I spent half this story going, “Okay… so where’s the point… good story and all, but what’s the lesson we learn...”
Then I got to the end, and was completely caught off guard. Apparently I haven’t internalized enough of the ideas in Eliezer’s work yet, because I really feel like I should have seen that one coming, based (in hindsight) on his previous writings.
I can’t say that I’ve understood everything in the series on QM, but it has been immensely useful for me in beginning to understand it. And, in general, most of what I’ve read of OB I’ve found useful—especially the comments, because I find myself “catching up” with a lot of these ideas, and I have a tendency when I’m catching up to the ideas of someone more intelligent than me to not find fault where I would if I had a better grasp of the ideas. Though I’m still not very far along on the path to being a rationalist, I know that it’s a path I’ve been trying to walk my whole life, despite the fact that much of it was spent stumbling and tripping through religion, popular politics, and arguments that were more about proving who was “right” rather than finding out what was right. I’m glad to have found yet another resource for walking the path, especially one as useful as this one. I haven’t commented here before, but I just thought I’d toss in that I really appreciate the writing you do here (and yours as well, Robin) and I’m glad that I stumbled across this blog.