I took the census. My answers for MWI and Ailens were conditional on ¬Simulation, since if we are in a simulation where MWI doesn’t hold, the simulation is probably intended to provide information about a universe in which MWI does hold.
endoself
Karma: 1,977
Most people would rather die than think; many do.
– Bertrand Russell
Of course, he would have two sockpuppets, to quell suspicion of the first one.
9805a0c7bf3690db25e5753e128085c4191f0114
Constant vigilance!
There’s a very plausible common cause. Humans likely developed the traits that allowed them to easily invent agriculture during the last glacial period. The glacial period ended 10 000 years ago, so that’s when the climate became amenable to agriculture.
It’s not valid as a deductive argument, but it is Bayesian evidence in favour of naturalism. Also, the details of the observed effects of brain damage provide even more for naturalism rather than nonnaturalism.
About the same.
Even when contrarians win, they lose: Jeff Hawkins
Make it possible to search a single user’s posts.
I don’t want to train readers to unhide things by default just because they might miss intelligent conversation in subthreads
Another way of doing this would be a five second delay to unhide hidden comments. Waiting isn’t fun and it prevents hyperbolic discounting from magnifying the positive reinforcement of reading something that someone doesn’t want you to read.
Yvain’s Parable of the Heartstone is by far the best explanation of metaethics that I have read. (I am actually surprised how much better I find it than other explanations. Does anyone know of something of similar quality that addresses the same things?)
No/not particularly
Giving more money to the very poor raises the prices of the goods that the lower middle class buys.
I don’t think most people think about this sort of economics.
After finishing dinner, Sidney Morgenbesser decides to order dessert. The waitress tells him he has two choices: apple pie and blueberry pie. Sidney orders the apple pie. After a few minutes the waitress returns and says that they also have cherry pie at which point Morgenbesser says “In that case I’ll have the blueberry pie.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives
Yes
Decreased significantly.
The comments have become significantly farther apart. Too much scrolling is required to read them.
I’m not sure what quantum mechanics has to do with this. Say humanity is spread over 10 planets. Would you rather take a logical 9⁄10 chance of wiping out humanity, or destroy 9 of the planets with certainty (and also destroy 90% of uninhabited planets to reduce the potential for future growth by the same degree)? Is there any ethically relevant difference between these scenarios?
The problem with that is that people here aren’t familiar with many of the concepts. For example, I like Hume’s work on the philosophy of science, but I’m not a philosopher and I have no idea what it means for a position to be Humean or non-Humean. I think more people would answer without really understanding what they are answering than would take the time to figure out the questions.
I have not yet accepted that consistency is always the best course in every situation. For example, in Pascal’s Mugging, a random person threatens to take away a zillion units of utility if you don’t pay them $5. The probability they can make good on their threat is miniscule, but by multiplying out by the size of the threat, it still ought to motivate you to give the money. Some belief has to give—the belief that multiplication works, the belief that I shouldn’t pay the money, or the belief that I should be consistent all the time—and right now, consistency seems like the weakest link in the chain.
No, no, no!
There are an infinite number of possible Pascal’s muggings, but people only look at them one at a time. Why don’t you keep the $5 in case you need it for the next Pascal’s mugger who offers you 2^zillion units of utility? That is a much better bet if you only look at those two possible muggings.
The real problem is that utility functions, as we calculate them now, do not converge. This is a reason to be confused, not a reason to bite such ridiculous bullets.
I took the survey.