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I've never thought colonizing worlds outside of the solar system with human beings was reasonable. If we are somehow digitized, and continue to exist as computer programs, then sure.
Are there any science fiction novels that take this approach?
In response to
Open thread, Nov. 02 - Nov. 08, 2015
I've recently started using RSS feeds. Does anyone have LW-related feeds they'd recommend? Or for that matter, anything they'd recommend following which doesn't have an RSS feed?
Here's my short list so far, in case anyone else is interested:
Less Wrong Discussion
Less Wrong Main (ie promoted)
Slate Star Codex
Center for the Study of Existential Risk
Future of Life Institute [they have a RSS button, but it appears to be broken. They just updated their webpage, so I'll subscribe once there's something to subscribe to.]
Global Priorities Project
80,000 Hours
SpaceX [an aerospace company, which Elon Musk refuses to take public until they've started a Mars colony]
These obviously have an xrisk focus, but feel free to share anything you think any Less-Wrongers might be interested in, even if it doesn't sound like I would be.
For anyone looking to start using RSS, I'd recommend using the Bamboo Feed Reader extension in FireFox, and deleting all the default feeds. I started out using Sage as a feed aggregator, but didn't like the sidebar style or the tiled reader.
I've always been told something along the lines of "find a group based around a hobby that you like/ an interest that you have, and make friends through them," though I've been recently wondering if it's possible to guess in advance which groups might be more likely to contain the most potential close friends.
Personally, I've had an easier time making friends with bronies and HPMoR readers in meatspace than I have had with making friends with people participating in, say, service organizations or chemistry club. The most obvious explanation here is that I have more in common with people in the first two of these groups than I do with people in the last two of these groups. Still, I'm nevertheless tempted to posit something about the fact that signaling membership as an HPMoR reader, or as a brony, is reasonably costly to some people-- and that this might serve to filter out a portion of the would-be members of these groups who I'd be less likely to be friends with.
Another possibility: the first group of people have more free time than the latter and spending some free time together is quite important for building friendships.
He said that polls show the younger someone is, the more likely they are to support legalization, and this appears to be true. You can't explain that with anything going back to 1910.
I think that it is likely that pre-WWI drug usage levels survived during 1920s-1940s in certain subcultures, such as. jazz scene, who influenced beatniks, who, among others, were among those who formed the zeitgeist of 1960s and drug culture. Up until that point, postmodernists cannot be said to have any influence, because most works of philosophers most often associated with postmodernism (Baudrillard, Lyotard, Derrida)came only in late 1960s and 1970s. Many 1960s hippies became influential members of society, university professors, and I think that was what gradually pushed drugs into mainstream. Can we call them postmodernists? Well, some of them probably were, but was it a significant number? I'd say that people like Timothy Leary were much more important than Jacques Derrida
Edit: and I think that popularity of drugs among rockstars must have influenced young people as well.
In response to
Open thread 7th september - 13th september
If you want to get into academia because you think there will be less organisational politics, Berkley warns it may be worse than the corporate world
In response to
Open thread 7th september - 13th september
(Reposted from the previous OT)
One of my professors claimed that postmodernism, and particularly its concept of "no objective truth", is responsible for much of the recent liberalism of society, through the idea of "live and let live". (Specific examples given were attitudes towards legalization of gay marriage and drugs.) I pointed out that libertarianism and liberalism predated postmodernism historically, and they said that that's true, but you can still trace the popularity back to postmodernism.
Is this historically accurate? If not, is there something I can point to that would convince them? It seems to me that the shift in society is much more a shift on the object level questions than on the meta level "should we ban things we disagree with", but I don't know very much recent history of philosophy (it isn't strictly their field either, so I'm justified in not taking them at face value).
Widespread popularity of drugs predates WWI, let alone postmodernism, which became popular (outside architecture) only after 1960s (mostly in 1970s).
Isn't this backwards? Shouldn't you first find a goal, and only then decide that this is something that you want to protect?
Our wealth is partly based on exploitation.
Not to any significant extent. Most colonized places were net money-losers for the colonizer for most of their history. In addition, I doubt most western-colonized countries were made substantially worse off compared to non-colonized countries, since the Europeans introduced some level of infrastructure, medicine, etc.
Wouldn't it be fair to fix the damage we've done to exploited people?
First of all, who is this "we" you speak of? More importantly, there are a few "control-group" countries which were not colonized while their neighbors were, like Siam (modern Thailand) and Ethiopia, and they don't seem better off than their neighbors. Unlike most African countries, which abolished slavery when the Europeans took control, Ethiopia banned slavery only in 1942--under pressure from the British, who were a bit embarrassed to be allied with a slave state.
Most colonized places were net money-losers for the colonizer for most of their history
But then why did people keep conquering and colonizing new lands?
More importantly, there are a few "control-group" countries which were not colonized while their neighbors were, like Siam (modern Thailand) and Ethiopia, and they don't seem better off than their neighbors.
There is also Japan, which was better off than its neighbors. In 1905 Japan was strong enough to win a war against Russia.
It seems like a lot of focus on MIRI giving good signals to outsiders. The "publish or perish" treadmill of academia is exactly why privately funded organizations like MIRI are needed.
The things that su3su2u1 wants MIRI to be already exist in academia. The whole point of MIRI is to create an organization of a type that doesn't currently exist, focused on much longer term goals. If you measure organizations on the basis of how many publications they make, you're going to get a lot of low-quality publications. Citations are only slightly better, especially if you're focused on ignored areas of research.
If you have outside-view criticisms of an organization and you're suddenly put in charge of them, the first thing you have to do is check the new inside-view information available and see what's really going on.
The whole point of MIRI is to create an organization of a type that doesn't currently exist, focused on much longer term goals. If you measure organizations on the basis of how many publications they make, you're going to get a lot of low-quality publications. Citations are only slightly better, especially if you're focused on ignored areas of research.
Just because MIRI researchers' incentives aren't distorted by "publish or perish" culture, it doesn't mean they aren't distorted by other things, especially those that are associated with lack of feedback and accountability.
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Related quote from July's thread:
Happiness is not for appreciation of goodness of events, at least, that's not what evolution intended it to be for. It's for rewarding your actions to motivate you to do them as well as rewarding other people for their actions that are good for you. If neither you did anything to do it, neither you can pinpoint an actual person who did it and whose action you want to celebrate, it's no surprise that you do not feel happiness about that thing.