You have obviously taken some time to work out your reply to my post; however, it does not seem to address what I thought was my salient point. So I hope you will forgive me if I try rephrasing, in order to evoke a somewhat different reply from you.
I have certain goals, which I’ll simplify as NotDying, and which you appear to emotively associate with 1980′s-90′s extropianism. I can more likely achieve that goal by applying LW-style rationality. I have just come up with a small step which may allow users of LW-style rationality to adjust their Type 1 thinking in a preferred direction. Thus, using “Mort!” as an expletive contributes, in a very slight way, to my achieving NotDying.
Your stated goal appears to be to increase the number of people who can more effectively get what they want out of life, by applying something similar to LW-style rationality. You appear to want to achieve your goal by minimizing the extropian/transhumanist aspects of LW-style rationality. Thus, using “Mort!” as an expletive runs contrary to your goal.
If the above is at least roughly accurate, then: is there any fashion in which I can increase my odds of achieving NotDying by cooperating with your subgoal of minimizing extropianism in LW? If not, then is there any fashion in which I can increase my odds of achieving NotDying by assisting you with your terminal goal, even if we disagree about your subgoal?
Thus, using “Mort!” as an expletive contributes, in a very slight way, to my achieving NotDying.
I disagree. Using “mort” as a swear word would be extremely low status. You’d only come across as the angry weird guy who doesn’t like death. Associating “being against death” with “being socially oblivious” will not further your goal, please don’t do this.
I don’t think you have to worry as much as your post seems to indicate you do. As best as I can recall, in the last decade or so, I have sworn aloud approximately once—and I was alone when I did that. (IIRC, it was when I thought I’d discovered my VPN had started blocking access to certain political sites.)
I get it now, thanks! Question: do you want a small number of (exceptionally smart but not yet rich, typically young) people who already significantly care about NotDying care even more about it, or do you want a large number of people (some of them who are billionaires) not think that rationality is a weak subculture, by a slow osmosis, learn the ideas and through that slowly figure out that dying is not such a good idea and throw their immense numbers and wealth at it?
The disadvantage of the second solution is that it may be too slow for your own timespan. It would be kind of a process where nothing happens for a long time and then blam NASA like budgets are thrown on the problem. Your first solution works on a shorter timespan, but you are preaching to a choir of largely like-minded people who have significant amount of smarts but not so much money to throw on the problem.
I suspect that, to the extent that “Mort!” would act as advertising, my target group would be those people who are not currently transhumanists or cryonicists themselves, but have subculture leanings which reduce their automatic emotional rejection of the ideas: science-fiction fans, skeptics, atheists, and others of that ilk. I don’t think I can do anything that would measurably nudge the larger population, who currently resoundingly reject or ignore transhumanist ideas; at least, as you put it, in my own timespan.
As an example, here’s a possible use case, at a science fiction convention: Someone drops a Dalek on their foot, and exclaims “Mort!”. A nearby conventioneer thinks, “‘Merde’?” and asks, “Are you French?” The swearer explains, “No, ‘Mort’ - death is obscene. Now where’s that sonic screwdriver?” The questioning conventioneer and any other bystanders are socially nudged, slightly, in the direction of anti-deathism, and might be a percentage point or so more likely to discover LW in the future; and the swearer has used an expletive to help manage pain. Everyone wins.
I don’t think that an anti-deathist swear word is going to make the general population any /less/ interested in cryonics, life-extension, etc.
You have obviously taken some time to work out your reply to my post; however, it does not seem to address what I thought was my salient point. So I hope you will forgive me if I try rephrasing, in order to evoke a somewhat different reply from you.
I have certain goals, which I’ll simplify as NotDying, and which you appear to emotively associate with 1980′s-90′s extropianism. I can more likely achieve that goal by applying LW-style rationality. I have just come up with a small step which may allow users of LW-style rationality to adjust their Type 1 thinking in a preferred direction. Thus, using “Mort!” as an expletive contributes, in a very slight way, to my achieving NotDying.
Your stated goal appears to be to increase the number of people who can more effectively get what they want out of life, by applying something similar to LW-style rationality. You appear to want to achieve your goal by minimizing the extropian/transhumanist aspects of LW-style rationality. Thus, using “Mort!” as an expletive runs contrary to your goal.
If the above is at least roughly accurate, then: is there any fashion in which I can increase my odds of achieving NotDying by cooperating with your subgoal of minimizing extropianism in LW? If not, then is there any fashion in which I can increase my odds of achieving NotDying by assisting you with your terminal goal, even if we disagree about your subgoal?
I disagree. Using “mort” as a swear word would be extremely low status. You’d only come across as the angry weird guy who doesn’t like death. Associating “being against death” with “being socially oblivious” will not further your goal, please don’t do this.
I don’t think you have to worry as much as your post seems to indicate you do. As best as I can recall, in the last decade or so, I have sworn aloud approximately once—and I was alone when I did that. (IIRC, it was when I thought I’d discovered my VPN had started blocking access to certain political sites.)
I get it now, thanks! Question: do you want a small number of (exceptionally smart but not yet rich, typically young) people who already significantly care about NotDying care even more about it, or do you want a large number of people (some of them who are billionaires) not think that rationality is a weak subculture, by a slow osmosis, learn the ideas and through that slowly figure out that dying is not such a good idea and throw their immense numbers and wealth at it?
The disadvantage of the second solution is that it may be too slow for your own timespan. It would be kind of a process where nothing happens for a long time and then blam NASA like budgets are thrown on the problem. Your first solution works on a shorter timespan, but you are preaching to a choir of largely like-minded people who have significant amount of smarts but not so much money to throw on the problem.
I suspect that, to the extent that “Mort!” would act as advertising, my target group would be those people who are not currently transhumanists or cryonicists themselves, but have subculture leanings which reduce their automatic emotional rejection of the ideas: science-fiction fans, skeptics, atheists, and others of that ilk. I don’t think I can do anything that would measurably nudge the larger population, who currently resoundingly reject or ignore transhumanist ideas; at least, as you put it, in my own timespan.
As an example, here’s a possible use case, at a science fiction convention: Someone drops a Dalek on their foot, and exclaims “Mort!”. A nearby conventioneer thinks, “‘Merde’?” and asks, “Are you French?” The swearer explains, “No, ‘Mort’ - death is obscene. Now where’s that sonic screwdriver?” The questioning conventioneer and any other bystanders are socially nudged, slightly, in the direction of anti-deathism, and might be a percentage point or so more likely to discover LW in the future; and the swearer has used an expletive to help manage pain. Everyone wins.
I don’t think that an anti-deathist swear word is going to make the general population any /less/ interested in cryonics, life-extension, etc.