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ChristianKl comments on Rationality, Transhumanism, and Mental Health - Less Wrong Discussion

8 Post author: ialdabaoth 14 October 2012 09:11AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 15 October 2012 07:43:17PM *  0 points [-]

I can certainly see that, but I would also hope that if someone is, as the OP claims to be, wanting to be truly rational, possibly the very first point in a list of 'how to be rational' rules would be "Don't buy illegal brain-altering chemicals based solely on a remark made by a total stranger on the internet."

Were someone to not be following that rule already, I suspect any other advice any of us could give them would be useless.

(Incidentally, I'm not one of the people who downvoted that comment. It seems reasonable to at least raise the issue.)

Comment author: ChristianKl 15 October 2012 08:37:12PM 0 points [-]

"Drug restored damaged synaptic connections" -> "Drug is good" is a quite seductive argument that bears the danger of being accepted by smart people. The person might focus his fact check whether the claim about restoring damaged synaptic connections is true.

Given the failure of antidepressants in which companies invested a lot of money, it's rational to choose the prior "a new antidepressent isn't likely to create big positive effects" when evaluating a new candidate. Picking the right reference class is valuable.