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"So here's a reply to that philosopher's scenario, which I have yet to hear any philosopher's victim give" People like Hare have extensively discussed this, although usually using terms like 'angels' or 'ideally rational agent' in place of 'AIs.'
In response to
Ends Don't Justify Means (Among Humans)
Yes, this made me think precisely of Hare's two-level utilitarianism, with a Friendly AI in place of Hare's Archangel.
[LINK] Charlie Stross: Federov's Rapture
Federov's Rapture at Charlie's Diary
This is a follow-up to his article on Singularitarianism last week, which was also discussed here.
His own introduction:
Last week I did a brief hit and run on the concept of the Singularity. Today I'd like to raise awareness of one of the taproots of Extropian thought — specifically, the origins of modern singularitarian thinking in the writings of the 19th century Russian Orthodox teacher and librarian, Nikolai Fyodorov (or Federov).
I'm not sure if the point is really anything more than guilt-by-association, because he doesn't really make a complete argument for anything in particular.
In response to
Review of Doris, 'The Moral Psychology Handbook' (2010)
Is this a book which would be readable by a layperson with an undergrad intro level of knowledge of psychology, biology, and philosophy? Is it readable in the amount of time available on a typical interlibrary loan?
In response to
Exclude the supernatural? My worldview is up for grabs.
My advice would be to ignore natural/supernatural and focus on true/false instead. From the perspective of truth the category of "natural" is superfluous.
I was going to comment along similar lines. Most people probably have a concept of "supernatural" that's defined by a grab-bag of phenomena. If you stop wondering about whether "the supernatural" exists, and whether various allegedly supernatural phenomena (e.g. transubstantiation, ghosts, spoon-bending) exist, and if it happens that they do, how they work, you'll be well on your way to not needing the concept of "supernatural".
If you try to present radically better arguments for Christianity than you think most Christians present, you will sound out of step with the rest of the panel to an audience of Christian judges.
I think this is correct. If you want to successfully pose as a Christian, you might be well advised to read a bunch of C. S. Lewis, and then imitate his arguments and style. I say this because I think his books constitute the most accessible body of reasonable-but-still-wrong arguments in favour of Christian orthodoxy. If you can quote him, all the better, because being able to quote C. S. Lewis is a high-status marker among people who have both a self-identity as Christians, and a self-identity as intellectuals.
In response to
The "Stick Test" - useful tool or just pointless amusement?
Jayson_Virissimo's comments show one reason why it's a poor instrument: it doesn't actually address any of the arguments you actually want it to.
Another reason is that it's a "virtual" argumentum ad baculum. Because it doesn't actually address your opponent's arguments, the only reason it gives them to agree with you is to avoid (virtual) punishment. If it actually does get them to concede the argument, it might be useful, but be aware that it's Dark Arts at best.
Taking children seriously is based on the teachings of Karl Popper, whose style of rationality is not the "LessWrong-Preferred" (tm) flavor, having been supplanted by Jaynes-style Bayesianism.
(There have been arguments back and forth on LessWrong about Popper preferring falsification above attempting to show something can meaningfully be considered to be true, with some stating that this is not true Popperism, with others claiming that this is a No-True-Scotsman argument.) Because of the controversy, mentioning Karl Popper on LessWrong is a way to generate lots of sound and fury without much meaningful discussion.
Ah, this is precisely the sort of answer that is useful to me. Thank you.
In response to
Rational Parenting?
Troll answer: http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/
Serious answer: I would suggest taking a leaf from the HP:MoR fanfiction and exposing children to Feynman, hard sci-fi, Flatland, The Phantom Tollbooth, Godel, Escher, Bach, and some of the better popular science books. Of course, instilling a love of reading is a good way to get children to want to read those in the first place, so you may want to broaden the reading selection with some other (not directly related to rationality) books.
To the first part of your question, I feel as though trying to derive from first principles a correct response would be beyond my abilities. Perhaps simply taking care to not patronize children would be a good start, as well as making sure to send a consistent message vis-a-vis punishments and objectives?
Anyone else have ideas? I feel as though anything else I say would just be regurgitating cached deep wisdom.
(Edited for stupidity/typos).
Can you briefly explain to me why taking children seriously is a troll answer?
In response to
Torture Simulated with Flipbooks
Upvoted for really accurate onomatopoeia.
It make me think of "Poor little clams, snap, snap, snap".
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Perhaps fans of Mr. O'Reilly are fans of his style of discourse, and so they would prefer to read a book written in that style over a book written in a stereotypical dry academic style, even if (especially because) Mr. O'Reilly does not footnote quite as scrupulously as some others?
History is not about history.
This explanation seems quite likely to account for some of the positive ratings from O'Reilly fans, but does it really do anything to account for the vehemence of reactions to negative ratings?