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Good grief that was a waste of time. This entire concept only works if time travel is possible and will be discovered in the future. It isn't, and it won't be.
TL,DR: Here is the thought experiment, 4th paragraph after 3 long paragraphs of stuff I didn't want to read. "What if, in the future, a somewhat malevolent AI were to come about and punish those who did not do its bidding? What if there were a way (and I will explain how) for this AI to punish people today who are not helping it come into existence later? In that case, weren’t the readers of LessWrong right then bein…
OT but IMO it's such a huge cost to the economy (and humanity) that marijuana is still taboo. The thought experiments that you describe, for me at least, are not only fun, but more often than not lead to practical, wealth-generating breakthroughs. I assume I'm not the only one. I hope one day historians and economists will study the lost opportunity costs of the prohibition / taboo nature of marijuana.
Politics, money, religion, and several other irrelevant factors keep it highly illegal.
It even has come to the point where states are ignoring federal law, so progress is happening thankfully.
Changing the leadership of the DEA would be helpful. Remove guns from the DEA and require them to use the FBI or local SWAT if a crime is bad enough to warrant a raid. "They might flush the evidence" is not a good enough reason to raid good peoples houses and suppress something that does far more good than harm. How many people have died from marijuana and how many people have died from a marijuana related DEA raid? Which is really more harmful to the country? Money seized should go towards public education, not directly to the law-enforcement agencies.
Is it off topic? We are talking about thought-experiments here, and your experience is normal for anyone with even a slightly scientific mind.
How is this more than a souped-up version of Pascal's wager? You better believe in God now because if you don't and he exists, you'll rot in hell.
How is this more than a souped-up version of Pascal's wager? You better believe in God now because if you don't and he exists, you'll rot in hell.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even considering telegraphs only input and output was clicks? No wireless, no converting the clicks to anything but words using Morse Code. Was it really reasonable back then to imagine wires running to every house? Electronic signals all around us providing data constantly? Today I can stand almost anywhere (ignoring cell coverage and different technologies required to use satellite phones) and talk to any other hum…
> Even considering telegraphs only input and output was clicks? It wasn't for very long. Remember Jules Verne "predicting" transmission of pictures over long distances? He almost certainly had either tried it, or at least knew about the contemporary commercial Pantelegraph telefax service that operated between Paris and Lyon from 1865. The first patent on telefax like devices dates to 1843. From 1881 onwards, an arra…
My original point was that the person I was replying to was saying the technological singularity (AI becoming smarter than humans or possibly taking over the universe) things were impossible, I was simply saying that because some people have trouble imagining advanced technologies doesn't mean that they are impossible.
Good grief that was a waste of time. This entire concept only works if time travel is possible and will be discovered in the future. It isn't, and it won't be.
When you subscribe to the idea that this could all be a sim, the whole thing results in mental contortions that are literally maddening.
Baudrillard observed not dissimilar in Simulacrum.
How is this more than a souped-up version of Pascal's wager? You better believe in God now because if you don't and he exists, you'll rot in hell.
Good grief that was a waste of time. This entire concept only works if time travel is possible and will be discovered in the future. It isn't, and it won't be.
I agree though, it's stupid.