eli_sennesh comments on On saving the world - Less Wrong

101 Post author: So8res 30 January 2014 08:00PM

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Comment author: Stabilizer 31 January 2014 06:43:17AM *  13 points [-]

Communism definitely serves as a warning to smart optimizers to not get ahead of themselves.

But it also cuts the other way: it lets smart optimizers the know how powerful some ideas can be.

In a sociology class, the teacher once mentioned to us that Karl Marx was the only truly applied sociologist. I don't know how far this is true, but he is certainly the one who has had the most impact.

Comment author: [deleted] 31 January 2014 02:03:26PM 6 points [-]

Not coincidentally, Karl Marx was also the first to warn people about unfriendly, overly powerful optimization processes.

It's only a pity he hadn't the words to put it so succinctly!