John_Maxwell_IV comments on Neil Armstrong died before we could defeat death - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (34)
IMO, existential paranoia makes sense in the same way it makes sense for an engineer to be paranoid about a bridge, plane, or nuclear power plant they are building: Lives are at stake and there's no "redo" button if you don't get it right the first time.
Wait a minute, that is a non-epistemic justification for a propositional claim. You normatively should build huge safety margins into your bridges, but it's still erroneous to falsely overestimate the risk of a bridge collapse, even if that belief motivates the engineer to work harder.
I agree. If I had paid more attention to the discussion, I might have realized that in this case "paranoia" was strictly in reference to probability estimates and not in reference to emotions or resource allocation. Sorry everybody.
I don't think that makes it OK to systematically paint an inaccurate picture of the risk to help drum up support for your cause.
I agree.