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All of Bill_Mill's Comments + Replies

You Only Live Twice
Bill_Mill
30

If I thought that we were on track to a Future where no one cares about human life, and lives that could easily be saved are just thrown away - then I would try to change that. Not everything worth doing is easy.

Spare me the dramatics!

I continue to not understand the economics of reviving people in the future. Your argument here seems to be that reviving frozen heads, no matter the cost, is a moral obligation. That does not make sense to me.

Thought experiment: tomorrow, John Q. Scientist reveals that he can, for the cost of $1 million, revive any perso... (read more)

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0Capla
I might pose I similar thought experiment: if a scientist today, discovered he could raise the dead, restore anyone who had ever lived, what would we do with that power? Do we have a moral responsibility to "save" all humans ever? Even if resurrection were free, the earth couldn't (currently) support a population of every human (and perhaps some pets?) who's ever been. We'd have to decide who gets to live and who doesn't. Restoring past-people will almost certainly entail displacing some people who might otherwise have been born. Why do we privilege those that already got to live a "full" (typical human) life over the millions of potential humans that could populate the earth in our stead? Furthermore, I don't see much of a distinction between deciding who gets revived and who doesn't, on the one hand, and killing the people we don't want around, on the other. Faced with a delemia of "who gets to live", unless we aim for a sort of "equality of time alive", out of a sense of fairness (in which case, most modern humans are running a deficit), it seems we would kill the ass-holes to make room for the cool people from history. Is that inhumane? Or consider, maybe we'd stop giving birth entirely, so that all the existent people can take turns being the one's alive. Does a world where every person is old, where no one is falling in love for the first time, where children are absent, so that we can have more life, see like a good one? I'm asking these questions sincerely. Maybe that is the world we want.
4Friendly-HI
1) Why do you think a revival will remain prohibitively expensive forever? 2) If you've got no living relatives, then one reason for revival could be commercial. A company could simply revive you for a certain cost and then you have to pay them back in the long run. The latter couldn't even be argued to be a forced contract without consent. Considering that you were taking the trouble of freezing yourself, it can safely be assumed that you'd be more than happy and willing to pay for the cost of your revival in the same way you'd pay off any ordinary debt. Hell, I should own that company.
Whither OB?
Bill_Mill
00

From my perspective, this blog is the "Robin and Eliezer show" with occasional guest hosts. Without Robin and Eliezer, I question whether it's worth trying to remake OB into some sort of Frankenstein. Maybe it should just grow a forum and allow posting to get light?

(That said, the reddit source code is now open, and there is no better commenting system on the web, IMHO. Customizing a reddit could be a worthwhile place to start with a software solution)

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The Quantum Physics Sequence
Bill_Mill
40

Eliezer - will these e-books be edited by a professional editor, a friend, or just yourself?

Gordon - Scott Aaronson gave a wonderful explanation of quantum computing at his blog.

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A Failed Just-So Story
Bill_Mill
10

From the New York Times Magazine, March 2007:

Intriguing as the spandrel logic might be, there is another way to think about the evolution of religion: that religion evolved because it offered survival advantages to our distant ancestors. This is where the action is in the science of God debate, with a coterie of adaptationists arguing on behalf of the primary benefits, in terms of survival advantages, of religious belief...

The advantage might have worked at the group level too, with religious groups outlasting others because they were more cohesive, more

... (read more)
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Misc Meta
Bill_Mill
10

I post your articles to reddit because I like to expose other people to your ideas; I've found them very enlightening. (Thanks)

Anyway, if you want me to stop posting them, or perhaps to stick to using your titles as opposed to ones that I think will sell on reddit, please let me know. I felt somewhat bad for the #1 spot with that headline, I didn't expect it to shoot up like that.

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Rationality and the English Language
Bill_Mill
10

I really liked the article; but if you're going to talk about Orwell and writers, and be so self-conscious about it, shouldn't it be "subected by whom"?

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3taryneast
Shouldn't that be "subjected by whom" ? :)