A Great Man and an inspiration to me and to this community and to all thinking men.
God rest his soul in peace in Paradise.
alt-text is supposed to be: "I'm not even sure they've read Superintelligence"
Forgive me, I have strongly downvoted this dispassionate, interesting, well-written review of what sounds like a good book on an important subject because I want to keep politics out of Less Wrong.
This is the most hot-button of topics, and politics is the mind-killer. We have more important things to think about and I do not want to see any of our political capital used in this cause on either side.
typo-wise you have a few uses of it's (it is) where it should be its (possessive), and "When they Egyptians" should probably read "When the Egyptians".
I did enjoy your review. Thank you for writing it. Would you delete it and put it elsewhere?
Nicely done! I only come here for the humour these days.
Well, this is nice to see! Perhaps a little late, but still good news...
caches out
cashes out?
I wouldn't touch this stuff with someone else's bargepole. It looks like it takes the willpower out of starvation, and as the saying goes, you can starve yourself thin, but you can't starve yourself healthy.
I could be convinced, by many years of safety data and a well understood causal mechanism for both obesity and the action of these drugs, that that's wrong and that they really are a panacea. But I am certainly not currently convinced!
The question that needs answering about obesity is 'why on earth are people with enormous excess fat reserves feeling hungry?'. It's like having a car with the boot full of petrol in jerry cans but the 'fuel low' light is blinking.
depends on facts about physics and psychology
It does, and a superintelligence will understand those facts better than we do.
I don't buy this, the curvedness of the sea is obvious to sailors, e.g. you see the tops of islands long before you see the beach, and indeed to anyone who has ever swum across a bay! Inland peoples might be able to believe the world is flat, but not anyone with boats.