<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">No, I am arguing that important problems may still be deferred to later. Fixing the sun's expansion into a red giant is important, but it would be stupid to reallocate resources used for pandemic readiness today into solving it. anders</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Ok, so Nick is rating as important problems that will likely occur in about 4 billion years. That's some planning ahead, I'd say.</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Another time, same driver, again too much beer for me, I happened to wake up and see a restaurant passing by that we'd passed twice before - about 3 a.m. </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Oh yes, if probability means anything at all, I should have died in a car wreck numerous times, with that guy or myself driving. Solution: got caught for driving under influence, spent the night on the jail floor, and quit drinking and driving. In fact, I quit drinking at all - decades after I should have. For me it was a positive feedback loop: each drink dulls the inhibition so that another drink seems a good idea - like priming the pump and disabling the shutoff valve.</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">As far as dodging death, I am an outlier, even if you <i>don't</i> count two cancers! "Oh what a lucky man he was." Elton John </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">bill w</span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 3:02 PM, Anders <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:anders@aleph.se" target="_blank">anders@aleph.se</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"><span class="">
On 2016-07-09 17:25, William Flynn Wallace wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><br>
<div class="gmail_default">A good
article. However, it does not explain the apparent paradox of
labeling a problem 'important' and then saying it does not
deserve to be solved. </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
No, I am arguing that important problems may still be deferred to
later. Fixing the sun's expansion into a red giant is important, but
it would be stupid to reallocate resources used for pandemic
readiness today into solving it. <br><span class="">
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Once I woke up in a car, after overindulging in
beer, and found that we were going very fast down a lonely
road. So I asked and he said that he was lost, and that his
theory was to go as fast as he can so that he will find out
sooner if he is going the wrong way. Fits right in to your
article. I did solve the problem by looking out the windows,
seeing the Big Dipper in the back window, and telling the driver
that we were going South - which was wrong.</div>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
Figuring out where one should be going before spending effort going
forward is rational. In a car it might not be too costly to drive a
few miles wrong and maybe time is precious, but given the nonzero
danger of driving fast in unknown areas at night your friend
probably made a bad cost/benefit calculation. <br>
<br>
The more costly mistakes or wasted effort (typically because of
opportunity costs) are, the more effort it is rational to put into
planning where one should go. <br><span class="">
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University</pre>
</span></div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
extropy-chat mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br></div>