Perhaps, but absolute power tends to be the more relevant one, as it definitionally also includes the means to persue the goals derived from absolute corruption.
I wonder where one could apply "Absolute" and not come up with a scary sounding conclusion. Absolute skepticism seems it would turn one into a gibbering madman. Absolute logic--well what is a dangerous AI but absolute logic plus power?
Absolute knowledge also seems like it'd leave you gibbering... Just think about it: knowledge of everything, that is to say every atom of every single object in the universe.
I can only say Ouch
IIRC the standard experimental result is that atheists who were raised religious have substantially above-average knowledge of their former religions. I am also suspicious that any recounting whatsoever of what went wrong will be greeted by, "But that's not exactly what the most sophisticated theologians say, even if it's what you remember perfectly well being taught in school!"
This obviously won't be true in my own case since Orthodox Jews who stay Orthodox will put huge amounts of cumulative effort into learning their religion's game manual over time. But by the same logic, I'm pretty sure I'm talking about a very standard element of the religion when I talk about later religious authorities being presumed to have immensely less theological knowledge than earlier authorities and hence no ability to declare earlier authorities wrong. As ever, you do not need a doctorate in invisible sky wizard to conclude that there is no invisible sky wizard, and you also don't need to know all the sophisticated excuses for why the invisible sky wizard you were told about is not exactly what the most sophisticated dupes believe they believe in (even as they go on telling children about the interventionist superparent). It'd be nice to have a standard, careful and correct explanation of why this is a valid attitude and what distinguishes it from the attitude of an adolescent who finds out everything they were told about quantum mechanics is wrong, besides the obvious distinction of net weight of experimental evidence (though really that's just enough).
LW has reportedly been key in deconverting many, many formerly religious readers. Others will of course have fled. It takes all kinds of paths.
IIRC the standard experimental result is that atheists who were raised religious have substantially above-average knowledge of their former religions.
As a Grade 11 student currently attending a catholic school (and having attended christian schools all my life) I would have to vouch for the accuracy of the statement; thanks to CCS I've learned a tremendous amount about Christianity although in my case there was a lot less Homosexuality is bad then is probably the norm and more focus on the positive moral aspects...
I currently attend Bishop Carroll HS and even though it is a catholic school I have no desire to change schools because of the alternate religious courses they offer and because it's generally a great school. From my experiences there are a ton of non-religious students as well as several more unusual religions represented. I personally would recommend the school for any HS students in Calgary wishing to have a non-standard HS experience.
I think it is a comment on the tendency of human minds to model complex systems as simple ones and therefore stick strongly to a few remedies whether they are sensible or not - ancestrally "whack it with a club" but in the case of computers, "reboot it", "run the virus scanner" and "defrag it". Admittedly, for old computers that relied on vacuum tubes whose connections would sometimes work loose, "whack it with a club" did, in fact, occasionally work.
Although the majority of problems encountered at my school's IT desk can be solved by rebooting the ones that can't are a pain to fix.
Arrives late to the party
Really great story, iceman. Some comments:
*Running the story through a beta group of non-LW bronies would definitely be a good idea to catch which ideas may need more explanation.
*I really like how it's repeatedly show that when you interact with a super-intelligence, even if it's just free conversation, the state of mind you leave in is probably going to be the state of mind it wants you to leave in. As others have said, this could be driven home even stronger by showing CelestAI strongly tailoring her interaction to different humans. Maybe even have her directly contradict herself in the information she uses to persuade people to upload.
*Related to the above, I can imagine a non-LW reader getting to chapter 5 and forever after wondering why Lars or anyone else never tries to shut Celestia down. I'm not sure how obvious an intuition it is that by the time you notice a super-intelligence doing things that make you want to stop it, it's probably already far too late to stop it. In this case I assumed Celestia would have made sure that she is already invincible by the standards of human technology before launching any plan that's going to antagonize people, but an unsophisticated reader might not get that.
*This may just be me, but I'd prefer a bit more closure on the cosmic scale story. What is Celestia's plan against running out of matter? Slow the clock speed of her servers over time? Bust open the physics textbooks and hope for a useful paradigm shift?
Anyway, very good stuff.
I might be able to help with running the story past non LW Bronies as the school I'm at has a higher percentage of them then the norm.
(No seriously, our IT department had a Brony war last year that focused on converting the non Bronies)
I while personally not a Brony I really enjoyed the story, although that might be because I am an active member of the furry-fandom (the non-sexual part) and an avid reader.
Shouldn't it really be "Believing that FTL is impossible is undesirable iff FTL is possible"?
You seemed to be doing something clever with quotes, but mostly that made it hard to read. :P
The author originally added an extra f to the last if in the original post rendering it as "if and only if and only if" instead of "if and only if"
Actually, it should be "FTL is impossible" is undesirable if and only if FTL is possible."
Facepalms okay this is why I need to proofread everything I write
Thanks
FTL being impossible is undesirable if you want to go to the stars.
The conclusion that "FTL is impossible" is undesirable if and only iff FTL is possible.
The two conditions are very different.
Shouldn't it read
"FTL is impossible" is undesirable if and only if FTL is possible."
as it stands it reads "FTL is impossible" is undesirable if and only if and only if (iff) FTL is possible.
He shook his head. "No, for the purposes of this discussion, Asuka... only I have the power to decide humanity's fate. And I refuse that power to give it back to them. Humanity is made of neither heaven or hell; that with freedom of choice and honor, as though the maker and molder of itself... that they may fashion themselves in whatever form they shall prefer. People, individuals, are not single things but always tip from order to chaos and back again. Those with order are needed for stability. Those who espouse chaos bring change. Only humanity may balance humanity. If a God should be needed, only that nothing from without should threaten that free choice. The maker should be the first servant, just as the mother would care without hesitation for her child
-Shinji & Warhammer Xover.
Kaj, looking into it more, I think you're closer to the mark than me overall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfectionism_(psychology)
That said, I'm unclear if Eliezer's attitude is healthy or not by these standards. "All-or-nothing-thinking" associated with perfectionism seems to be considered negative, if one can trust the wikipedia article.
There are certain parts of perfectionism that are good but I think that the word brings up negative connotations. the definition that you have given for perfectionism (taken from Wikipedia) is "Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality disposition characterized by an individual striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations. It is best conceptualized as a multidimensional characteristic, as psychologists agree that there are many positive and negative aspects. In its maladaptive form, perfectionism drives individuals to attempt to achieve an unattainable ideal, and their adaptive perfectionism can sometimes motivate them to reach their goals. In the end, they derive pleasure from doing so. When perfectionists do not reach their goals, they often fall into depression."
Perfectionism is good in the fact that it rewards perfect creations and projects and negative in the fact that it can be self destroying, One of the defining traits of Perfectionism is that it increases the impact of criticism both from within and without Primarily on the subject in question and often goes overboard in the pursuit of perfection creating a depressive spiral. What benefit comes from Perfectionism is based upon the strength and resilience of one's mind and what outside help one has. Perfectionism is really a complex subject and the perception of it as a bad thing comes from the archetypal representation of the subject: That of a controlling figure who hates to be criticized.
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To add to the Aristotelian chorus, he wrote a book on fish.
And now I'm hearing the modern major general's song in my head... "I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!"