http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nwu/reality_is_arational/

-8 Yet still no one being able to refute my arguments.

Elo,

You seem to be posting, like, a lot. This is good, this is what we have personal blogs for.

I do have an issue with syndicating your content straight to here, regardless of state, amount of research, amount of prior discussion with other people, confidence, or epistemic status. This introduces an asymetric opportunity cost on behalf of the lesswrong community; specifically, writing these is much easier, and lower effort, than the amount of effort these will collectively soak up for no gain.

For this reason, I have downvoted this post as is. I will also kindly ask of you to introduce a pre-syndication filter, which respects other people's limited amount of time, and attention; and cross-post only the ones where you have 1, a coherent thesis, and 2, validated interest coming from other people (as in, someone explicitely remarked "that's interesting").

Thanks.

What’s going on in someone’s head when they encounter something like the trolley problem, and say “you can’t just place a value on a human life”?

Maybe: "Here is someone who is practicing excuses for killing people, using fictional scenarios. Is this some kind of wannabe killer, exploring the terrain to find out under which circumstances would his actions be socially acceptable? I'd better explain him that this approach wouldn't work here."

For instance, if the contract is triggered by the delivery of physical goods - how can you define what the goods are, what constitutes delivery, what constitutes possession of them, and so on.

With the internet of things physical goods can treat their owner differently than other people. A car can be programmed to only be driven by their owner.

Reputation and escrow are also mechanisms that can be used. SilkRoad managed delivery of physical goods via reputation and escrew. SilkRoad did however had central servers that could be attacked. An Ethereum based system couldn't be taken down in a similar way.

Someone should create a free speech Twitter that doesn't censor anything protected by the U.S. 1st amendment.

• Legislating for individuals to be held more accountable for large-scale catastrophic errors that they may make (including by requiring insurance premiums for any risky activities)

If I blow up the planet, neither my insurance nor your lawsuit is going to help anything. Which is to say, this proposal is just a wealth transfer to insurance companies, since they never have to pay out.

Let's take the best computer programmer. Imagine he tries to write down all his important knowledge in a book. He writes down all statements where he believes that he can justify that they are true in a book.

Then he gives the book to a person who never programmed with equal IQ.

How much of the knowledge of the expert knowledge get's passed down through this process? I grant that some knowledge get's passed down, but I don't think that all knowledge does get passed down. The expert programmer has what's commonly called "unconscious competence".

Allen might call that kind of knowledge part of the best knowledge of our civilization. It's crucial knowledge for our technological progress.

But to get back to the main point, to accept that the contemplative, logocentric approach has flaws is not simply about focusing on it itself but on demonstrating alternatives.

The first legal ruling for an AI or robot may be in the pipe, and it was filed by the DoJ. this may set a precedent for an AI to have legal standing, as the ruling is filed against an electronic device.

United States of America v. Apple MacPro Computer, et al

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160428/07395434297/so-much-fifth-amendment-man-jailed-seven-months-not-turning-over-password.shtml

I think that's somewhat missing the point of a lot of advice like that though. Often advice in the form of proverbs or popular quotes is not meant to be taken literally. It's meant to offer you a new angle from which to look at the problem.

Just because two quotes contradict each other, doesn't mean they can't both be good advice. If you think someone is being too rash, quoting a proverb like "discretion is the better part of valour" can be good advice. But if you think they are being too cautious, the opposite ("nothing ventured, nothing gained") can also be good advice.

Most advice is context dependent.

I didn't know there were supersedes in nntp. Cool.