[ExI] About bullet-swallowing Re: Against the Empire

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 11:47 AM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> At 08:29 AM 5/19/2008 -0700, Jef wrote:
>
>>A worthwhile paper arguing against the widespread assumption of
>>ongoing evolutionary expansion, in contrast with the more general
>>imperative of ongoing evolutionary development.
>>
>>By Milan M. Cirkovic
>>
>><http://xxx.soton.ac.uk/abs/0805.1821>
>
> A contrary view, in reply, is Robin Hanson's blog entry url'd below,
> which draws upon his argument in YEAR MILLION (today is publication day):
>
> <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/biting-evolutio.html>

### Full agreement with Robin.

And I am also a libertarian Many-Worlder.

I hope this places me firmly in the bullet-swallower camp.

I would also think that being an atheist, and a cryonicist add to the
bullet-swallowing credentials.

I think that Aaronson (http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=326) doesn't
do us justice. We are not intellectual extremists, determined to
follow simple logic all the way to hell. What seems to be a common
thread among us is a certain deficiency, a failure of decorum. When
thinking about an issue we don't obsess about what others would think
about our thinking, our emotions don't give us dire warnings, and as a
result we are rudely awakened from our deliberations. "Heretic!",
"Bourgeois apologist!", they shout. We don't backtrack from what
should be to change our notions of what is, so we inevitably accept
the theory of evolution, and have no problem with the hell-branches of
the multiverse.

Eliezer encapsulated some of our essence when he mentioned that really
caring about the truth means being ready to go to school in a clown
suit.

Rafal