Comment author: nykos 23 February 2013 01:10:21PM -2 points [-]

If the Basiliskgate Affair is any indication, I would argue that hardcore LessWrongers in general are far too concerned about the potential negative consequences of science and philosophy (to put it mildly) .I think this community needs more of an exposition of the benefits that risk-taking can bring to the whole of society.

Comment author: nykos 11 February 2013 10:15:13PM *  0 points [-]

Why not donate to people promoting neocolonialism, if you are really concerned about efficient malaria eradication and the well-being of Black people? I for one refuse to donate any amount of money to treat symptoms rather than causes, at least in in the case of strangers; it is an inefficient allocation of resources.

In response to The value of Now.
Comment author: nykos 07 February 2013 07:49:25PM -1 points [-]

If I were a scientist, I would ask for evidence of the existence of omega-level beings before further considering the questions. We can of course debate how many Omega-level beings are there on the tip of a pin, but I believe our limited time in this Universe is better spent asking different kinds of questions.

Comment author: nykos 02 February 2013 11:20:00PM *  1 point [-]

Maybe the forces of human nature make the future in some sense inevitable, conspiring to keep the long-term probability of eutopia very low?

If you took a freezing, dirty European peasant in winter ca. 1000 AD, and transported him to 0 AD Rome and its public thermae, he would also be heading towards eutopia - only in the 'wrong' direction of time. The worship of many gods in particular would probably strike him as horrifying.

If you transported Thomas Carlyle through time to the present, he would be horrified and disgusted, probably also frightened. But he would most definitely not be surprised. He would say: "I told you so". I'm sure there were at least few Romans who, when transported to Dark Ages Europe, would have said the same.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 January 2013 01:01:00PM *  5 points [-]

Say Not Universalism, a criticism of Moldbug's position on Progressivisms ties to Christianity.

I disagree with it mildly, since I think there are features of Progressivism that are more or less uniquely attributable to its Christian heritage, but I do think Progressive like memes would have developed in a non-Christian descended implementation of what is often called The Cathedral (political belief pump associated with demotist forms of government).

It is a reminder to Reactionary readers that while the explicit justifications of modern political and social thinking obviously look weak at best and utterly mad at worst, we should take small c-conservative arguments in their favour very seriously. The abolition of many things because their "explicit justifications was crazy" turned out to be dreadful mistakes.

These are the grounds on which I provisionally support social democracy, while strongly encourage exploration of alternatives.

In response to comment by [deleted] on Politics Discussion Thread January 2013
Comment author: nykos 05 January 2013 06:41:06PM *  3 points [-]

I do think Progressive like memes would have developed in a non-Christian descended implementation of what is often called The Cathedral

I think this is quite likely to be the case, since Progressivism (which one might think of as "altruism gone rampant") might actually emerge in time from the mating patterns and the resulting genetic structure of a population.

Comment author: nykos 24 December 2012 01:26:38PM 2 points [-]

What are the experimental predictions of the various string theories?

Have any of those been experimentally verified so far?

Is belief in string theory paying any rent?

Comment author: nykos 31 October 2012 05:55:12PM *  0 points [-]

What about individual IQ? It's not at all clear that learning methods yield uniform results across the bell curve. What might work for a 130+ IQ individual may not work for a 110 IQ individual - and vice-versa.

Comment author: nykos 04 October 2012 11:50:20AM *  3 points [-]

Intelligent people are more likely to think on the consequences when deciding to have a child. But there is a prisoner's dilemma type of situation here:

One reason smart people forego reproduction is because they might feel children make them more unhappy overall for at least the first few years (a not unreasonable assumption). Or simply because they are not religious (smart religious people do still have lots of children) As a consequence, in 20 years, the average IQ of that society will fall (bar some policy reversals encouraging eugenic breeding, or advances in genetic engineering), as only the less intelligent breed. Since, all other things equal, smarter people perform better on their jobs, the average quality of services provided in that society (both public and private) goes down. So in the end everyone becomes more unhappy (even though unhappiness of a childless smart person resulting from societal dysgenics may not outweigh the temporary unhappiness from having a child)

Comment author: MileyCyrus 24 July 2012 03:06:43AM 12 points [-]

It's quicker to recruit existing people and turn them into rationalists than to create new people from scratch. This approach will eventually exhaust the gene pool, but not for hundreds of generations.

Comment author: nykos 30 July 2012 05:24:53PM 1 point [-]

Good luck explaining Bayes' law to people with IQs below 90.

Comment author: shminux 24 July 2012 03:13:58AM 4 points [-]

Only assuming that rationalism is inheritable, which is not at all obvious.

Comment author: nykos 30 July 2012 05:15:45PM 2 points [-]

Rationalism may not be heritable, but intelligence surely is.

Let's face it, LessWrong and rationalism in general appeal mostly to people with at least 1 SD above average IQ.

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