bouilhet comments on Rationality Quotes July 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Vaniver 02 July 2013 04:21PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 July 2013 07:11:50PM 36 points [-]

"If you don't know how to turn off the safety, being unable to fire the gun is the intended result."

-- NotEnoughBears

Comment author: bouilhet 02 July 2013 09:55:41PM 0 points [-]

How is this so? Surely, as a general proposition, ignorance and intention are much more loosely correlated than the quote suggests. What if the statement were altered slightly: "If (after great effort and/or reflection and/or prayer) you (still) don't know..." Does it still make sense to speak of intention? Or if the point is that the failure to solve a simple problem indicates a will to fail, well then the author has more faith in human will than I do--and IMO greatly underestimates the possible ways of not-knowing.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 02 July 2013 10:12:03PM *  11 points [-]

You're misreading the quote. The intention is on the part of the person who designed the gun, not the person who's trying to fire it.

Comment author: bouilhet 02 July 2013 11:07:39PM 3 points [-]

Thanks for clarifying. The wording seems odd to me, but I get it now.