Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Congratulations to Paris Hilton - Less Wrong

-2 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 October 2007 12:31AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 October 2007 05:31:59PM 0 points [-]

If I mention that Douglas Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach" is one of the Greatest Books Ever, people don't jump up and say: "Are you saying it would be better to buy that book than to donate to SIAI?"

No, it isn't. Neither does it feel to me like it would be wise to advise people to go through life bookless, or even that I should advise people to only take books out from the library. If you're going to own any book, you may as well own that one; and it is not totally unconnected to AI, so perhaps there will be trickle effects.

To me the notion of trading off cryonics against existential risk prevention has a flavor of remarkable oddity to it. It is like a city councillor proposing to spend money on a library, and someone jumping up and saying, "But what about the children starving in Abeokuto, Nigeria? Why not spend the money on Abeokuto? Why do you hate the Abeokutans so?" Why pick that particular occasion to make the protest, rather than, say, someone buying a speedboat?