[ExI] The Meaning That Immortality Gives to Life

[Jef Allbright]

On 10/15/07, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15/10/2007, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/10/14/the-meaning-that-immortality-gives-to-life/
>
> Very good essay. Bizarre that one should need to spend rhetorical
> effort to make the point that BEING HIT ON THE HEAD WITH A BASEBALL
> BAT IS BAD.

Yes, an excellent essay. Thanks Eliezer!

In response to some of the subsequent comments however:

It's not bizarre at all that people commonly hold such partially
informed and passionately protected beliefs about aging and death,
religious authority, evolution, morality, or the primacy of the
first-person point of view.

Making a mockery of the target worldview, while attractive, is a
prescription for memetic failure in the bigger picture, unless one's
aim is to strengthen the in-group/out-group distinction.

While I agree with the simple statement that "being hit on the head is
bad", those who think it's all that simple and obvious might find it
edifying to consider the essential role of constraints in any process
of growth.

- Jef