wrong. Let's find out."

-- David Brin

Comment author: taelor 06 February 2013 04:57:48AM -1 points [-]

This is why I don't care much for gambling. While a sucker is born with each tick of the clock, a cheater is born with each tock betwixt.

-- Doc Scratch, Homestuck

Comment author: Nornagest 06 February 2013 05:25:03AM 4 points [-]

I'm not certain what lesson on rationality I'm expected to glean from this, unless it's "model your opponents as agents, not as executors of cached scripts" -- and that seems both strongly dependent on the opponents you're facing and a little on the trivial side.

Comment author: CronoDAS 06 February 2013 11:33:05PM 5 points [-]

Man who run in front of car get tired.
Man who run in back of car get exhausted.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 February 2013 11:44:25PM 18 points [-]

Studies show that people who try to run behind a car frequently fail to keep up, while nobody who runs in front of a car fails more than once.

Comment author: CronoDAS 13 February 2013 05:53:28AM 3 points [-]

Give a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 February 2013 01:03:41PM 7 points [-]

Heaven? They tried to recruit me, but I turned them down. My place is here in shadows, with the blood and the fear and the screams of the dying, standing back to back with my loves against the world.

-- Time Braid

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2013 04:46:25PM 3 points [-]

Anything that's ever said is really just a signpost leading towards a certain state of being.

Eckhart Tolle, as quoted by Owen Cook in The Blueprint Decoded

Comment author: arundelo 19 February 2013 03:20:23AM 0 points [-]

"It seems to me that your first and third reasons contradict each other. Destroying the mirror cannot both multiply and exterminate the little pests."

"There's a contradiction, yes. That's because I don't know which is true. Destroying the mirror might kill them, or it might multiply them infinitely. I don't know. And neither do you."

--Lawrence Watt-Evans, The Spriggan Mirror

Comment author: Vaniver 17 February 2013 06:39:39PM *  0 points [-]

If you want to get the plain truth,

Be not concerned with right and wrong.

The conflict between right and wrong

Is the sickness of the mind.

-- Seng-Ts'an

Comment author: TimS 17 February 2013 09:53:53PM *  2 points [-]

Does this mean something different than "Truth doesn't have a moral valence"?

Cause it seems like it is trying harder to sound deep than to sound insightful. Sigh - maybe I'm just jaded by various other trying-to-sound-deep-for-its-own-sake sayings. Aka seem deep vs. is deep issues.

Comment author: Vaniver 18 February 2013 01:59:20AM 2 points [-]

Does this mean something different than "Truth doesn't have a moral valence"?

My primary interpretation was "attaching yourself to arguments obstructs your ability to seek the truth." If you are interested in the truth, it does not matter if you or your interlocutor is wrong or right; it matters what the truth is.

Another interpretation is "is-thinking leads to accuracy, should-thinking leads to delusion."

A third interpretation is "moralistic thinking degrades morals." I don't consider that interpretation interesting enough to agree or disagree with it.

Comment author: nshepperd 18 February 2013 04:58:14AM 3 points [-]

It doesn't seem to be clear whether Seng-Ts'an is talking about moral right and wrong, or the kind of "wrong" that is involved in "proving your opponent wrong" in debates. The first interpretation is just silly according to any philosophy that cares about ethics, but the second one does make a lot of sense.

Comment author: shaih 17 February 2013 10:50:48PM -1 points [-]

i'm going to reply to the quote as if it means "Truth doesn't have a moral valence" and rebuttal that truth should be held more sacred then morals rather then simply outside of it. For example if there are two cases and case 1 leads to a morally "better" (in quotes because the word better is really a black box) outcome then case 2 but case 1 leads to hiding the truth (including hiding from it yourself) then I would have to think very specifically about it. In short I abide by the rule "That which can be destroyed by the Truth should be" but am weary that this breaks down practically in many situations. So when presented with a scenario where i would be tempted to break this principle for the "greater good" or the "morally better case" I would think long and hard about whether it is a rationalization or that i did not expend the mental effort to come up with a better third alternative.

Comment author: James_Miller 01 February 2013 07:35:27PM 9 points [-]

No scientific conclusions can ever be good or bad, desirable or undesirable, sexist, racist, offensive, reactionary or dangerous; they can only be true or false. No other adjectives apply.

Satoshi Kanazawa

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 February 2013 04:27:52PM -2 points [-]

Is Newtons theory of gravity true or false? It's neither. For some problems the theory provides a good model that allows us to make good predictions about the world around us. For other problems the theory produces bad predictions.

The same is true for nearly every scientific model. There are problems where it's useful to use the model. There are problems where it isn't.

There are also factual statements in science. Claiming that true and false are the only possible adjectives to describe them is also highly problematic. Instead of true and false, likely and unlikely are much better words. In hard science most scientific conclusions come with p values. The author doesn't try to declare them true or false but declares them to be very likely.

It's also interesting that the person who made this claim isn't working in the hard sciences. He seems to be a evolutionary psychologist based in the London School of Economics. In the Wikipedia article that desribes him he's quoted as suggesting that the US should have retaliated 9/11 with nuclear bombs. That a non-scientific racist position. He published some material that's widely considered as racist in Psychology Today. I don't see why "racist" is no valid word to describe his conclusions.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 February 2013 07:31:16PM *  5 points [-]

In the Wikipedia article that desribes him he's quoted as suggesting that the US should have retaliated 9/11 with nuclear bombs. That a non-scientific racist position.

Huh, what definition of "racist" are you using here? Would you describe von Neumann's proposal for a pre-emtive nuclear strike on the USSR as "racist"?

He published some material that's widely considered as racist in Psychology Today. I don't see why "racist" is no valid word to describe his conclusions.

I'm not sure what you mean by "racist", however is your claim supposed to be that this somehow implies that the conclusion is false/less likely? You may want to practice repeating the Litany of Tarski.

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 February 2013 08:58:08PM 1 point [-]

Huh, what definition of "racist" are you using here?

It's basically about putting a low value on the life on non-white civilians. In addition "I would do to foreigners, what Ann Coulter would do to them", is also a pretty straight way to signal racism.

I'm not sure what you mean by "racist", however is your claim supposed to be that this somehow implies that the conclusion is false/less likely?

I haven't argued that fact. I'm advocating for having a broad number of words which multidimensional meaning.

I see no reason to treat someone who makes wrong claims about race and who's personal beliefs cluster with racist beliefs in his nonscientific statements the same way as someone who just makes wrong statements about the boiling point of some new synthetic chemical.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 February 2013 10:01:23PM *  5 points [-]

It's basically about putting a low value on the life on non-white civilians.

So would you call the bombings of civilians during WWII "racist"?

I haven't argued that fact. I'm advocating for having a broad number of words which multidimensional meaning.

So you would agree that there are some statements that are both "racist" and true.

I see no reason to treat someone who makes wrong claims about race

What do you mean by "wrong"? If you mean "wrong" in the sense of "false", you've yet to present any evidence that any of Satoshi Kanazawa's claims are wrong.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 02 February 2013 09:08:23PM 5 points [-]

Rather than using the ambiguous word "racist", one could say specifically that Kanazawa is an advocate of genocide.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 13 February 2013 07:56:04AM 1 point [-]

As I said above, did the bombings of civilians during WWII constitute "genocide"?

Comment author: alex_zag_al 05 February 2013 02:08:41AM *  1 point [-]

A scientist can have an inclination towards--for example--racist ideas. You can't just call this a kind of being wrong, because depending on the truth of what they're studying, this can make them right more often or less often.

So racist scientists are possible, and racist scientific practice is possible. I think 'racist' is an appropriate label for the conclusions drawn with that practice, correct or incorrect.

Though, I think being racist is a property of a whole group of conclusions drawn by scientists with a particular bias. It's not an inherent property of any of the conclusions; another researcher with completely different biases wouldn't be racist for independently rediscovering one of them.

It's a useful descriptor because a body of conclusions drawn by racist scientists, right or wrong, is going to be different in important ways from one drawn by non-racist scientists. It doesn't reduce to "larger fraction correct" or "larger fraction incorrect" because it depends on if they're working on a problem where racists are more or less likely to be correct.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 01 February 2013 07:55:58PM 4 points [-]

I think it's pretty clear that scientific conclusions can be dangerous in the sense that telling everybody about them is dangerous. For example, the possibility of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, there should probably be an ethical injunction against deciding what kind of science other people get to do. (But in return maybe scientists themselves should think more carefully about whether what they're doing is going to kill the human race or not.)

Comment author: Sengachi 16 February 2013 09:40:12PM 1 point [-]

That's the thing, the science wasn't good or bad, it was the to decision to give the results to certain people that held that quality of good/bad. And it was very, very bad. But the process of looking at the world, wondering how it works, then figuring out how it works, and then making it work the way you desire, that process carries with it no intrinsic moral qualities.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 16 February 2013 10:43:59PM *  5 points [-]

But the process of looking at the world, wondering how it works, then figuring out how it works, and then making it work the way you desire, that process carries with it no intrinsic moral qualities.

I don't know what you mean by "intrinsic" moral qualities (is this to be contrasted with "extrinsic" moral qualities, and should I care less about the latter or what?). What I'm saying is just that the decision to pursue some scientific research has bad consequences (whether or not you intend to publicize it: doing it increases the probability that it will get publicized one way or another).

Comment author: shaih 18 February 2013 10:47:50PM 0 points [-]

The majority of scientific discoveries (I'm tempted to say all but I'm 90% certain that there exist at least one counter example) have very good consequences as well as bad. I think the good and bad actually usually go hand in hand.

To make the obvious example nuclear research lead to both the creation of nuclear weapons but also the creation of nuclear energy.

At what point could you label research into any scientific field as having to many negative consequences to pursue?

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 18 February 2013 10:53:19PM *  1 point [-]

I agree that this is a hard question.

General complaint: sometimes when I say that people should be doing a certain thing, someone responds that doing that thing requires answering hard questions. I don't know what bringing this point up is supposed to accomplish. Yes, many things worth doing require answering hard questions. That is not a compelling reason not to do them.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 02 February 2013 04:16:55AM 13 points [-]

This seems to imply that science is somehow free from motivated cognition — people looking for evidence to support their biases. Since other fields of human reason are not, it would be astonishing if science were.

(Bear in mind, I use "science" mostly as the name of a social institution — the scientific community, replete with journals, grants and funding sources, tenure, and all — and not as a name for an idealized form of pure knowledge-seeking.)

Comment author: shminux 01 February 2013 07:41:48PM 8 points [-]

I'd take an issue with "undesirable", the way I understand it. For example, the conclusion that traveling FTL is impossible without major scientific breakthroughs was quite undesirable to those who want to reach for the stars. Similarly with "dangerous": the discovery of nuclear energy was quite dangerous.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2013 06:20:39PM *  5 points [-]

If travelling faster than light is possible,
I desire to believe that travelling faster than light is possible;
If travelling faster than light is impossible,
I desire to believe that travelling faster than light is impossible;
Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want.

Comment author: shminux 02 February 2013 07:15:05PM 1 point [-]

Something not (currently) possible can still be desirable.

Comment author: Mestroyer 22 February 2013 05:49:22PM 3 points [-]

Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from experience, nor by any deductive calculation. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men. Hence the use of spies...

Sun Tzu on establishing a causal chain from reality to your beliefs.

Comment author: Vaniver 28 February 2013 03:31:47AM 3 points [-]
Comment author: Kawoomba 08 February 2013 06:29:18AM 1 point [-]

A sharp knife can kill even in the hands of a blind.

Klingon proverb.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 08 February 2013 06:56:11AM 13 points [-]

So it's true what they say! The opposite of a Klingon proverb is also a Klingon proverb...

Comment author: taelor 01 February 2013 09:50:23PM 3 points [-]

It has been said that the historian is the avenger, and that standing as a judge between the parties and rivalries and causes of bygone generations he can lift up the fallen and beat down the proud, and by his exposures and his verdicts, his satire and his moral indignation, can punish unrighteousness, avenge the injured or reward the innocent. One may be forgiven for not being too happy about any division of mankind into good and evil, progressive and reactionary, black and white; and it is not clear that moral indignation is not a dispersion of one’s energies to the great confusion of one’s judgement. There can be no complaint against the historian who personally and privately has his preferences and antipathies, and who as a human being merely has a fancy to take part in the game that he is describing; it is pleasant to see him give way to his prejudices and take them emotionally, so that they splash into colour as he writes; provided that when he steps in this way into the arena he recognizes that he is stepping into a world of partial judgements and purely personal appreciations and does not imagines that he is speaking ex cathedra.

But if the historian can rear himself up like a god and judge, or stand as the official avenger of the crimes of the past, then one can require that he shall be still more godlike and regard himself rather as the reconciler than as the avenger; taking it that his aim is to achieve the understanding of the men and parties and causes of the past, and that in this understanding, if it can be complete, all things will ultimately be reconciled. It seems to be assumed that in history we can have something more than the private points of view of particular historian; that there are “verdicts of history” and that history itself, considered impersonally, has something to say to men. It seems to be accepted that each historian does something more than make a confession of his private mind and his whimsicalities, and that all of them are trying to elicit a truth, and perhaps combining through their various imperfections to express a truth, which, if we could perfectly attain it, would be the voice of History itself.

But if history is in this way something like the memory of mankind and represents the spirit of man brooding over man’s past, we must imagine it as working not to accentuate antagonisms or to ratify old party-cries but to find the unities that underlie the differences and to see all lives as part of the one web of life. The historian trying to feel his way towards this may be striving to be like a god but perhaps he is less foolish than the one who poses as god the avenger. Studying the quarrels of an ancient day he can at least seek to understand both parties to the struggle and he must want to understand them better than they understood themselves; watching them entangled in the net of time and circumstance he can take pity on them – these men who perhaps had no pity for one another; and, though he can never be perfect, it is difficult to see why he should aspire to anything less than taking these men and their quarrels into a world where everything is understood and all sins are forgiven.

— Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History

Comment author: shaih 18 February 2013 04:43:25AM 3 points [-]

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

Karl Popper

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 20 February 2013 07:19:06AM 9 points [-]

There's a failure mode associated to this attitude worth watching out for, which is assuming that people who disagree with you are being irrational and so not bothering to check if you have arguments against what they say.

Comment author: HalMorris 03 February 2013 04:01:55PM 7 points [-]

Joke: a tourist was driving around lost in the countryside in Ireland among the 1 lane roads and hill farms divided by ancient stone fences, and he asks a sheep farmer how to get to Dublin, to which he replies:

"Well ... if I was going to Dublin, I wouldn't start from here."

Moral, as I see it anyway: While the heuristic "to get to Y, start from X instead of where you are" has some value (often cutting a hard problem into two simpler ones), ultimately we all must start from where we are.

Comment author: Apprentice 18 February 2013 11:35:58PM 4 points [-]

Those who stand against the dark mirror of evil are trapped in an eternal conflict. Because, for the cultists; they only have to succeed once. But for the defenders of humanity, we have to prevail every single time.

-- From the final screen of Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land

Comment author: Document 22 February 2013 08:52:10PM *  1 point [-]
Comment author: Apprentice 23 February 2013 12:47:17PM 4 points [-]

Well, there are lots of cultists running around trying to summon an Elder God. This will almost certainly end in disaster. The options we have to fight this are: a) We can try to stop all Elder-God-summoning related program activities or b) We can try to get there first and summon a Friendly Elder God.

Both a) and b) are almost impossibly difficult and I find it hard to decide which is less impossible.

Comment deleted 23 February 2013 03:19:05PM *  [-]
Comment author: wedrifid 23 February 2013 06:44:08PM 1 point [-]

Ultimately, if some AI scientist is very concerned that an AI is going to kill us all, their opinion is more informative of the approaches to AI which they find viable, than of AIs in general. If someone is convinced that any nuclear power plant can explode like a multi megaton nuclear bomb, well, its probably better to let someone else design a nuclear power plant.

I think you have the lesson entirely backward.

Comment author: private_messaging 23 February 2013 07:21:03PM *  1 point [-]

How so? A person convinced that any nuclear power plant is a risk of multi megaton explosion would have some very weird ideas of how nuclear power plants should be built; they would deem moderated reactors impractical, negative thermal coefficient of reactivity infeasible, etc (or be simply unaware of the mechanisms that allow to achieve stability), and would build some fast neutron reactor that relies on very rapid control rod movement for it's stability. Meanwhile normal engineering produced nuclear power plants that, imperfect they might be, do not make a crater when they blow up.

Comment author: wedrifid 24 February 2013 03:55:10AM 4 points [-]

To the extent that you already know that nuclear power plants are basically safe they clearly do not apply as an analogy here. Reasoning from them like this is an error.

Comment author: Creutzer 23 February 2013 09:24:44PM 3 points [-]

Yes, but you can say that because you have the independent evidence that nuclear power plants are workable, beyond the mere say-so of a couple of scientists. You don't have that kind of evidence for AI safety.

Also, this:

Non-Friendly AI is no Elder God. It kills you, at worst.

... is not a given. What makes you think that the worst it would do is kill you, when killing is not the worst thing humans do to each other?

Comment author: CronoDAS 13 February 2013 10:27:00PM 2 points [-]

You can change your organization, or change your organization.

-- Martin Fowler

Comment author: Kingoftheinternet 01 February 2013 07:47:05PM *  14 points [-]

If you are reading this book and flipping out at every third sentence because you feel I'm insulting your intelligence, then I have three points of advice for you:

  • Stop reading my book. I didn't write it for you. I wrote it for people who don't already know everything.

  • Empty before you fill. You will have a hard time learning from someone with more knowledge if you already know everything.

  • Go learn Lisp. I hear people who know everything really like Lisp.

For everyone else who's here to learn, just read everything as if I'm smiling and I have a mischievous little twinkle in my eye.

Introduction to Learn Python The Hard Way, by Zed A. Shaw

Comment author: Estarlio 12 February 2013 03:16:18AM 2 points [-]

I'm not sure what this has to do with rationality quotes, but the extract basically convinces me to avoid the guy like the plague. The underlying premises seem to be something like:

  • The remaining choice when someone knows enough to feel a book is too simple for them is that they know everything.

  • They should discard all that they know - empty before you fill - so they can learn from someone with more knowledge than them.

  • Go learn lisp... -shrug-

It seems incredibly bad advice to give to someone who thinks a lot of what's in a book's too simple for them to essentially yell at them to shut up and knuckle down. As compared to say, pointing them to a few things that are generally not covered that well in self-learning and direct them to a more advanced book.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 12 February 2013 04:01:54AM *  2 points [-]

To me, it seems like a horribly hostile approach to teaching people, which comes across as saying, "In order to learn anything from me, you must abase yourself before me." Which is to say, "I am incapable of conveying useful information to anyone who does not present abject submission to me."

But then, it's possible that I'm just hearing Severus Snape (or the class of lousy teachers he is an imitation of) in the "so you think you know everything?" bullshit.

Comment author: Kingoftheinternet 12 February 2013 03:06:13PM *  2 points [-]

I think the quote's main function is to warn those who don't know anything about programming of a kind of person they're likely to encounter on their journey (people who know everything and think their preferences are very right), and to give them some confidence to resist these people. It also drives home the point that people who know how to program already won't get much out of the book. I quoted it because it addresses a common failure mode of very intelligent and skilled people.

Comment author: Kindly 12 February 2013 03:29:40AM *  4 points [-]

Agreed. I'm actually not sure if what I should take away from that introduction is "This material seems easy but isn't, so go through everything carefully even if you think you understand it" or the opposite: "If this book seems easy, it's not advanced enough for you and you already know everything; so read something else instead."

Comment author: CCC 12 February 2013 07:15:57AM 2 points [-]

I took it as meaning the second. There's even a recommendation as to what else to read; a book on Lisp.

Comment author: Estarlio 16 February 2013 11:28:58PM *  0 points [-]

I strongly suspect that's just him being an ass. If you're finding the concepts in his book too simple, there are plenty of other concepts you could be learning about in computer science that would expand your ability as a programmer more quickly than just picking up another language.

If you want to become a better programmer after learning the basics of a language, I recommend you go and pick up some books on the puzzles / problems in computer science and look at how to solve them using a computer. Go and read up on different search functions and path finding routines, go and read up on relational databases, and types as an expressive system rather than just as something that someone's making you do, go and read up on using a computer to solve tic-tac toe... Things like that - you'll get better a lot faster and become a much better programmer than you will just from picking up another language, which let's face it you're still not going to have a deep understanding of the uses of.

Which isn't to say that there's no learning in picking up another language. There is, I don't know any good programmers who only know one language. But it's not the fastest way to get the most gain in the beginning.

Once you have that extra knowledge about how to actually use the language you just learned. Then by all means go and learn another language.

If you just know Python, then you know what we'd call a high-level imperative language. Imperative just means you're giving the computer a list of commands, high-level means that you're not really telling the computer how to execute them (i.e. the further away you get from telling it to do things with specific memory locations and what commands to use from the command set on the processor the higher level the language is.)

C will give you, the rest of the procedural/imperative side of things that you didn't really get in Python, you'll learn about memory allocation and talking to the operating system - it's a lower level language but still works more or less the same in the style of programming. Haskell or Lisp are both fairly high level languages, like Python, but will give you functional abstraction which is a different way of looking at things than procedural programming.

But... even if you were going to recommend a language to learn after Python, and you knew the person already knew about stuff like relational databases and search functions and could use their skill to solve problems so that you weren't just playing a cruel joke on them, and even if you were going to recommend a functional language: deep breath ... it wouldn't be Lisp, I think.

Lisp has a horrible written style for a beginner. It does functional abstraction, it's true enough - and that is a different way of thinking about problems than the procedural programming that's used in Python - but so does Haskell, and Haskell programs don't look like someone threw up a load of brackets all over the screen; they're actually readable (which may explain why Haskell actually gets used in real life whereas I've never seen Lisp used for much outside of a university.) Haskell also has the awesomeness of monadic parser combinators which are really nice and don't show up in Lisp.

Lisp's big thing is its macros. I can't think of much other reason to learn the language and frankly I try to use them as little as possible anyway because it's so much easier to misuse them than it is with functions.

So, yeah. I can see where you're coming from but I don't think he's really on the level there.

Comment author: Estarlio 17 February 2013 09:01:43PM 1 point [-]

Would you care to share your reason for the downvote? I promise not to dispute criticism so you don't have to worry about it escalating into a time-sink.

Comment author: Nebu 15 February 2013 05:20:42PM 1 point [-]

Of course, if your goal is to learn Python but you find Zed's book too easy, "Read a book on Lisp" is probably not suitable advice.

Comment author: pewpewlasergun 02 February 2013 04:15:27AM 9 points [-]

If anyone feels even remotely inspired to click through and actually learn python, do it. Its been the most productive thing I've done on the internet.

Comment author: Stabilizer 05 February 2013 01:17:36AM 5 points [-]

Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.

-Luc de Clapiers

Comment author: shminux 12 February 2013 07:45:18AM 9 points [-]

Instead of assuming that people are dumb, ignorant, and making mistakes, assume they are smart, doing their best, and that you lack context.

@slicknet

Comment author: ygert 12 February 2013 08:13:49AM 0 points [-]

Or better yet, assume nothing, and reserve judgement until you have more information.

Comment author: shminux 22 February 2013 09:09:12PM 0 points [-]

Or better yet, assume nothing

You always assume things, whether you are aware of it or not. At least by making your assumptions explicit and conscious, you have a better chance of noticing when they are wrong. And assuming "that people are dumb, ignorant, and making mistakes" is a common default subconscious failure mode.

Comment author: Document 22 February 2013 08:58:40PM *  1 point [-]

In most situations there are multiple people other than yourself who each think the others are dumb, ignorant and making mistakes. Don't assume that the one you happen to be interacting with at the moment is right by default.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 13 February 2013 07:45:51AM 3 points [-]

Also, consider the possibility that it is you who is dumb, ignorant, and making mistakes.

Comment author: BillyOblivion 23 February 2013 05:32:21AM 1 point [-]

I don't consider it, I assume it.

But "dumb" and "ignorant" are not points on a line, they are relative positions.

To quote this bloke at a climbing gym I used to frequent "We all suck at our own level".

Comment author: MugaSofer 05 March 2013 09:51:44PM -2 points [-]

You may or may not have noticed, but most people are biased. Whether bias counts as "dumb", "ignorant" or "making mistakes" is left as an exercise for the reader.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 13 February 2013 01:56:44PM 5 points [-]

If we are in the business of making assumptions, there is no dichotomy, you can as well consider both hypotheticals. (Actually believing that either of these holds in general, or in any given case where you don't have sufficient information, would probably be dumb, ignorant, a mistake.)

Comment author: Creutzer 17 February 2013 09:57:31PM 2 points [-]

This misses the point a bit due to an equivocation on "assume". In ordinary discourse, it usually means "assume for the purpose of action until you encounter contrary evidence". That's very different from the scientist's hypothetical assumptions that are made in order to figure out what follows from a hypothesis.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 18 February 2013 12:51:55AM *  2 points [-]

In ordinary discourse, it usually means "assume for the purpose of action until you encounter contrary evidence"

It's epistemically incorrect to adopt a belief "for the purpose of action", and permitting "contrary evidence" to correct the error doesn't make it a non-error.

Comment author: shaih 18 February 2013 02:51:51AM *  2 points [-]

I think what Creutzer is trying to mean is in ordinary discourse meaning everyday problems in which you are not always able to give the thought time it deserves, when you don't even have 5 minutes by the clock hand to think about the problem rationally, it is better to rely on the heuristic assume people are smart and some unknown context is causing problems then to rely on the heuristic people who make mistakes are dumb. this said heuristics are only good most of the time and may lead you to errors such as

It's epistemically incorrect to adopt a belief "for the purpose of action"

in this case it is still technically an error but you are merely attempting to be "less wrong" about a case where you don't have time to be correct then assuming the heuristic until you encounter contrary evidence (or you have the time to think of better answers) follows closely the point of this website

Comment author: Creutzer 18 February 2013 10:27:12AM 1 point [-]

Exactly, thanks for the clarification.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 19 February 2013 04:01:56PM *  3 points [-]

Using a heuristic doesn't require believing that it's flawless. You are in fact performing some action, but that is also possible in the absence of careful understanding of the its effect. There is no point in doing the additional damage of accepting a belief for reasons other than evidence of its correctness.

Comment author: shminux 14 February 2013 05:23:24PM 1 point [-]

I believe that this statement, while correct, misses the point of preemptive debiasing. Yvain said it better.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 14 February 2013 07:32:26PM 0 points [-]

The original quote draws attention to the mistake of not giving enough attention to the hypothetical where something appears to be wrong/stupid, but upon further investigation turns out to be correct/interesting. However, it confuses the importance of the hypothetical with its probability, and endorses increasing its level of certainty. I pointed out this error in the formulation, but didn't restate the lesson of the quote (i.e. my point didn't include the lesson, only the flaw in its presentation, so naturally it "misses" the point of the lesson by not containing it).

Comment author: Document 23 February 2013 10:37:33PM *  2 points [-]

With apologies for double-commenting: "Don't assume others are ignorant" is likely to be read by a lot of people (including myself at first) as "Aim high and don't be easily be convinced of an inferential gap". Posts on underconfidence may also be relevant.

Comment author: Jakeness 23 February 2013 07:36:27PM 1 point [-]

I would somewhat agree with this if the phrase "making mistakes" was removed. People generally have poor reasoning skills and make non-optimal choices >99% of the time. (Yes, I am including myself and you, the reader, in this generalization.)

Comment author: scav 07 February 2013 04:13:25PM 12 points [-]

But I've never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.

-- Randall Munroe

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 01 February 2013 09:04:17PM 9 points [-]

Evolutionary psychology, economics, and behavior studies in general often fail to account for what may be an innate, or strongly socialized, motivating variable. "Rational people will seek to maximize their gain." Sure. Now define gain. In many discussions about behavior and economics, we do not account for obedience and social pressure. This is a mistake, as it is evident that it is a highly significant, though invisible, determinant.

The Last Psychiatrist (http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/06/delaying_gratification.html)

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2013 01:18:28AM 15 points [-]

Judge a book by its cover. The author and publisher selected that design to represent the book's content and tone. #MoreSensibleSayings

ShittingtonUK

Comment author: Yahooey 10 February 2013 09:02:57PM 4 points [-]

Coincidences … are the worst enemies of the truth. (Les coïncidences … sont les pires ennemies de la vérité.)

Gaston Leroux

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 February 2013 09:22:02PM 3 points [-]

Only with very low probability.

Comment author: Yahooey 11 February 2013 07:00:22AM *  4 points [-]

and the human mind loves to find patterns even when the probabilities of the pattern being a rule are low. Coincidences are correlation.

Comment author: tgb 09 February 2013 07:22:54PM *  4 points [-]

It is interesting to note that Bohr was an outspoken critic of Einstein's light quantum (prior to 1924), that he mercilessly denounced Schrodinger's equation, discouraged Dirac's work on the relativist electron theory (telling him, incorrectly, that Klein and Gordon had already succeeded), opposed Pauli's introduction of the neutrino, ridiculed Yukawa's theory of the meson, and disparaged Feynman's approach to quantum electrodynamics.

[Footnote to: "This was a most disturbing result. Niels Bohr (not for the first time) was ready to abandon the law of conservation of energy". The disturbing result refers to the observations of electron energies in beta-decay prior to hypothesizing the existence of neutrinos.]

-David Griffiths, Introduction to Elementary Particles, 2008 page 24

Comment author: curiousepic 06 February 2013 02:25:23AM *  26 points [-]

Q: I was wondering what the dumbest or funniest argument you've heard against the defeat of aging?

Aubrey de Grey: Um, It's been a very very long time since I've heard a question or concern I haven't heard before, so nothing's dumb or funny anymore, it's just... tedium.

From this recent talk

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 07 February 2013 01:33:43AM 1 point [-]

I'm confused. I thought that deathpigeon's quote was downvoted because it was anti-deathism and not rationality, but this quote is similar in that way and it has lots of upvotes. Was deathpigeon's quote actually downvoted because it incorrectly attributed a line to ASoIaF instead of Game of Thrones? Seriously?

Comment author: EphemeralNight 07 February 2013 08:26:48PM 1 point [-]

/clicks link, watches

... I can barely understand a single word this guy is saying. Is it just me or is the audio in that video really bad? I don't suppose it was transcribed anywhere?

Comment author: simplicio 07 February 2013 03:15:03AM 9 points [-]

It is important, therefore, to always maintain a balanced view of markets. There is something extremely elegant about the way they allocate goods and resources, and the way the price system automatically adjusts the system of production in response to changes in demand. There is a clear sense in which markets achieve a level of coordination and efficiency that no other form of social organization is able to provide. However, markets are not magical, and they will not solve all our problems. They work properly only under very specific institutional conditions.

(Joseph Heath, The Efficient Society)

Heath is an excellent writer on economics/philosophy.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 February 2013 05:25:27AM 18 points [-]

Good things come to those who steal them.

-- Magnificent Sasquatch

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 28 February 2013 03:13:18AM 5 points [-]

Responsibility without power breeds cynicism.

-- Scott Sumner (talking about Italian politicians when the EU controls their monetary policy, but it generalizes)

Comment author: wedrifid 28 February 2013 04:10:10AM *  -2 points [-]

Responsibility without power breeds cynicism.

-- Scott Sumner (talking about Italian politicians when the EU controls their monetary policy, but it generalizes)

This just prompted me to (hypothetically, for the sake of amusement) reinterpret many of Eliezer's actions as a psychological experiment wherein he has contrived exaggerated scenarios in order to test this empirically.

Comment author: Roze_Function 07 February 2013 01:57:34AM 5 points [-]

True, reason was a difficult tool. You laboured with it to see a little more, and at best you got glimpses, partial truths; but the glimpses were always worth having.

Francis Spufford, Red Plenty

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 05 February 2013 01:22:59AM 15 points [-]

Of a proposed course of action He wants men, so far as I can see, to ask very simple questions; is it righteous? is it prudent? is it possible? Now if we can keep men asking "Is it in accordance with the general movement of our time? Is it progressive or reactionary? Is this the way that History is going?" they will neglect the relevant questions. And the questions they do ask are, of course, unanswerable; for they do not know the future, and what the future will be depends very largely on just those choices which they now invoke the future to help them to make.

-- Screwtape, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Comment author: NevilleSandiego 23 February 2013 10:42:50AM 1 point [-]

I kind of wish people did use the future more, sometimes. For example, in Australia at the moment, neither major political party supports gay marriage. And beyond all the direct arguments for/against the concept, I can't help but wonder if they really expect, in 50 years time, that we will live in a world of strictly hetrosexual marriages. What are they possibly hoping to achieve? Maybe that reasoning isn't the best way to decide to actively do a thing, but it surely counts towards the cessation of resistance to a thing.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 23 February 2013 11:15:48PM 2 points [-]

FWIW, 20 years ago (when my now-husband and I first got together) I expected that I would live in a world of strictly heterosexual marriages all my life.
That didn't incline me to cease my opposition to that world.
So I can empathize with someone who expects to live in a world of increasing marriage equality but doesn't allow that expectation to alter their opposition to that world.

Comment author: wedrifid 24 February 2013 07:27:47AM *  4 points [-]

I can't help but wonder if they really expect, in 50 years time, that we will live in a world of strictly hetrosexual marriages. What are they possibly hoping to achieve?

Being elected at some point in the next 3 years. They aren't trying to achieve anything related to homosexual marriages. They don't care.

Comment author: simplicio 27 February 2013 10:26:14PM 1 point [-]

Um, I know this is classic Hansonian "X is not about X" cynicism, but I doubt it's actually true of most politicians. Sure, the need to get elected skews their priorities, but they do have policy preferences, which they are willing to pursue at cost if necessary.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 23 February 2013 11:07:17PM 6 points [-]

I can't help but wonder if they really expect, in 50 years time, that we will live in a world of strictly hetrosexual marriages.

Here are a few things that have at one time or another been considered "obviously inevitable":

  • The spread of enlightened dictatorship on the Prussian model.

  • The spread of eugenics.

  • The control of the world economy by "rational" central planners.

My point is that you appear to be overestimating how well you can predict the future.

What are they possibly hoping to achieve?

I don't think you really believe this argument. In particular if the success of something you opposed seemed inevitable, you'd still oppose it.

Maybe that reasoning isn't the best way to decide to actively do a thing, but it surely counts towards the cessation of resistance to a thing.

What I think is happening is that you support the "inevitable" outcome but are getting frustrated that the opposition just won't go away like they're "supposed" to.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 25 February 2013 10:44:25PM 6 points [-]

I am, in most of my endeavors, a solidly successful person. I decide I want things to be a certain way, and I make it happen. I've done it with my career, my learning of music, understanding of foreign languages, and basically everything I've tried to do. For a long time, I've known that the key to getting started down the path of being remarkable in anything is to simply act with the intention of being remarkable.

If I want a better-than-average career, I can't simply 'go with the flow' and get it. Most people do just that: they wish for an outcome but make no intention-driven actions toward that outcome. If they would just do something most people would find that they get some version of the outcome they're looking for. That's been my secret. Stop wishing and start doing.

Yet here I was, talking about arguably the most important part of my life - my health [emphasis added] - as if it was something I had no control over. I had been going with the flow for years. Wishing for an outcome and waiting to see if it would come. I was the limp, powerless ego I detest in other people.

But somehow, as the school nerd who always got picked last for everything, I had allowed 'not being good at sports' or 'not being fit' to enter what I considered to be inherent attributes of myself [emphasis added]. The net result is that I was left with an understanding of myself as an incomplete person. And though I had (perhaps) overcompensated for that incompleteness by kicking ass in every other way I could, I was still carrying this powerlessness around with me and it was very slowly and subtly gnawing away at me from the inside.

-- Chad Fowler (from The 4-Hour Body)

Comment author: cody-bryce 20 February 2013 07:39:48PM 6 points [-]

"We're even wrong about which mistakes we're making."

-Carl Winfeld

Comment author: Kindly 01 February 2013 07:44:07PM 12 points [-]

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

W. H. Auden, "The More Loving One"

Comment author: Toddling 02 February 2013 08:45:56PM 1 point [-]

The only interpretation I've been able to read into this is that the speaker wants to become more emotionally accepting of death. Am I missing something?

Comment author: Kindly 02 February 2013 09:13:26PM 5 points [-]

That interpretation didn't even occur to me, possibly because I read the whole poem instead of the bit I quoted (and maybe I quoted the wrong bit). Here is the whole thing (it's short). I always feel a bit awkward arguing about how I interpreted a poem, so maybe this will resolve the issue?

(Incidentally, am I the only one mildly annoyed by how people seem to think of "rationality quotes" as "anti-deathism quotes"? The position may be rational, but it is not remotely related to rationality.)

Comment author: NevilleSandiego 23 February 2013 10:30:03AM 0 points [-]

I had a thought recently, what if the existence of a benevolent, omnipotent creator was proven? and my first thought was that I would learn to love the world as the creation of a higher power. And that disturbed me. It's too new a thought for me to have plumbed it properly. But this reminded me. In the absence of the stars, what becomes of their beauty?

When the world is bereft of tigers, glaciers, the Amamzon, will we feel it to be sublime? imma go read the poem now

Comment author: Rubix 02 February 2013 01:17:50AM 25 points [-]

"In any man who dies, there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight. Not people die, but worlds die in them."

-Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Comment author: jooyous 05 February 2013 11:50:33PM *  1 point [-]

I wonder if we'll ever learn to reconstruct people-shadows from other people's memories of them. Also, whether this is a worthwhile thing to be doing.

It's a little creepy the way Facebook keeps dead people's accounts around now.

Comment author: grendelkhan 05 April 2014 04:45:18PM 2 points [-]

Relevant: Greg Egan, "Steve Fever".

Comment author: simplicio 23 February 2013 01:10:18AM 8 points [-]

Whenever you feel that society is forcing you to conform or treating you like a number, not a person, just ask yourself the following question: "Does my individuality create more work for other people?" If the answer is yes, then you should be prepared to pay more.

(Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter, The Rebel Sell)

Comment author: Grif 02 February 2013 01:12:40AM *  24 points [-]

If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?

--Sam Harris

Comment author: Andreas_Giger 02 February 2013 04:29:35AM *  3 points [-]

Put them in a situation where they need to use logic and evidence to understand their environment and where understanding their environment is crucial for their survival, and they'll figure it out by themselves. No one really believes God will protect them from harm...

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 February 2013 04:47:34PM 1 point [-]

If you threaten someone in their survival they are likely to get emotional. That's not the best mental state to apply logic.

Suicide bombers don't suddenly start believing in reason just before they are send out to kill themselves.

Soldiers in trenches who fear for their lives on the other hand do often start to pray. Maybe there are a few atheists in foxholes, but that state seems to promote religiousness.

Comment author: AspiringRationalist 04 February 2013 02:17:13AM 1 point [-]

Soldiers in trenches who fear for their lives on the other hand do often start to pray. Maybe there are a few atheists in foxholes, but that state seems to promote religiousness.

Does it promote religiousness or attract the religious?

Comment author: bbleeker 06 February 2013 11:36:07AM 10 points [-]

I think it just promotes grasping at straws.

Comment author: DanArmak 02 February 2013 11:11:45AM *  5 points [-]

Sadly, that only works on a natural-selection basis, so the ethics boards forbid us from doing this. If they never see anyone actually failing to survive, they won't change their behavior.

Comment author: Andreas_Giger 02 February 2013 03:47:46PM *  3 points [-]

Can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Videotape the whole thing so the next one has even more evidence.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 02 February 2013 03:39:43AM *  5 points [-]

Take all their stuff. Tell them that they have no evidence that it's theirs and no logical arguments that they should be allowed to keep it.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 02 February 2013 04:03:26AM 23 points [-]

They beat you up. People who haven't specialized in logic and evidence have not therefore been idle.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 02 February 2013 04:18:25AM 4 points [-]

Shoot them?

Comment author: Turgurth 03 February 2013 01:12:28AM 8 points [-]

If you can't appeal to reason to make reason appealing, you appeal to emotion and authority to make reason appealing.

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 February 2013 05:07:14PM 27 points [-]

You put them into a social enviroment where the high status people value logic and evidence. You give them the plausible promise that they can increase their status in that enviroment by increasing the amount that they value logic and evidence.

Comment author: arundelo 01 February 2013 05:00:17PM 25 points [-]

Eventually you just have to admit that if it looks like the absence of a duck, walks like the absence of a duck, and quacks like the absence of a duck, the duck is probably absent.

--Tom Chivers

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 February 2013 11:13:04PM 15 points [-]

I agree subject to the specification that each such observation must look substantially more like the absence of a duck then a duck. There are many things we see which are not ducks in particular locations. My shoe doesn't look like a duck in my closet, but it also doesn't look like the absence of a duck in my closet. Or to put it another way, my sock looks exactly like it should look if there's no duck in my closet, but it also looks exactly like it should look if there is a duck in my closet.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 02 February 2013 04:18:29AM 4 points [-]

If your sock does not have feathers or duck-shit on it, then it is somewhat more likely that it has not been sat on by a duck.

Comment author: Vaniver 01 February 2013 09:27:35PM 17 points [-]

If you're not making quantitative predictions, you're probably doing it wrong.

--Gabe Newell during a talk. The whole talk is worthwhile if you're interested in institutional design or Valve.

Comment author: jsbennett86 13 February 2013 11:34:58PM 18 points [-]

Every time you read something that mentions brain chemicals or brain scans, rewrite the sentence without the sciencey portions. “Hate makes people happy.” “Women feel closer to people after sex.” “Music makes people happy.” If the argument suddenly seems way less persuasive, or the news story way less ground-breaking… well. Someone’s doing something shady.

Ozy Frantz - Brain Chemicals are not Fucking Magic

Comment author: Kawoomba 06 February 2013 10:26:25AM 18 points [-]

A sharp knife is nothing without a sharp eye.

Klingon proverb.

Comment author: Grognor 03 February 2013 09:59:37PM *  37 points [-]

It is because a mirror has no commitment to any image that it can clearly and accurately reflect any image before it. The mind of a warrior is like a mirror in that it has no commitment to any outcome and is free to let form and purpose result on the spot, according to the situation.

—Yagyū Munenori, The Life-Giving Sword

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2013 01:19:39AM 19 points [-]

Saw kid tryin' to catch a butterfly, got me wonderin why I didn't see a butterfly trying desperately to fly away from a kid

thefolksong

Comment author: woodside 03 February 2013 07:53:04AM *  9 points [-]

Because you're a human, not a butterfly. It seems like an animal that used a cognitive filter that defaulted to the latter case would take a pretty severe fitness hit.

Comment author: jooyous 06 February 2013 09:57:17PM *  32 points [-]

I wept because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet, then I continued weeping because his foot problem did not actually solve my shoe problem.

-- Noah Brand

I'd prefer if this quote ended with " ... and then I got done weeping and started working on my shoe budget," but oh wells.

Comment author: Dahlen 08 February 2013 01:24:34AM 4 points [-]

This. If only people realized that unpleasant facts do not cancel each other out, and pointing out one unpleasant fact in addition to another should never ever make us feel better, because it only leaves us in a worse world than we started out in. Compute the actual utilities. It's such a common and avoidable error.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 08 February 2013 09:09:05AM *  1 point [-]

But if you look at it other way, then pointing out unpleasant facts about other people's condition (that don't apply to us) is equivalent to pointing out good facts about our condition, which should make us feel better, as it leaves us in a better world than we started out in.

Comment author: Dahlen 09 February 2013 09:42:05AM 0 points [-]

That's exactly the kind of thinking the world needs less of, and the kind that I was trying to warn readers against in the parent comment. Why? Just why would a worse world for someone else make for a better world for you, if that someone is not your mortal enemy? It just makes for a worse world, period.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 09 February 2013 04:13:07PM *  2 points [-]

The point isn't that you're taking pleasure in their misfortune, it's that you're taking pleasure in your own fortune. "I'm so lucky for having X." If you don't do that, then any improvements in your standard of living or situation in general will end up having no impact on your happiness, since you just get used to them and take them for granted and don't even realize that you would have a million reasons to be happy. And then (in the most extreme case) you'll end up feeling miserable because of something completely trivial, because you're ignoring everything that could make you happy and the only things that can have any impact on your state of mind are negative ones.

Comment author: jooyous 09 February 2013 08:26:30PM *  1 point [-]

And then (in the most extreme case) you'll end up feeling miserable because of something completely trivial, because you're ignoring everything that could make you happy and the only things that can have any impact on your state of mind are negative ones.

Someone commented above about the instrumental value of crying and feeling bad, and you're actually pointing out the case where crying and feeling bad fail at being instrumental. Basically, I'm for whatever attitude that gets you to stop crying and start fixing some problem, and if resetting your baseline helps, it's fair game! It definitely works for me in some cases.

I think this quote is trying to argue against the attitude that problems that are minor compared to other problems don't deserve any attention at all. That everyone without shoes should just wrench themselves into happiness and go around being grateful, rather than acknowledging that they keep stepping on snails and pointy things, which sucks, and making productive steps toward acquiring shoes.

I remember reading something about plastic surgeons getting kind of looked down upon because they're not proper heroic doctors that handle real medical problems.

Comment author: Dahlen 09 February 2013 05:26:18PM 2 points [-]

... I think I see where you're coming from -- by realizing we're not at the far end of the unhappiness scale (since we have a counterexample to that), we should calibrate our feelings about our situation accordingly, yes?

It's still not the way I view things; I'd like to say I prefer judging these things according to an absolute standard, but it's likely that that would be less true for me than I want it to be. To the extent that it doesn't hold true for me, I think it's better to take into consideration better states as well as worse ones. Saying, "at least I don't have it as bad as X" just doesn't feel enough; everybody who doesn't have it as bad as X could say it, and people in this category can vary widely in their levels of satisfaction, the more so the worse X has it. It's more complete to say "Yes, but I don't have it as good as Y either" or, better yet, "I have it better/worse than my need requires".

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 10 February 2013 07:16:14AM 2 points [-]

by realizing we're not at the far end of the unhappiness scale (since we have a counterexample to that), we should calibrate our feelings about our situation accordingly, yes?

Yes, pretty much.

Comment author: B_For_Bandana 07 February 2013 12:38:32AM 13 points [-]

"...And then I remembered status is positional, felt superior to the footless man, and stopped weeping."

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2013 01:20:29AM 11 points [-]

People's executive functioning is largely invisible to them, and perceived in moral terms to the extent that it is visible.

S. T. Rev

Comment author: [deleted] 03 February 2013 01:13:32AM 34 points [-]

Market exchange is a pathetically inadequate substitute for love, but it scales better.

S. T. Rev

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 01 February 2013 06:08:33PM 34 points [-]

Things that are your fault are good because they can be fixed. If they're someone else's fault, you have to fix them, and that's much harder.

-- Geoff Anders (paraphrased)

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 February 2013 06:51:31AM 26 points [-]

[S]econd thoughts tend to be tentative, and people tend not to believe that they are being lied to. Their own fairmindedness makes them gullible. Upon hearing two versions of any story, the natural reaction of any casual listener is to assume both versions are slanted to favor their side, and that the truth is perhaps somewhere in the middle. So if I falsely accuse an innocent group of ten people of wrongdoing, the average bystander, if he later hears my false accusation disputed, will assume that five or six of the people are guilty, rather than assume I lied and admit that he was deceived.

-- John C Wright

Comment author: xv15 11 February 2013 04:34:07PM 15 points [-]

Closeness in the experiment was reasonably literal but may also be interpreted in terms of identification with the torturer. If the church is doing the torturing then the especially religious may be more likely to think the tortured are guilty. If the state is doing the torturing then the especially patriotic (close to their country) may be more likely to think that the tortured/killed/jailed/abused are guilty. That part is fairly obvious but note the second less obvious implication–the worse the victim is treated the more the religious/patriotic will believe the victim is guilty. ... Research in moral reasoning is important because understanding why good people do evil things is more important than understanding why evil people do evil things.

-Alex Tabarrok

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 12 February 2013 05:06:16AM 8 points [-]

the worse the victim is treated the more the religious/patriotic will believe the victim is guilty.

One amusing aspect is that assuming the person is justified in their belief that their church/country is ethical, the above is a valid inference.

Comment author: ChristianKl 27 February 2013 05:30:29PM 2 points [-]

Not necessarily. You don't punish people based on their likelihood of being guilty but based on severity of their crime.

If torture is used as tool to gain information instead of being used to punish it's even more questionable whether the likelihood of being guilty correlates with the severity of the torture. The fact that someone decides to torture to get more information suggests that they have an insuffienct amount of information.

If there a 50% chance that a person has information that can prevent a nuclear explosion, you can argue that it's ethical to torture to get that information.

After the bomb has exploded and you know for certain who did the crime, there not much need to torture anyone.

An interrigator that tortures is more likely to get false confession that implicate innocents. If he then goes and tortures those innocents, you see that people who torture are more likely to punish innocents than people who don't.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 February 2013 01:55:07AM *  17 points [-]

Been making a game of looking for rationality quotes in the super bowl

"It's only weird if it doesn't work" --Bud Light Commercial

Only a rationality quote out of context, though, since the ad is about superstitious rituals among sports fans. My automatic mental reply is "well that doesn't work"

Comment author: Mestroyer 06 February 2013 05:52:02AM *  72 points [-]

"If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?"

"Oh jeez. Probably."

"What!? Why!?"

"Because all my friends did. Think about it -- which scenario is more likely: every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time... ...or the bridge is on fire?"

Randall Munroe, on updating on other people's beliefs.

Comment author: olibain 20 February 2013 08:58:23PM 2 points [-]

The " every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time" scenario should be given some credence in human society; there is such a thing as puberty. The definition of puberty being " every single person I know abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time, including me".

Comment author: TobyBartels 07 February 2013 04:10:50PM *  9 points [-]

Let me just put the text string ‘xkcd’ in here, because I was going to add this if nobody else had, and it's lucky that I found it first.

Oh, and there's more text in the comic than what's quoted, and it's good too, so read the comic everybody!

Comment author: satt 09 February 2013 05:05:01PM 11 points [-]

Dilbert dunnit first!

(Seeing that strip again reminds me of an explanation for why teenagers in the US tend to take more risks than adults. It's not because the teenagers irrationally underestimate risks but because they see bigger benefits to taking risks.)

Comment author: VincentYu 01 February 2013 09:36:33PM *  53 points [-]

In Munich in the days of the great theoretical physicist Arnold Sommerfeld (1868–1954), trolley cars were cooled in summer by two small fans set into their ceilings. When the trolley was in motion, air flowing over its top would spin the fans, pulling warm air out of the cars. One student noticed that although the motion of any given fan was fairly random—fans could turn either clockwise or counterclockwise—the two fans in a single car nearly always rotated in opposite directions. Why was this? Finally he brought the problem to Sommerfeld.

“That is easy to explain,” said Sommerfeld. “Air hits the fan at the front of the car first, giving it a random motion in one direction. But once the trolley begins to move, a vortex created by the first fan travels down the top of the car and sets the second fan moving in precisely the same direction.”

“But, Professor Sommerfeld,” the student protested, “what happens is in fact the opposite! The two fans nearly always rotate in different directions.”

“Ahhhh!” said Sommerfeld. “But of course that is even easier to explain.”

Devine and Cohen, Absolute Zero Gravity, p. 96.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 06 February 2013 02:41:49PM 5 points [-]

So, uh, what's the explanation?

Comment author: TrE 07 February 2013 10:14:28PM 0 points [-]

Perhaps because pressure is (approximately) constant, for every molecule going into the car, one must leave it (on average)?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 February 2013 06:06:48AM 61 points [-]

It’s nice to elect the right people, but that’s not the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.

-- Milton Friedman

Comment author: Estarlio 12 February 2013 02:29:20AM 0 points [-]

Couldn't I also set up the system to try to exclude the wrong people from ever getting power?

It seems to me that computers get better at detecting liars, and we have an ease of fact checking on things now we never used to have, and conflicts of interest are generally relatively easily seen, and we've got all this research about how influence functions... In short that we've made a lot more progress on the judging people front, than we have on the side of designing procedures and regulations that suit us and also serve as one-way functions.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 12 February 2013 09:36:07AM 4 points [-]

Couldn't I also set up the system

No. No-one can set up the system. The most that anyone can do is introduce a new piece into the game, pieces like Google, or Wikipedia, or Wikileaks.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 12 February 2013 02:46:02AM *  6 points [-]

Couldn't I also set up the system to try to exclude the wrong people from ever getting power?

Not if having power over others turns the right people into the wrong people.

Comment author: Multiheaded 04 February 2013 06:32:54PM *  14 points [-]

No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.

-- Bertold Brecht

(I'm always amused when people of opposite political views express similar thoughts on society.)


Also:

The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error.

Comment author: jsbennett86 02 February 2013 03:36:42AM *  31 points [-]

It seems that 32 Bostonians have simultaneously dropped dead in a ten-block radius for no apparent reason, and General Purcell wants to know if it was caused by a covert weapon. Of course, the military has been put in charge of the investigation and everything is hush-hush.

Without examining anything, Keyes takes about five seconds to surmise that the victims all died from malfunctioning pacemakers and the malfunction was definitely not due to a secret weapon. We're supposed to be impressed, but our experience with real scientists and engineers indicates that when they're on-the-record, top-notch scientists and engineers won't even speculate about the color of their socks without looking at their ankles. They have top-notch reputations because they're almost always right. They're almost always right because they keep their mouths shut until they've fully analyzed the data.

Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics' review of The Core

Comment author: Desrtopa 02 February 2013 02:26:07PM 4 points [-]

32 people in the same ten block radius simultaneously dying of malfunctioning pacemakers seems so tremendously unlikely, I can't imagine how one could even locate that as an explanation in a matter of seconds.

Comment author: FiftyTwo 11 February 2013 02:14:40PM *  1 point [-]

If I recall correctly, he also pointed out that the fact they had invited two experts on magnetic fields was also a strong clue.

Comment author: James_Miller 01 February 2013 07:41:37PM 39 points [-]

You want accurate beliefs and useful emotions.

From a participant at the January CFAR workshop. I don't remember who. This struck me as an excellent description of what rationalists seek.

Comment author: Mestroyer 07 February 2013 09:13:19AM 40 points [-]

I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend

Faramir, from Lord of the Rings on lost purposes and the thing that he protects

Comment author: hankx7787 13 February 2013 03:20:34PM -1 points [-]

another great quote for 2013

Comment author: Dorikka 14 February 2013 04:54:30AM 3 points [-]

Except that a non-overwhelming love of a useful art may help you become better in the art, even though you would switch to another if it helped you optimize more.

Comment author: Stabilizer 05 February 2013 01:20:51AM 41 points [-]

Shipping is a feature. A really important feature. Your product must have it.

-Joel Spolsky

Comment author: [deleted] 05 February 2013 05:05:54PM *  1 point [-]

I would have quoted more, because on reading that out of context I was like “YOU DON'T SAY?”

Comment author: fubarobfusco 05 February 2013 05:27:05AM 3 points [-]

If your service is down, it has no features.

Comment author: DanArmak 05 February 2013 06:10:34PM 3 points [-]

And no bugs.

Comment author: CronoDAS 06 February 2013 08:15:45PM *  18 points [-]

Real artists ship.

-- Steve Jobs

(The Organization Formerly Known as SIAI had this problem until relatively recently. Eliezer worked, but he never published anything.)

Comment author: cody-bryce 20 February 2013 07:44:40PM 4 points [-]

And they ship the characters the fans want.

Comment author: philh 02 February 2013 11:22:32AM *  47 points [-]

Men in Black on guessing the teacher's password:

Zed: You're all here because you are the best of the best. Marines, air force, navy SEALs, army rangers, NYPD. And we're looking for one of you. Just one.
[...]
Edwards: Maybe you already answered this, but, why exactly are we here?
Zed: [noticing a recruit raising his hand] Son?
Jenson: Second Lieutenant, Jake Jenson. West Point. Graduate with honors. We're here because you are looking for the best of the best of the best, sir! [throws Edwards a contemptible glance]
[Edwards laughs]
Zed: What's so funny, Edwards?
Edwards: Boy, Captain America over here! "The best of the best of the best, sir!" "With honors." Yeah, he's just really excited and he has no clue why we're here. That's just, that's very funny to me.

Comment author: Apprentice 18 February 2013 11:42:57PM 3 points [-]

He gazed about him, and the very intensity of his desire to take in the new world at a glance defeated itself. He saw nothing but colours - colours that refused to form themselves into things. Moreover, he knew nothing yet well enough to see it: you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are.

-- C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

Comment author: JQuinton 18 February 2013 08:10:42PM 10 points [-]

I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.

William Deseriewicz

The whole speech is worth reading as one giant rationality quote

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 19 February 2013 02:33:04AM 4 points [-]

Not bad, although it seems to equate originality with goodness a little too much.

Comment author: jsbennett86 18 February 2013 10:40:35AM 6 points [-]

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

Linus Pauling

Comment author: DanArmak 20 February 2013 08:29:38PM 1 point [-]

It's necessary, but not sufficient.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 20 February 2013 07:17:17AM 6 points [-]

The example in the comic is not a good one. Of the choices on the board, E being proportional to mc^2 is the only option where the units match. You only need to have that one idea to save yourself the trouble of having lots of other ideas.

Comment author: [deleted] 20 February 2013 11:03:26AM 1 point [-]

It's a joke, which I assume is intended for a mostly non-physicist audience.

Comment author: simplicio 23 February 2013 01:42:08AM 6 points [-]

We demand complete rigour from all forms of levity! The unexamined joke is not worth joking!

Comment author: BillyOblivion 23 February 2013 05:17:25AM *  -2 points [-]

Mickey Mouse is dead Got kicked in the head Cause people got too serious They planned out what they said They couldn't take the fantasy They tried to accept reality Analyzed the laughs Cause pleasure comes in halves The purity of comedy They had to take it seriously Changed the words around Tried to make it look profound ...

--Sub Hum Ans, "Mickey Mouse is Dead"

Comment author: [deleted] 23 February 2013 09:52:17AM 3 points [-]

To prevent lines from being merged together, add two spaces at the end of each one.

Comment author: BillyOblivion 24 February 2013 09:17:55PM 2 points [-]

That's so...typewriter.

Thanks.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 February 2013 01:08:06PM 7 points [-]

Yes, but also being able to tell which of those ideas are good is even better.

Comment author: jsbennett86 18 February 2013 10:41:00AM 6 points [-]

From the alt-text in the above-linked comic:

Corollary: The most prolific people in the world suck 99% of the time.

Comment author: Alicorn 13 February 2013 05:23:11AM 5 points [-]

"It does not matter what we have believed," Caleb said. "What matters is the truth."

--Jovah's Angel by Sharon Shinn

Comment author: NevilleSandiego 23 February 2013 10:09:45AM -1 points [-]

maybe it's just my most recent physchem lecture talking, but my instant response to that was 'truth is a state function'. Or perhaps 'perceived truth', and 'should be'. (i.e., shouldn't depend on the history preceding current perceived truth)