[ExI] Favorite ~H+ Movies

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky sentience at pobox.com
Sat Jun 23 06:05:36 UTC 2007


Russell Wallace wrote:
>     Russell Wallace wrote:
>      > Slayers
> 
> Rationality. The heroes didn't go "oh, who can say what will occur, let 
> us just meditate on transcendental truth", they went "right, this is a 
> bloody bad situation, screw the this is fate thing, let's figure out 
> what's rationally the best course of action."

No one did that except Xellos.  Certainly not Ms. Existential Risk.

> Granted, a stretch. I plead sloppiness (I wasn't thinking too clearly at 
> the time), but at the same time, a core of truth (I'm not ashamed of 
> having included it in the list).

Hey, y'know, you also have the option against zapping it off the list 
instead of stretching.  No law against changing your mind.

There really aren't many characters in fiction, period, who actually 
react reasonably to the galactic superthreat of the month - who think 
anything like what like you or I would think in that situation. 
Lawrence Watt-Evans's characters are the only ones I can think of 
offhand who seem to go through anything like a rational reasoning process.

Oh, and: Geneshaft.  It wasn't very good, but it seemed detectably 
transhumanist-themed.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



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