[extropy-chat] stranger than fiction

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

Amara Graps wrote:
> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky :
> 
>> Truth isn't stranger than fiction, but sometimes it comes pretty close.
> 
> You might like this:
> 
> http://www.amara.com/stranger/str_fiction.html

You've got at least one fake item, from the Weekly World News.  (Not only 
that, it's marked "Weekly World News" in the byline.)  Triggering my 
suspicions was this text:  "The slide struck him in the worst possible 
place--the vulnerable spot just behind and below the left ear. Bone 
fragments pierced his brain, killing him instantly."

I like News of the Weird's new feature where they have three true items and 
one made-up item.  Like I always say, the measure of your strength as a 
rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. 
  It's a good test of my ability to see if I can spot the most confusing 
item.  I'm proud to say I spotted the Weekly World News item as fake before 
I noticed the byline, and that I went back and searched and didn't find any 
others.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence