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thomblake comments on The Criminal Stupidity of Intelligent People - Less Wrong Discussion

-14 Post author: fare 27 July 2012 04:08AM

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Tags: intelligence stupidity criminal wireheading utilitarianism smell test

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Comment author: thomblake 30 July 2012 02:15:56PM 0 points [-]

However, suppose the weatherman had said that since it's going to be sunny tomorrow, it would be a good day to go out and murder people, and gives a logical argument to support that position? Should the woman still go with what the weatherman says, if she can't find a flaw in his argument?

Well, I wouldn't expect a weatherman to be an expert on murder, but he is an expert on weather, and due to the interdisciplinary nature of murder-weather-forecasting, I would not expect there to be many people in a better position to predict which days are good for murder.

If the woman is an expert on murder, or if she has conflicting reports from murder experts (e.g. "Only murder on dark and stormy nights") she might have reason to doubt the weatherman's claim about sunny days.

Comment author: fare 03 August 2012 05:05:23PM 1 point [-]

You don't get it. Murder is NOT an abstract variable in the previous comment. It's a constant.

Comment author: thomblake 03 August 2012 06:16:27PM 0 points [-]

I thought I understood what I was saying, but I don't understand what you're saying. What?

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