Their ideology might be intellectually cowardly. But sacrificing your own life in battle against a perceived enemy is not a cowardly act. When people call the attacks cowardly, they’re talking about the attacks themselves, not the worldview of the attackers.
TuviaDulin
In all fairness, I think Islamic fundamentalists really do hate our freedom. They hate our entire way of life, and this freedom is a part of that.
Hating the freedoms of western society doesn’t preclude one from committing brave, selfless acts, though. Unfortunately for us.
I’m Tuvia Dulin, and I ended up on these forums after reading Harry Potter fanfiction. I suspect that this is a common story among the membership.
I’ve tried to be rational ever since I learned what rationality was, but it wasn’t until I suffered a psychotic episode that I learned what the true consequences of irrationality were. That was many years ago, and I have since completely recovered, but in some ways I’m glad for the experience; it taught me that without rationality, you have nothing dependable or sane.
I don’t have time to read all of those posts right this second (though I will over the next couple of days), but if you could just briefly explain how I’m misusing the word, that would be cool.
Yes, Tuvia Dulin is my born and legal name. When I need a pseudonym, I’m known as Blake Alexander Hannon.
“Mental illness” is a very broad category, and I’m not sure if my way of dealing with what happened to me would work for other disorders as well. I’ll talk about this at length when I have time; for now, I’m afraid I’ve got to run.
Is this thread the right place for asking when I can expect the next chapter by?
Just finished the existing chapters. I may have some fan art on the way.
During this “Self Actualization” story arc, yes, she’s going in that direction. I strongly suspect, however, that this will not last, and that lessons learned during her Gryffindor phase will help her grow as a character once she gets over it.
What I want to know is why Harry didn’t accuse Dumbledore and his staff of not doing enough to prevent bullying. I know I would have.
Ah. I guess its been too long. Which chapter was this?
While I understand the point you’re trying to make—and agree with it—I think your Yom Kippur analogy is flawed. The idea behind the litany is that we’re praying for forgiveness for the sins of all of mankind. Even if you, personally, have not stolen, there’s someone in the world who has, and you’re praying for him too. That’s why its worded in the plural (“we have stolen,” as opposed to “I have stolen”).
Just sayin’.
50 years of torture is going to ruin someone’s life. Dust specks and stubbed toes are not going to ruin anyone’s life, which makes the number of people with dust specks and stubbed toes irrelevant. That’s the threshold. You can’t multiply one to get to the other.
The amount humanity loses to a dust speck in someone’s eye is exactly 0, unless that person was piloting an aircraft or something and crashes because of it, which—based on my reading of the premise—doesn’t seem to be the case. A stubbed toe might cost more, but even that is only true if you treat humanity as an amorpheous, hiveminded mass rather than a group of individuals.
Ruining someone’s day is still on the other side of the threshold from ruining someone’s life. Now, if all the stubbed toes were going to happen to the same person, that would be different.
I guess I could say that the line is between being hurt, and being destroyed. The point at which I would start to look at the man being tortured as a preferable option is when the pain being suffered by the googolplex others would be bad enough to cause serious financial, social, or physical damage to each of them as individuals. That’s the line.
You’re making it sound like all humans share a single consciousness and pool their life experiences. Every human has a different life, a different consciousness. Totalling the value of a second from any number of humans can never equal the value of a human lifetime, because you won’t have caused any serious problems for any person.
X = losing a finger. Y = losing a hand.
Losing a finger is traumatic and produces chronic disfigurement and loss of some manual dexterity, but (as long as it isn’t a thumb or index finger) it isn’t going to truly handicap someone. Losing a hand WILL truly handicap someone. I would rather everyone lose a finger than one person lose a hand.
Actually, let’s make it closer. X = losing a finger, Y = losing a thumb. My answer would still be the same. Missing a finger isn’t a huge setback. Missing a thumb is.
Well, if those 3^^^^3 people being crippled for a month is going to shut down the galactic economy, then torturing someone for fifty years is preferable. If we’re just taking the suffering of one person who broke his leg, then had 3^^^^3 other people endure the same thing in ISOLATION (say each of the leg-breakers lives in a different parallel universe and thus no society has to give more than one month’s worth of worker’s compensation), on the other hand, I would rather have everyone break their legs.
Three months of torture is enough to cause immense and longlasting psychological scarring. Ten years out of your life is something that changes the course of a person’s life. I would rather someone be tortured for fifty years than have either of the above happen to a large number of people.
I think your choice of broken leg is pretty much exactly at the threshold. I can’t think of anything worse than that that wouldn’t stand a good chance of ruining someone’s life.
People would sacrifice their lives for it. However, would that choice be rational? Especially if we consider the likelihood that a war with the aliens might result in massive civilian casualties? Fighting is only a good idea if winning puts you in a better position than you would otherwise be in.
Being willing to sacrifice your hand is noble, and I would probably do the same thing. But if you’re talking about someone ELSE’S hand, you need to look at what losing a finger really costs in life experience and working ability versus losing a hand.
Here’s another word problem for you.
There is a disease—painful, but not usually life threatening—that is rapidly becoming a pandemic. Medical science is not going to be able to cure the disease for the next several decades, which means that many millions of people will have to endure it, and a few dozen will probably die. You can find a cure for the disease, but to do so you’ll have to perform agonizing, ultimately lethal, experiments on a young and healthy human subject.
Do you do it?
Now, what I don’t get is why he let you force him to change his position. If he really believed that it was impossible for you to create AI, why wouldn’t he have just said “yes,” and then sit back, comfortable in his belief that you will never create an AI?