Eliezer Yudkowsky: Trending quotes (page 3)

“Part of the rationalist ethos is binding yourself emotionally to an absolutely lawful reductionistic universe — a universe containing no ontologically basic mental things such as souls or magic — and pouring all your hope and all your care into that merely real universe and its possibilities, without disappointment.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Mundane Magic http://lesswrong.com/lw/ve/mundane_magic/(October 2008)

Law , Hope , Disappointment , Soul

“If cryonics were a scam it would have far better marketing and be far more popular.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

A comment on reddit (2009) http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/7g5ea/if_you_dont_believe_in_god_or_an_afterlife_would/c06ktil

“If people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

How to Seem (and Be) Deep http://lesswrong.com/lw/k8/how_to_seem_and_be_deep/ (October 2007)

People

“Maybe you just can't protect people from certain specialized types of folly with any sane amount of regulation, and the correct response is to give up on the high social costs of inadequately protecting people from themselves under certain circumstances.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

a comment on Hacker News (April 2012) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3834636

People

“There's a standard Internet phenomenon (I generalize) of a Sneer Club of people who enjoy getting together and picking on designated targets. Sneer Clubs (I expect) attract people with high Dark Triad characteristics, which is (I suspect) where Asshole Internet Atheists come from - if you get a club together for the purpose of sneering at religious people, it doesn't matter that God doesn't actually exist, the club attracts psychologically f'd-up people. Bullies, in a word, people who are powerfully reinforced by getting in what feels like good hits on Designated Targets, in the company of others doing the same and congratulating each other on it.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

from a comment on reddit (January 2015) http://www.reddit.com/r/HPMOR/comments/2n3yh5/what_is_it_with_dark_lord_potter_and_hpmor/cmad6x3?context=3

God , People , Feeling

“In the universe where everything works the way it common-sensically ought to, everything about the study of Artificial General Intelligence is driven by the one overwhelming fact of the indescribably huge effects: initial conditions and unfolding patterns whose consequences will resound for as long as causal chains continue out of Earth, until all the stars and galaxies in the night sky have burned down to cold iron, and maybe long afterward, or forever into infinity if the true laws of physics should happen to permit that. To deliberately thrust your mortal brain onto that stage, as it plays out on ancient Earth the first root of life, is an act so far beyond "audacity" as to set the word on fire, an act which can only be excused by the terrifying knowledge that the empty skies offer no higher authority.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Above-Average AI Scientists http://lesswrong.com/lw/uc/aboveaverage_ai_scientists/

Life , Law , Way , Star

“When you are older, you will learn that the first and foremost thing which any ordinary person does is nothing.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Professor Quirrell in Ch. 73 http://hpmor.com/chapter/73
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (2010 - 2015)

Learning , Personality

“The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk http://singinst.org/upload/artificial-intelligence-risk.pdf (August 2006)

Love , Hate

“We underestimate the distance between ourselves and others. Not just inferential distance, but distances of temperament and ability, distances of situation and resource, distances of unspoken knowledge and unnoticed skills and luck, distances of interior landscape.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Beware of Other-Optimizing (April 2009) http://lesswrong.com/lw/9v/beware_of_otheroptimizing/

Knowledge

“Physiologically adult humans are not meant to spend an additional 10 years in a school system; their brains map that onto "I have been assigned low tribal status". And so, of course, they plot rebellion—accuse the existing tribal overlords of corruption—plot perhaps to split off their own little tribe in the savanna, not realizing that this is impossible in the Modern World.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Rebelling Within Nature http://lesswrong.com/lw/s5/rebelling_within_nature/ (July 2008)

World , School

“I have sometimes thought that all professional lectures on rationality should be delivered while wearing a clown suit, to prevent the audience from confusing seriousness with solemnity.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

In reply to a comment on his The Proper Use of Doubt http://lesswrong.com/lw/ib/the_proper_use_of_doubt/ejw

“The people I know who seem to make unusual efforts at rationality, are unusually honest, or, failing that, at least have unusually bad social skills.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Honesty: Beyond Internal Truth (June 2009) http://lesswrong.com/lw/101/honesty_beyond_internal_truth/

People , Effort

“I am tempted to say that a doctorate in AI would be negatively useful, but I am not one to hold someone’s reckless youth against them – just because you acquired a doctorate in AI doesn’t mean you should be permanently disqualified.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

So You Want To Be A Seed AI Programmer http://web.archive.org/web/20101227203946/http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/wiki/So_You_Want_To_Be_A_Seed_AI_Programmer

Youth

“Rationality is the master lifehack which distinguishes which other lifehacks to use.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians (April 2011) http://lesswrong.com/lw/5c0/epistle_to_the_new_york_less_wrongians/

“The police officer who puts their life on the line with no superpowers, no X-Ray vision, no super-strength, no ability to fly, and above all no invulnerability to bullets, reveals far greater virtue than Superman — who is only a mere superhero.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Superhero Bias http://lesswrong.com/lw/lk/superhero_bias/ (December 2007)

Life , Flying

“Litmus test: If you can't describe Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage and explain why people find it counterintuitive, you don't know enough about economics to direct any criticism or praise at "capitalism" because you don't know what other people are referring to when they use that word.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

a comment on Facebook (June 2012) http://www.facebook.com/julia.galef/posts/10100387951009862

People , Law