Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 07 December 2011 09:58:05PM 5 points [-]

Cryonics - lower

Cryonics Status - More likely to be signed up or to be considering it, less likely to be not planning to or to not have thought about it

So long-time participants were less likely to believe that cryonics would work for them but more likely to sign up for it? Interesting. This could be driven by any of: fluke, greater rationality, greater age&income, less akrasia, more willingness to take long-shot bets based on shutting up and multiplying.

Comment author: Randolf 08 December 2011 01:07:21AM 1 point [-]

I think the main reason for this is that these persons have simply spent more time thinking about cyronics compared to other people. By spending time on this forum they have had a good chance of running into a discussion which has inspired them to read about it and sign up. Or perhaps people who are interested in cyronics are also interested in other topics LW has to offer, and hence stay in this place. In either case, it follows that they are probably also more knowledgeable about cyronics and hence understand what cyrotechnology can realistically offer currently or in the near future. In addition, these long-time guys might be more open to things such as cyronics in the ethical way.

Comment author: antigonus 25 November 2011 09:46:35AM *  3 points [-]

I didn't vote down your post (or even see it until just now), but it came across as a bit disdainful while being written rather confusingly. The former is going to poorly dispose people toward your message, and the latter is going to poorly dispose people toward taking the trouble to respond to it. If you try rephrasing in a clearer way, you might see more discussion.

Comment author: Randolf 25 November 2011 10:39:06AM 1 point [-]

Then maybe, instead of just downvoting, these persons should have asked him to clarify and repharse his post. This would have actually led to an interesting dicussion, while downvoting gave nobody nothing. Maybe it should be possible to downvote a post only if you also reply to that post.

Comment author: deeb 25 November 2011 09:20:18AM -4 points [-]

Nice. Here I present what I genuinely think is a flaw in this article, and instead of getting replies, I am just voted down "below threshold". I believe I have pointed out exactly what I disagree with and why. I would have been happy to hear people disagreeing or asking me to look at this from some other perspective. But apparently there is a penalty for violating the unwritten community rule that "Eliezer's posts are unfailingly brilliant and flawless". I have learned a lot from this website. There are sometimes very deep ideas, and intelligent debate. But I think the community is not for me, so I will let this account die and go back to lurking.

Comment author: Randolf 25 November 2011 10:29:06AM 3 points [-]

Personally I think that this call voting is indeed useless and belongs to places such as Youtube or other such sites where you can't expect a meaningful discussion in the first place. Here, if a person disagrees with you, I believe she or he should post a counter argument instead of yelling "your are wrong!", that is, giving a negative vote.

In response to comment by Randolf on Existential Risk
Comment author: NickiH 22 November 2011 04:39:26PM 0 points [-]

I would count myself among "general people". I didn't get it at all. In fact, having read the comments, I'm still not sure I get it. It's a pretty picture and all, but why is it there?

In response to comment by NickiH on Existential Risk
Comment author: Randolf 23 November 2011 02:45:36PM *  0 points [-]

The first picture is a dark image of a planet with a sligthly threatening atmosphere. It looks like the upper half of a mushroom cloud, but it could be also seen as the earth violently torn apart. This is why I think , given the context, that it symbolises the threat of a nuclear war, and more universally, the threat of a dystopia.

The last picture shows a beatiful utopia. I thought it's there to give a message of the type: "If everything goes well, we can still achieve a very good future." That is, while the first picture symbolises the threat of a dystopia, the last one symbolises the hope and possibility of an utopia.

Of course, this is merely my interpretation. There are very many ways one can inerprent these pictures.

Comment author: quen_tin 18 November 2011 02:45:14PM -2 points [-]

Let me rephrase.

The assumption that there would exist pure gratitude-free goals is a myth: pursuing such goals would be absurd. (people who seem do perform gratitude-free actions are often religious people: they actually believe in divine gratitude).

Therefore social gratitude is an essential component of any goal and thus it is not correlated with lack of sincere motivation, nor does it "downgrade" the goal to something less important. It's just part of it.

Comment author: Randolf 21 November 2011 05:18:38PM *  1 point [-]

I'm afraid you are making a very strong statement with hardly any evidence to support it. You merely claim that people who pursue gratitude-free goals are often religious people (source?) and that such goals are a myth and absurd. (Why?) I for one, don't understand why such a goal would be necessarily absurd..

Also, I can imagine that even if I was the only person in the world, I would still pursue some goals.

Comment author: thomblake 16 November 2011 03:46:49PM 6 points [-]

The overall connotations and message are clear.

I'm a genius transhumanist who likes sci-fi, and the connotations and message of the image were not clear to me. I wasn't even sure what it was supposed to be a picture of (my first guess was something from the Halo games, though I couldn't imagine the relevance). Is this more something that would be clear to the general populace and not folks like me, and thus should be included in a post to appeal to the general populace?

In response to comment by thomblake on Existential Risk
Comment author: Randolf 17 November 2011 03:03:57PM 1 point [-]

Strange enough. After all, while I am a transhumanist to some degree and also enjoy scifi, I am far from being a genious. Still the message of the pictures were immeditately obvious.This would suggest towards what you said: they maybe appealing to general people, while not necessarily as appealing to those already very familiar with scifi and transhumanism.

In response to comment by Randolf on Existential Risk
Comment author: juliawise 16 November 2011 09:11:14PM 5 points [-]

This is why you would not have been hired to sit in front of the button, even given the Soviets' dubious hiring techniques. Also, if you had been raised in Soviet Russia, your thoughts on the topic might have been different.

In response to comment by juliawise on Existential Risk
Comment author: Randolf 17 November 2011 02:47:14PM *  0 points [-]

I could indeed simply lie and play the role of an obeying soldier to get the position I were looking for. However, it is of course true that if I had born and lived in a country where people are continiously fed with nationalist propaganda, I would be less likely to disobey the rules or to think it's wrong to retalite.

In response to Existential Risk
Comment author: Randolf 15 November 2011 07:48:48PM *  2 points [-]

If I had been one of those persons with the missile warning and red button, I wouldn't have pressed it even if I knew the warning was real. What use would it be to launch a barrage of nuclear weapons against normal citizens simply because their foolish leaders did so to you? It would only make things worse, and certainly wouldn't save anyone. Primitive needs to revenge can be extremely dangerous with todays technology.

Comment author: AlexM 12 July 2010 04:34:25PM 2 points [-]

|Interesting.

as interesting as picking up rocks and observing insects crawling under them, IMHO

|Never head of this guy. Link?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yury_Ignatyevich_Mukhin

most of his works are online, in Russian of course, links from Russian wiki page

Comment author: Randolf 14 November 2011 09:27:07PM *  1 point [-]

as interesting as picking up rocks and observing insects crawling under them, IMHO

What, insects are fascinating!

Comment author: Randolf 14 November 2011 12:40:21AM *  0 points [-]

Rationality can be useful when drawing. It allows you to avoid simple mistakes which you could otherwise make. I think this is especially true when you are for example inking your work, or doing some other other task which is mostly mechanical. However, sometimes following mere feelings can provide very interesting results. I am not a good drawer, nor do I actually know anything about drawing, but I draw a little bit every now and then. I find drawing most enjoyable when I draw quided by intuition, just letting the pen draw curve after curve the way it feels. I have found that when I do this, I achieve results more to my liking than when I actually think about what to draw and how. Maybe this is simply because I don't have much actual knowledge about drawing, I don't know.

Anyway, interesting post, thanks.

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