Actually wanting to bang Anything That Moves is common enough: alien perverts are just over-represented in fiction, because it’s more terrifying for us humans.
I for one thought the plant story was a definite turn-on...
Actually wanting to bang Anything That Moves is common enough: alien perverts are just over-represented in fiction, because it’s more terrifying for us humans.
I for one thought the plant story was a definite turn-on...
I am in a situation that is practically the same as yours.
As an ex-child prodigy, I identify with the insecurities this thread is about. However, having studied Math at Colege for a year and a half, and having met there people who were so beyond my level that it heavily obstructed communication with them, that they were so far beyond my understanding they could have not been human for all it mattered, I can confidently say that my ambitions of genius-dom have been utterly crushed beyond repair. As I am, I will be very content to be a competent, respected engineer.
This said, I think Eleizer is protesting too much. You shouldn’t care how smart you are, only that you are getting your job done: that arrogance of yours needs some serious work, as you know, we know you know, etc. And it seems unfortunate in that regard that exposure to a large amount of far more brilliant minds than yours is an experience that you will have to go seriously out of your way to get, since that is probably the shortest, easiest way to humility.
If you find an alternate path that is not as bitter, please let us know.
If such an insitution is ever built, and it is what it claims to be (remember that all causes want to become cults), then, believe me, I’d send my children there as a top priority. Such a school should not be for geniuses only, but for the development of the teaching of the Methods of Rationality to all of humanity. To set an example to be followed by all who wish not to be left behind.
I remeber Aldous Huxley mentioning, in Brave New World Revisited, a similar project by some philantrope, who wished to make children immune to propaganda and manipulation. The authorities shut it down because, they said, it turned the teenagers and young adults too cynical and disobedient to Authority. For example, they were able to calmly analyze the Drill Sergeant’s speech as it was given. And obviously, we couldn’t have that, could we? I think such a project has considerably greater chances of success nowadays.
This is just a nitpick: according to The Other Wiki democratic constitutions are older than English kings, the most egregious example being The Solonian Constitution after reform by Cleisthenes, which codified Athenian “democracy”. Yes, I know, semantics.
Yudkowsky, is this where your Babyeating aliens from Three Worlds Collide come from?
Nitpicking: I don’t believe Muslims would fail to be humbled by such a man. A suicide bomber knows he is taking the easy way out of a life where he expects to succumb to sin (suicide bombers are usually notorious sinners [citation needed, I don’t remember where I read that]) by taking a path he was told would guarrantee him a place in Paradise (more importantly, away from Hell). To the likes of him, a man who does what Perry did, with the beliefs with which he did it, commands respect. Though I am purely speculating here: if those alledged Muslims are anything like, say, Fred Phelps, there is no telling whether they would adopt this perspective.
More importantly, while “Jesus dying forever” is not a valid hypothesis for them, you seem to be underestimating a Christian’s Willing Suspension Of Belief For The Sake Of Speculation.
Back when I was a Muslim, in my final stage right before stumbling on this place, which was the final catalyst for me turning Atheist, I had decided to disregard Sharia and even direct Qranic law in every point in which it conflicted with my consciousness. My reasoning was that either God would understand that due to the social and intellectual progress since the times of Muhammad and would accept my behaviour as obeying the spirit of the Law rather than the dead letter, OR that he was more similar to that Jehovah prick than I thought, which meant I didn’t care if such a despicable being would want to punish me eternally for this.
Of course, there isn’t anything heroic about that. It would just have meant disobeying Him in fairly standard ways that are already practiced by most alledged Muslims, such as not flaying adulterers, not cutting thieves’ hands, not forcing your wife to be an eternal minor under male tutelage, and so on. Except I had though about it and deliberately decided to violate God and the Prophet’s commands, unlike what other people did, which was merely Not Thinking About It.
Then I read Religion’s Claim To Be Non Disprovable among other things and thought: “If I’m going to favour my own principles AND empirical evidence OVER Word Of God, I might as well give up on religion entirely and save myslef much guilt and fear.”
We (cultural Muslim, I am still quite fond of Muhammad and Islamic cultural heritage) basically treat the OT and NT as very rough outlines of what happened canonically, because we believe priests have been distorting everything to fit their current interests. It’s tainted evidence, so to speak. So, while Allah (lit. “The [One] God”) and Jehovah may be the same person, they do not share the same personality. Allah is characterized much more of a “stric, but fair God”, and far less of a monster than Jehovah. He is also much more aloof, distant, and inhuman, almost an abstract concept rather than a “person”. I refer you to wikipedia if you are really interesting to learn more: I have found there articles that were enlightening even to me, and there is much there that the average fundamentalist muslim is not aware of.
Sorry if I am being redundant, I just can’t shake the feeling that my writing might have been a bit ambiguous in the original post: I must insist that all the corporeal punishing and the woman patronising are in fact NOT practiced by most Muslims, and the numbers of those who DO practice it are steadily diminishing as we speak. It’s just that people refuse to think about it. I, on the other hand, was determined to be a true, honest Muslim, regardless of convenience or social convention, as well as a good man, and that truly tore my heart apart.
The Bible might in fact contain a number of blatant scientific errors. That would be far more difficult to pull off with Muslims, since the Qran is far less error ridden (being incredibly ellyptic helps) and may in fact contain remarks that have turned out to be confirmed by Science, or so do most Muslims believe.
That and, well, God being alledgely omnipotent means he could have created the Universe five minutes ago, so the most you can say is that believing in Him and his Books is useless at best and misleading at worst.
Rational Thinking is a pretty nifty trick, all things considered.
Am I right in believing I have found the persons after which Michael Verres and Rationality!Hermione’s parents are largely modeled?
I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR MORE ABOUT YOUR MORE SOPHISTICATED DEATHISTS.
Why don’t they have Asscaps in this wiki/blog/forum?
Female rationalists are rare enough that I for one think we should proactively endeavour to attract them here, rather than thoughtlessly alienating them and then being baffled by the backlash of those who are interested enough in this blog to even care.
This is simply a case of confusing normative statements with descriptive ones. If we raise the sanity line enough, such misconceptions should vanish spontaneously.
I haven’t seen the link to that list. Care to repost it?
Only a Sith deals in absolutes!
… Sorry...
Why did I get downvoted ;_;
You know, back in the old days, before I jumped on the Lesswrong train, I would say I willed myself into believing in God. Because whether he existed or not didn’t change empirical conclusions: the world could have been created five minutes ago, intelligent design could have happened etc. etc.
But doing that made me angst and feel uneasy and there was something nagging at me. You know, those beliefs hurt, but it hurt even harder to get them out. I fought every inch for them. But when I lost, it was a relief, it felt like I had won.
One goes through life thinking one’s mistakes are unique to one, only to discover that they are much more common. Yet, I thought I was the only Muslim to force himself to belief like that. But I find that all of the Muslims I know, save perhaps one exception, follow this same pattern. And when I said: “I believe I will go to hell if I don’t believe in God, but I can’t bring myself into believing in God” they used to tell me “Do your five prayers, read then Qran, if you strive to get closer to God, God will get closer to you.” Needless to say, whenever I did that, it backfired: I only got more scared of hell (anyone here who has read the Qran will agree with me that the threats are very vivid) but less believing in God, because it just didn’t make sense that God be as he said he was and there be a Hell built after Judgement Day. Among other things.
I wonder if anyone ever fully analysed the Qran and all the resources it uses to tug at the feelings of the reader? I’ve started seeing some patters since I started reading this site, but I’d like to know if there is a full-blown, complete, exhaustive deconstruction of that book, that is not dripped in islamophobia, ethnocentrism, and other common failures I have seen in Western theologians when applied to Islam.
This reminds me of a horrible nightmare I had back in High School. It was the purest dream I had ever had: the world consisted of me, a sheet of paper, and a mathematical problem. Every time I got to the bottom of the problem, before starting to solve it, I went back up to make sure I had gotten it right… only to find it had CHANGED. That again, and again, and again, until I woke up, a knot in my stomach and covered in sweat.
To realize that this dream has an explanation based on neural architecture rather than on some fear of exams is giving me a weird, tingly satisfaction...