Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge. Eliezer Yudkowsky More Quotes by Eliezer Yudkowsky More Quotes From Eliezer Yudkowsky Moore's Law of Mad Science: Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point. Eliezer Yudkowsky mad law science You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in. Eliezer Yudkowsky ethical responsible becoming Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them. Eliezer Yudkowsky darkness bravery faces Litmus test: If you can't describe Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage and explain why people find it counterintuitive, you don't know enough about economics to direct any criticism or praise at "capitalism" because you don't know what other people are referring to when they use that word. Eliezer Yudkowsky criticism law people Remember, if you succeed in everything you try in life, you're living below your full potential and you should take up more difficult or daring things. Eliezer Yudkowsky full-potential succeed trying By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it. Eliezer Yudkowsky artificial-intelligence danger people There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to! WE care! There IS light in the world, and it is US! Eliezer Yudkowsky stars law sky Crocker's Rules didn't give you the right to say anything offensive, but other people could say potentially offensive things to you, and it was your responsibility not to be offended. This was surprisingly hard to explain to people; many people would read the careful explanation and hear, "Crocker's Rules mean you can say offensive things to other people." Eliezer Yudkowsky responsibility mean people If dragons were common, and you could look at one in the zoo - but zebras were a rare legendary creature that had finally been decided to be mythical - then there's a certain sort of person who would ignore dragons, who would never bother to look at dragons, and chase after rumors of zebras. The grass is always greener on the other side of reality. Which is rather setting ourselves up for eternal disappointment, eh? If we cannot take joy in the merely real, our lives shall be empty indeed. Eliezer Yudkowsky zebras disappointment zoos The police officer who puts their life on the line with no superpowers, no X-Ray vision, no super-strength, no ability to fly, and above all no invulnerability to bullets, reveals far greater virtue than Superman - who is only a mere superhero. Eliezer Yudkowsky superhero vision police Trying and getting hurt can't possibly be worse for you than being... stuck. Eliezer Yudkowsky effort hurt courage Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think controls you more than thoughts you speak aloud. Submit yourself to ordeals and test yourself in fire. Relinquish the emotion which rests upon a mistaken belief, and seek to feel fully that emotion which fits the facts. Eliezer Yudkowsky fire facts thinking The people I know who seem to make unusual efforts at rationality, are unusually honest, or, failing that, at least have unusually bad social skills. Eliezer Yudkowsky effort skills people When you are older, you will learn that the first and foremost thing which any ordinary person does is nothing. Eliezer Yudkowsky doe ordinary firsts You cannot rationalize what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called truthization. There is no way to obtain more truth for a proposition by bribery, flattery, or the most passionate argument - you can make more people believe the proposition, but you cannot make it more true. Eliezer Yudkowsky believe lying people I see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how it makes its victims complicit in their own destruction. Eliezer Yudkowsky sarcasm sarcastic hope To worship a sacred mystery was just to worship your own ignorance. Eliezer Yudkowsky sacred mystery ignorance I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it? Eliezer Yudkowsky fundamentals believe thinking The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else. Eliezer Yudkowsky hate doe love-you Most Muggles lived in a world defined by the limits of what you could do with cars and telephones. Even though Muggle physics explicitly permitted possibilities like molecular nanotechnology or the Penrose process for extracting energy from black holes, most people filed that away in the same section of their brain that stored fairy tales and history books, well away from their personal realities: Long ago and far away, ever so long ago. Eliezer Yudkowsky long-ago book reality
