The problem with unbreakable rules is that you're only allowed to have one.

I second the question. Is there a standard reply in deontology? The standard reply of a consequentialist, of course, is the utility function.

I'll second the recommendation for the game of Go; I would be interested in finding out who here plays, and at what level; and my two years' experience with the game has taught me that it held many deep lessons about my own thinking and improving it.

These days my Go is on hiatus except for one DGS game.

Not entirely sure what I think about the donation angle.

I see mutual consent as an important element of games.

If you really believe the world is at stake and have a way to extract value from me without my consent then I don't philosophically objection to you playing that game. In the sense that I tend to approve of people doing what is rational for them even if I have to punish, shame or implement potentially terminal deterrent measures.

There's this magical click that some people get and some people don't, and I don't understand what's in the click. There's the consequentialist/utilitarian click, and the intelligence explosion click, and the life-is-good/death-is-bad click, and the cryonics click.

I think it's a mistake to put all the opinions you agree with in a special category. Why do some people come quickly to beliefs you agree with? There is no reason, except that sometimes people come quickly to beliefs, and some beliefs happen to match yours.

People who share one belief with you are more likely to share others, so you're anecdotally finding people who agree with you about non-cryonics things at a cryonics conference. Young people might be more likely to change their mind quickly because they're more likely to hear something for the first time.

I don't know if those are the right reference classes for prediction, but those two beliefs definitely fall into those two categories. That should set off some warning signals.

Most people seem to have a strong need to believe in life after death and godlike beings. Anything less than ironclad disproof leads them to strong belief. If you challenge their beliefs, they'll often vigorously demonstrate that these things are not impossible and declare victory. They ignore the distinction between "not impossible" and "highly likely" even when trying to persuade a known skeptic because, for them on those issues, the distinction does not exist.

Not that I see anyone doing that here.

It's just a warning sign that the topics invite bias. Proceed with caution.

Okay, so....a confession.

In a fairly recent little-noticed comment, I let slip that I differ from many folks here in what some may regard as an important way: I was not raised on science fiction.

I'll be more specific here: I think I've seen one of the Star Wars films (the one about the kid who apparently grows up to become the villain in the other films). I have enough cursory familiarity with the Star Trek franchise to be able to use phrases like "Spock bias" and make the occasional reference to the Starship Enterprise (except I later found out that the reference in that post was wrong, since the Enterprise is actually supposed to travel faster than light -- oops), but little more. I recall having enjoyed the "Tripod" series, and maybe one or two other, similar books, when they were read aloud to me in elementary school. And of course I like Yudkowsky's parables, including "Three Worlds Collide", as much as the next LW reader.

But that's about the extent of my personal acquaintance with the genre.

Now, people keep telling me that I should read more science fiction; in fact, they're often quite surprised that I haven't. So maybe, while we're doing these New Year's Resolutions, I can "resolve" to perhaps, maybe, some time, actually do that (if I can ever manage to squeeze it in between actually doing work and procrastinating on the Internet).

Problem is, there seems to be a lot of it out there. How would a newcomer know where to start?

Well, what better place to ask than here, a place where many would cite this type of literature as formative with respect to developing their saner-and-more-interesting-than-average worldviews?

Alicorn recommended John Scalzi (thanks). What say others?

Hi Eliezer,

I personally like many worlds because it helps me count on quantum immortality in case I get hit in the head by a falling 2x4 before the singularity comes. However, I was disturbed when I read about the Ashfar experiment, as it seems to disprove many worlds.. I couldn't find anything on your blog about it.. What do you think about it?

When they disagree about many-worlds, zombies and God?

What ever happened to just thinking people who disagreed with you were wrong?