If you want to really benefit humanity, do some original thinking, especially about areas of application, and directions of effort. The point of the chronophone dilemma is to make us think about what kind of cognitive policies are good to follow when you don't know your destination in advance.
This post is part of a series rerunning Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts so that those interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Archimedes's Chronophone, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Today's post, Chronophone Motivations was originally published on March 24, 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
This post is part of a series rerunning Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts so that those interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Archimedes's Chronophone, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.