Took the survey. All of it. :) EDIT:huh, completely missed the point in the doctor Q. I figured it was not my place to tell him what to do, but offer him all the possibilities and let the patient choose( he will be paying for it). Otherwise you are just guessing what the patient wants. EDIT2: rot13: Abj gung v qvq fbzr pnyphyngvbaf v guvax v xabj n ybg bs crbcyr gung jbhyq ybir gb rnea 4$ na ubhe whfg univat n zvtenvar.8 gb 10 u n qnl, 5 qnlf n jrrx, pbzrf bhg gb 800$ n zbagu.(juvfgyr). jbj. Npghnyyl v jbhyq abg zvaq fhpu n wbo. Fb v thrff vg pbzrf qbja gb jurer lbh ner yvivat. Jurer v yvir, zbfg snzvyl'f bs 4 trg ba jvgu yrff zbarl. Nobhg 550$ n zbagu.

quoted text by Eliezer: If you would balk at killing a million people with a nuclear weapon, you should balk at this.

I must be missing something because this sentence,for me,makes no sense. Why? Why is killing a X of sentient simulations of humans, just as bad as killing X of actual humans. What am i missing? I believe i have counter arguments for this, but would first like to make sure why you are arguing it is so. So i would know we are talking about the same thing and not past one another.

The reason Yvain's proposed argument is arguably much worse is that the argument you propose is a clear, visible fallacy with spectacular failure modes and many people will indeed simply walk away or mark the person making the argument as crazy, while Yvain's argument, in the situations where it is the worst argument, is not only wrong and erroneous logic but also still manages to convince uninformed people that it is valid, and so they will accept its conclusion as true, while at the same time tricking opponents into debating the wrong points and formulating the wrong counter-arguments.

Yvain's WAitW is much more destructive, pervasive, memetically powerful, tricky to counter when there are large audiences and high stakes, and also much easier to do accidentally even when you know that it's a mistake - while pretty much anyone versed in the basic rules of causality and logic will understand and easily avoid the kind of arguments you've given an example of. Sure, some variants of what you describe, like "You heathens don't believe in God so any argument you make is invalid, only devouts of my religion can speak Truth!" can be pretty bad too, and this has been demonstrated, but it doesn't require as much mastery of logic to avoid committing.

As for what you can do, well... you could try to make them reasonable or rational, either through helping them achieve their existing goal of becoming more so, or through convincing them that they want to, or through other forms of manipulation... or you could always just do one of a plethora of other things you could do, like walking out, or learning physics, or killing them, or getting other people which this person considers as their Holy Authority to persuade them that they are wrong, etc. etc.

And there's always the sharpened bones of hufflepuffs.

First an admission: I did not read all the comments, there are too many for me, just the top 150 or so, so someone might have mentioned this before, if so never mind. This is for Yvain , an example of the worst argument I ever faced: The logic is as follows, since the sky is blue you are stupid. That is the end of the argument, since you SEE, you are stupid thus your argument is stupid. So what can you do then, except walk out? What can you do when one side is not only unreasonable, but irrational ?

ugh fields huh? Tnx for the term, i just called them walls, especially tnx for how to brake them, been trying for 8 months to demolish them all, one by one. Not sure if this will contribute but here is an example of how one of my fields was made. I was never good with my hands. My writing is not nice and my drawings are pitiful. I can do technical drawings with rulers but I disliked it. Then I go to a university. I pass math and all the other major subjects with ease. I do ok on drawing subjects(this is civil engineering so you have to know how to draw precisely) Wherever I am allowed to draw using computer support to avoid drawing by hand I excel. Except for one subject. They insist on drawing by hand. I spend weeks drawing and no matter what I do it is not good enough, I listen at classes and try and try fail so much. So a fail the class that time, and then I learn: that the teachers who were holding it are mere students from a higher year because the actual teacher was abroad getting a masters degree. And the reason I could not pass? Because I listened to them. Everybody who copied or cheated passed and they call it easy, I suffered because the 2 teachers could not agree how it was supposed to be done to the point of arguing it right in front of me. So I failed for trusting in my teachers and working hard. And here it starts, because I am so revolted that I do not think of the subject for 2 years to come to a point where I can not get a degree because of one lousy drawing class that I know how to do but just can not seem to make myself do. And the flinch has only become stronger as I pull it out of a unconscious flinch to a conscious one because at this point I start having headaches when I think about it. I have noticed this in relation to various other tasks that I rarely consider and take it as a sign: If my head hurts, I must be doing something right, and in truth many smaller fields have fallen, this is one of the big 3 I’m fighting right now. Though I am not sure they are ugh field any more since my conscious mind has recognized them and the flinches are no longer unnoticed, but you can only push yourself to change so much every day. Sry if there are any spelling errors, or if the format is not good, my first post here.