Rationality Quotes Thread October 2015

elharo

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

to spread awareness of a position (again, without arguing for it)

Well, you have to at least formulate that position sensibly. From a glance at the article, it seems to like the idea of the abolition of prisons. The immediate question that comes to mind is "and replace them with what?" Without even a hint of an answer, it's not much of a position.

Long-term prisons are a relatively recent idea, but I'm not sure going to pre-prison practices would be all that great since they tended to be centered on "oh, just hang him".

Long-term prisons are a relatively recent idea, but I'm not sure going to pre-prison practices would be all that great since they tended to be centered on "oh, just hang him".

I'd be for it, or for corporal punishment more generally. However, somehow I doubt that's what either ike or Mychal Denzel Smith have in mind.

2ike11y

The article claims that 1. Having prisons is undesirable 2. This is not feasible right now 3. Here's this less radical proposal (no death sentence plus 10 year max), which is feasible 4. Thinking the more radical position might be ideal (or believing in 1) will help one come to conclusions such as those in 3, which are steps in the right direction "10 years max" is a position. The fact that the author presumably believes more (it's not that clear what they do believe, which is a weakness) doesn't make what they do directly advocate "not a position".

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Rationality Quotes Thread October 2015

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