Off Topic
What is the next number in the sequence 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 23, 30, 33?
damn that 30, i can’t think of any valid hypothesis that includes that.
Jello_Raptor
Karma: 61
Well, the question is how to spin it as medical care.
As I see it the political biases are very deep and pernicious, firstly there ‘s there right, with its view of a god given natural order, and how breaking free of that is an affront to any such entity. Then there’s the woo laden portions of the left, which take a distinctly non-reductionist view of the world, accepting things like homeopathy and whatnot. Speaking from experience, a lot of people with that worldview have two major roadblocks to accepting cryonics, firstly a steadfast belief that ‘natural == good’ and a distinctly dualist view of consciousness. (how those translate into not liking cryonics is an exercise for the reader :P )
The big problem with any marketing campaign, is that is will trigger the ire/disdain/revulsion of these groups, and neither of them are known for being quiet. Coupled with the fact that both groups are quite susceptible to fads …
Really, there’s a significant risk that any marketing campaign will leave cryonics (and possibly rationalism) worse off culturally, due to the backlash, and the already low status if the idea.
There is a way around this though. One way to lift a low status idea is by associating it with a high status group. So what sort of group can we attach it to? Well, first let’s see how we can evangelize here without trouble, it’s partly our small size, but mainly because LW selects for the sort of people who’d like the idea anyway.
Now we’re too small to have status, so yeah associating cryonics with us wouldn’t help. But when thinking of groups that both have high status and have a probable friendly disposition to cryonics, one in particular comes to mind (i’m sure there are others though) googlers.
Now, people who work at google are preselected in a way that probably corresponds favorably to rationality. Google also has money, provides the people who work there with insurance, and there’s good evidence that Larry Page has a distinctly singularitarian/transhumanist leaning.
I’d say we’re likely to get more cultural cachet for cryonics if google were to quietly insert a little opt-in cryonics insurance checkbox on their insurance forms, than from a more direct marketing campaign. I mean, even keeping it quiet the word of it will leak, and it’ll prompt a discussion among the tech business aware. There’ll be little media backlash from the religious right and silly left, because it’s all too easy to dismiss it as “silly geeks doing their silly geek things”.
Anyway that’s my probably silly take on this. Feel free to rip it to shreds ^_^
Edit: Erm, i forgot to answer my “How to spin it as medical care?” opening … oops. Oh well, i’m too tired to fix it.
P.S. Alicorn: I’ve been reading your fiction, it’s quite good :)
ncevy sbbyf, tbbg wbo fubpxjnir.
To boot, I would be very surprised if people elected politicians who hadn’t submitted to the lie detector after it had the cultural time to sink in.
People with foresight would work very hard to discredit it before that happened though.
I think this is doubly emphasized by the bit where Draco struggles to rephrase his thoughts without using “Harry words”, but given that the fic is meant as an evangelizing platform for rationality it makes me wonder whether there’s a good way to lessen the turnoff of such speech.
Ideally we’d have Hermione and Draco speaking the same ideas in a more colloquial fashion, but that would seem forced in all of the ways I can imagine it being done.
On the other hand, if it is there (a highly unlikely situation) it would be immense evidence that it wasn’t Dumbledore, or at the very least that it was an accident of some sort.
But this is mostly useless speculation given what we know.
Snape is suitably evil, smart, and with reason to hurt … Harry (after their talk about James Potter), …
See, I have trouble with that, mainly because it’s been established that he’s still in love with Lily Potter (which is why Harry’s advice was so cutting), and hurting her only son would fall counter to that.
Well, given that we’re discussing alternatives to Quirrelmort, that doesn’t quite apply.
I’d be willing to wager that in MORverse Quirrelmort could imperius even Mc Gonnagal.
Point, though wanting to curb bullying, and end the racism amounts to nearly the same thing as wanting to redeem Slytherin.
… Can we get the weasly brothers to do it?
Also if Harry is taken off campus for the trail wouldn’t that be at odds with Dumbledore’s intention to keep him safe?
He’s more than capable of defending himself, and given that he’s probably keyed into the wards at a level just below McGonnagal , it would be a huge security hole if he was easily imperiused.
This is why we need subreddits on this site.
Good catch, that is definitely making my trope sense tingle.
Snape’s plotting here is interesting, but I’m not sure what he is actually trying to accomplish.
Quick rundown of what we know:
Snape was the one who sent Hermione the notes on where to find bullies.
Snape destroyed those notes when asked to look for them.
He went through great efforts to obliviate everyone at SPHEW’s final battle.
Snape had a conversation with Quirrel where he had his ass handed to him. (either he was stupid when dealing with Quirrel, or wanted Quirrel to think he was stupid)
He is probably working outside of Dumbledore’s ordersl, and is definitely hiding things from Dumbledore.
After the SPHEW girls kept on winning he stopped the Slytherin bullies from advancing any farther.
So I suspect a few things:
Snape was the one who was forcing the repeated escalation of the SPHEW situation
Snape is actually working to help Harry somehow. (Because of his love for Lily)
Snape is not nearly so biased against muggleborns as he pretends to be. (Remember Lily was a muggleborn)
Snape is trying to restore the reputation of Slytherin house in much the same way as Harry. (He’s cutting down on bullying and is, in a way consistant with his character, making the hatred of muggleborns look stupid)
Now, if we ascribe his love for Lily as his primary motivation (Which “Sunk Costs” seems to support) , his support of Hermione, and his plotting to restore the reputation of Slytherin makes sense. What I don’t understand is why he needs to hide this from Dumbledore. Even if his motivations are counter to those of Dumbledore (I.E. He’s actually evil), all of these actions would cement Dumbledore’s trust in him. I can think of a few possible reasons:
Dumbledore thinks Hogwarts needs an evil racist Slytherin.
Dumbledore is a control freak and any plots that are not his are to be distrusted. (Seriously, this is Hogwarts, ancestral home of the gambit pileup)
Dumbledore doesn’t have the best interests of Hogwarts in mind.
Dumbledore would think that Snape’s methods (Making Slytherin look stupid in its current form, and hurting little girls in the process) are wrong.
Dumbledore is insane. (Like a pie)
None of these are particularly satisfying or convincing, hence why i’m throwing the question out there.
Edit: People have repeatedly pointed out that Snape’s attachment to Lily was either broken or reduced by Harry’s analysis of the situation, and that Snape’s kiss in Sunk Costs was a reflection of that, and I can’t help but agree.
Aye, not that the general idea “hijack the various stupidities of the human mind to spread raltionality/science” is itself bad, but i think this particular implementation is dubious.
Mostly because science is something anyone can do without the support of a central authority. Having a central authority and secrecy just invites people to betray it for the quick cash that one gets from a tell all memoir. Maybe we could hijack scarcity effects by actively changing the culture. Change the message to something like “Science is really hard, and you Mr.RandomPerson can’t do it. The only people who can do anything of real scientific import are geniuses”. (Yes yes this idea is probably crap) Somehow make science the realm of respectable elites, while turning rationality into something more akin to common sense. (Please don’t make a joke about common sense being uncommon, we’ve all heard it)
Wait, I can’t find this discussion and I am very interested, mind linking it?
I tried to attend, and couldn’t get in :/
Nah, where’s the fun in that? ;)