[extropy-chat] Yehuda Yudkowsky, 1985-2004

[Kevin Freels]

>
> > What would it be like to be a rational atheist in the fifteenth century,
> > and know beyond all hope of rescue that everyone you loved would be
> > annihilated, one after another, unless you yourself died first?  That is
> > still the fate of humans today; the ongoing horror has not changed, for
all
> > that we have hope.  Death is not a distant dream, not a terrible tragedy
> > that happens to someone else like the stories you read in newspapers.
>

Take any century prior to this one. I often wonder if that isn't exactly
what happened with Alexander, Genghis Khan,  or more recently, Hitler and
Stalin. History is full of such people. They may have simply went nuts after
thinking this through and finding that there was nothing they could do and
that life did not matter. Fortunately we are now on the verge of the ability
to put an end to this. Now is the time to push dorward, not give up.