[extropy-chat] Re: Recipe for Destruction - Joy/Kurzweil NYTimes Op-Ed

Russell Wallace russell.wallace at gmail.com
Wed Oct 19 01:30:44 UTC 2005


On 10/19/05, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
> The trouble is that you are very short on the how this can be
> accomplished.


I did say, did I not, that an antisocial and uncharismatic guy who sits in a
basement writing code is not the person to draw up marketing plans? :)

I'm rather long, however, on how to at least stop actively damaging the
chances of this being accomplished. And that's what this boils down to: if
you (plural) can't help, at least stop doing harm.

This is where we really need Eliezer Yudkowsky to write one of his posts
that summarize the matter with clarity that nobody else could accomplish
with a thousand times as many words. I'm no Eliezer, but I'll try:

Your (plural) instincts are telling you, someone is saying things that might
be in support of a position you oppose, so come up with heartfelt arguments
as to why this is wrong. They're telling you that because that was the right
survival strategy for your genes in a hunter-gatherer tribe of 200 people
where being a great-grandparent meant getting to the top of the pecking
order. In modern times, they're a deadly liability. If you're a rationalist,
please try to see through this and turn off the switch long enough to
realize that arguments about why it's okay to publish this or that _don't
matter_. Then ask someone who knows about marketing and politics (not me,
please, I'd rather bow out of this discussion at this stage anyway) the best
way to move forward.

- Russell
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20051019/39e96a75/attachment.html>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list