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John_Maxwell_IV comments on Neil Armstrong died before we could defeat death - Less Wrong Discussion

-1 Post author: kilobug 25 August 2012 07:49PM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 26 August 2012 07:38:31AM *  0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: CarlShulman 26 August 2012 10:54:15AM *  7 points [-]

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.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 26 August 2012 09:03:19PM *  2 points [-]

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.

Comment author: timtyler 26 August 2012 11:31:09AM -1 points [-]

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.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 26 August 2012 09:01:37PM 2 points [-]

I agree.