Rationality Quotes December 2013

Cyan

Rationality quotes time!

The usual rules:

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Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson.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.

Rationality quotes time!

The usual rules:

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Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson.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.

I don't think that's quite right. Assigning blame isn't about being correct. It's about figuring out how to prevent the problem from being repeated. Once you know who is at fault and how, you know what to warn them not to do in order to keep it from being repeated.

It's also about counter-factually preventing the problem, UDT-style.

0Acidmind12y

As blame is a social construct that can be used to modify behavior and status, blame assignment can be a constructive way of preventing unwanted consequenses. At least in part.

2JQuinton12y

Even still, saying everyone is equally to blame doesn't actually figure out how to prevent the problem from being repeated.