81–90 of 240 posts
Ayn Rand, for her development of Aristotelian philosophy (normative ethics, hierarchical nature of knowledge, theory of concept formation)
From the guidelines: "Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."
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I find it a little odd that you think Aubrey de Grey is crazy but Eliezer Yudkowsky isn't, given that EY is a vocal supporter of de Grey's research and claims that we'll live forever for considerably more speculative reasons than any that de Grey asserts. Any explanation of the distinction other than that EY is probably reading this comment and that de Grey probably isn't?
The answer to your query is that I confess a blazing ignorance of EY. Basically, the only people that buy the whole load of nonsense are folks that desperately want to live forever, like my ex (who regularly makes donations to fund longevity research). Aging isn't a disease, because lifespan is something which is subject to evolutionary pressure. Our lifespans are what they are because they evolved to be that way. It…
Jesus, because the world would be a better place if we were more like him.
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He was also responsible for the Tiananmen Square massacre. Even as communist regimes were falling around the world, he ordered tanks and troops to gun people down for wanting reform in China, extinguishing any hope for civil or human rights in China for decades to come.
China has continued to become much more free since 1989. The comparison with Russia or the East European states is particular interesting, because China's growth rates have been much better. As for Tienanmen, every single mob revolution in the history of the world has caused far more deaths than the number of people who died at Tienanmen. Imagine how many millions of lives would have been saved if Louis the XVI had a…
Had Louis XVI acted in the same way as Deng, continental Europe may still be under the heel of absolute monarchism today, with all the stupid pointless wars that entails. The French Revolution was a step forward for humanity, no matter how messy it was.
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I find it a little odd that you think Aubrey de Grey is crazy but Eliezer Yudkowsky isn't, given that EY is a vocal supporter of de Grey's research and claims that we'll live forever for considerably more speculative reasons than any that de Grey asserts. Any explanation of the distinction other than that EY is probably reading this comment and that de Grey probably isn't?
The answer to your query is that I confess a blazing ignorance of EY. Basically, the only people that buy the whole load of nonsense are folks that desperately want to live forever, like my ex (who regularly makes donations to fund longevity research). Aging isn't a disease, because lifespan is something which is subject to evolutionary pressure. Our lifespans are what they are because they evolved to be that way. It…
That's incorrect. Our genes don't care if they carry on by reproduction or by living longer in a single individual, but we care. How a body ages after reproductive age is in an evolutionary blind spot. Individuals with mutations that promote longer life aren't passing those genes on so the selective pressure if very small.
We don't have a clock that runs out of time. We just keep accumulating long-lived damage (misfolded proteins, advanced glycation endproducts, etc) until its enough to cause pathologies, from which we eventually die.
You are not the cells that you were a few years ago. Most have been replaced. But there are certain types of damage that your body can't fix, which is where an engineering approach could come in (for example, say we could have a vaccine that would make your body target beta amyloids in your brain, so you'd clear those misfolded proteins before they accumulate enough to give you alzheimer's).
Jesus, because the world would be a better place if we were more like him.
Hmmm. So imagine tomorrow everyone in the world started acting like Jesus. We all throw away our possessions, and wander around preaching to whoever would listen about being nice to each other. How long before everyone starved?
Gandhi. For being fearless _and_ inspiring an entire country to be fearless without a single weapon in hand. Think about it, it's nothing short of a miracle.
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Aubrey de Grey? You mean the crazy dude that tells people we're going to live forever without any evidence to support his claims? And Hofstadter, the guy who wrote that really dumb book? (Here I admit that I only read the introduction before being disgusted by his treatment with concept of things which are self referential. It's kind of a noob outlook to find something mind boogling about the fact that a mind can con…
I find it a little odd that you think Aubrey de Grey is crazy but Eliezer Yudkowsky isn't, given that EY is a vocal supporter of de Grey's research and claims that we'll live forever for considerably more speculative reasons than any that de Grey asserts. Any explanation of the distinction other than that EY is probably reading this comment and that de Grey probably isn't?
1) His work in the field of Artificial General Intelligence
2) His desire to see human rationality turned into something a bit more organized and easy to spread (see his post cycles at lesswrong.com).
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I totally agree with you on all counts. Except for the moral living part. It's establishment religious types that promote moralism-- Jesus' whole point is that your good works don't do jack squat.
Sola fide is a controversial stance, at best. Consider James 2:26, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."
Talk about an understatement! The Protestant Reformation is one of those things that has had such a tremendous impact on the world that I think it might be impossible to imagine the world without it (I only spent a few minutes just now trying, though)