anonymous3 comments on When None Dare Urge Restraint - Less Wrong

41 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 December 2007 11:09PM

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Comment author: anonymous3 10 December 2007 07:52:00AM 1 point [-]

A word about the terrorists being called cowards: when you take into consideration their complete certainty that they were going directly to paradise, the statement that they were cowards seems more reasonable. As a thought experiment, imagine that some person was faced with a choice between preventing the violent deaths of some 3000 people, or going directly to a paradise of eternal bliss. If this hypothetical person were to choose the former, I would consider that to be a brave decision. If they were to choose the latter, I would have to go with cowardly (and reprehensible, obviously). Put it this way: in their eyes at least, they were taking the easy way out, at least if my understanding of their radical doctrine is correct.