Thanksgiving prayer
Posted Nov 28, 2008 at 14:03 by denisbider
Last edited Nov 28, 2008 at 14:06 by denisbider
bias economy religion
Eliezer Yudkowsky:
And as she said this, it reminded me of how wrong it is to give gratitude to God for blessings that actually come from our fellow human beings putting in a great deal of work.
So I at once put my hands together and said,
"Dear Global Economy, we thank thee for thy economies of scale, thy professional specialization, and thy international networks of trade under Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage, without which we would all starve to death while trying to assemble the ingredients for such a dinner as this. Amen."
Showing 8 out of 8 comments, oldest first:
Comment on Dec 4, 2008 at 14:06 by Anonymous
I kinda love paradox of thanksgiving, native americans give first year food to immigrants. Next year immigrants give natives warm smallpox-infected blankets.
There were always problems with immigrants...
Comment on Dec 5, 2008 at 02:02 by denisbider
You have some valid knowledge and some invalid knowledge, and you seriously need to start working on weeding out the invalid parts.
You need to work on the consistency of your beliefs. So far, I'm seeing a load of junk, some good, some bad, but nothing consistent.
Comment on Dec 8, 2008 at 17:45 by Anonymous
On contrary, I think such a consistency in beliefs is weakness. I wouldn't say people who look most things from one constant angle are stupid, but they are much more limited then they imagine.
Is my "invalid" knowledge realy invalid, or just inconsistant with your set of beliefs? :)
Comment on Dec 9, 2008 at 00:04 by denisbider
In a harsher environment, you wouldn't survive the winter.
Comment on Dec 11, 2008 at 10:54 by Anonymous
Now, truth be told I don't think you are either an excellent or miserable judge of survival skills.
My remarks are sometimes incompatible and intended as such to point flawed logic you present your opinions with. My beliefs are quite separate thing.
Comment on Dec 11, 2008 at 18:04 by denisbider
It's not about your survival skills. It's about whether your model of reality has predictive value, i.e. whether it matches reality. Unless you believe in a capricious God who frequently acts arbitrarily, reality is self-consistent. Therefore, self-consistency is a necessary (but not adequate!) requirement in order for your model of reality to be accurate.
Faulty models of reality result in failure at tasks for which you rely on your model's predictions.
Comment on Dec 22, 2008 at 08:54 by Anonymous
I think that only if your model of reality “survives” look from at least two completely different points of view you can hope it is any good for being base of any more complicated decision.
Comment on Dec 22, 2008 at 19:41 by denisbider
If you mean evaluating a proposal based on all of its aspects, then yes, that certainly makes sense, ignoring aspects that matter leads to being bitten by the consequence.
But if you mean evaluating a proposal based on conflicting sets of values, then only the most neutral - i.e., useless - proposals can survive such "validation".
You first need to have a set of goals (values) which is not in conflict with itself. Then you can evaluate proposals consistently based on those values, being careful to take all considerations into account.
But it makes no sense to "evaluate" proposals based on other people's values, which you have already evaluated and dismissed as being in internal conflict, or being in conflict with yours.