John_Maxwell_IV comments on Rationality Quotes September 2014 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: jaime2000 03 September 2014 09:36PM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 01 September 2014 11:57:26PM *  9 points [-]

I feel it myself, the glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it’s there in your hands. To release the energy that fuels the stars. To let it do your bidding. And to perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky, it is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is in some ways responsible for all our troubles... this is what you might call ‘technical arrogance’ that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds.

-- Freeman Dyson

Comment author: Mizue 05 September 2014 06:42:20PM 9 points [-]

Airplanes may not work on fusion or weigh millions of tons, but still, substituting a few words in I could say similar things about airplanes. Or electrical grids. Or smallpox vaccination. But nobody does.

Hypothesis: he has an emotional reaction to the way nuclear weapons are used--he thinks that is arrogant--and he's letting those emotions bleed into his reaction to nuclear weapons themselves.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 05 September 2014 09:39:00PM 4 points [-]

Airplanes may not work on fusion or weigh millions of tons, but still, substituting a few words in I could say similar things about airplanes. Or electrical grids. Or smallpox vaccination. But nobody does.

Are you sure? I looked for just a bit and found

There is no sport equal to that which aviators enjoy while being carried through the air on great white wings.

http://inventors.about.com/od/wstartinventors/a/Quotes-Wright-Brothers.htm

I imagine if inventors have bombastic things to say about the things they invent, then frequently keep those thoughts to oneself to avoid sounding arrogant (e.g. I don't think it would have gone over well if Edison had started referring to himself as "Edison, the man who lit the world of the night").

Comment author: Mizue 06 September 2014 02:49:34AM *  5 points [-]

I meant that nobody accuses people awed by airplanes of being arrogant; I didn't mean that nobody is awed by airplanes.

(BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if Edison did say something similar; he was notorious for self-promotion.)

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