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To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization.


Eliezer Yudkowsky

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Intelligence is the source of technology. If we can use technology to improve intelligence, that clo...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY You cannot 'rationalize' what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called 't...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY There's a popular concept of 'intelligence' as book smarts, like calculus or chess, as o...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I'm lazy! I hate work! Hate hard work in all its forms! Clever shortcuts, that's all I'm about!
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Univ...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY The Headmaster told Professor Flitwick that this was, indeed, a secret and delicate matter of which ...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow was the Final Dawn, the last sunrise before the Earth and Su...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY A scientist worthy of a lab coat should be able to make original discoveries while wearing a clown s...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Aside from helping people with their homework, or anything else they needed, she really didn't know ...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you thin...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Someday," said the Boy-Who-Lived, "when the distant descendants of Homo sapiens are looking back ove...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I CAN DO MAGIC! FEAR ME, LAWS OF PHYSICS, I'M COMING TO VIOLATE YOU!
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY ...there's something in science like the shine of the Patronus Charm, driving back all sorts of dark...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY You couldn't changed history. But you could get it right to start with. Do something differently the...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Something, somewhere, somewhen, must have happened differently...

PETUNIA EVANS married M...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY ...if you're unhappy whenever other people don't picture you exactly the same way you picture yourse...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Every mystery ever solved had been a puzzle from the dawn of the human species right up until someon...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY What people really believe doesn't feel like a BELIEF, it feels like the way the world IS.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY In what weird alternative universe would that girl NOT be Sorted into Ravenclaw? If Hermione Granger...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY - With respect, Professor McGonagall, I'm not quite sure you understand what I'm trying to do here.<...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY There is light in the world, and it is us!
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY To worship a sacred mystery was just to worship your own ignorance.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Not every change is an improvement but every improvement is a change; you can't do anything BETTER u...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I'm wondering if there's a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominou...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Trying and getting hurt can't possibly be worse for you than being... stuck.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how i...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star they won’t tell the chi...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkn...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I don't want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly organised.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY In a moral dilemma where you lost something either way, making the choice would feel bad either way,...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Sometimes Harry thought the deepest split in his personality wasn't anything to do with his dark sid...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Lies propagate, that's what I'm saying. You've got to tell more lies to cover them up, lie about eve...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Like that's the only reason anyone would ever buy a first-aid kit? Don't take this the wrong way, Pr...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Why does any kind of cynicism appeal to people? Because it seems like a mark of maturity, of sophist...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Boys," said Hermione Granger, "should not be allowed to love girls without asking them first! This i...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY When you are older, you will learn that the first and foremost thing which any ordinary person does ...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I only want power so I can get books.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligence - in the form of Artificial Intelli...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they u...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY The systematic experimental study of reproducible errors of human reasoning, and what these errors r...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Let the winds of evidence blow you about as though you are a leaf, with no direction of your own. Be...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Then you get the wrong answer and you can't go to the Moon that way! Nature isn't a person, you can'...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I have no great fondness for the universe, but I do live there
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If yo...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY An anthropologist will not excitedly report of a newly discovered tribe: 'They eat food! They br...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science, the very latest controversies, are worth rep...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY If you want to maximize your expected utility, you try to save the world and the future of intergala...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY If our extinction proceeds slowly enough to allow a moment of horrified realization, the doers of th...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Nothing you'll read as breaking news will ever hold a candle to the sheer beauty of settled scie...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I keep trying to explain to people that the archetype of intelligence is not Dustin Hoffman in '...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY The purest case of an intelligence explosion would be an Artificial Intelligence rewriting its own s...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY The human species was not born into a market economy. Bees won't sell you honey if you offer the...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY It's a most peculiar psychology—this business of 'Science is based on faith too, so there!' Typica...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I don't care where I live, so long as there's a roof to keep the rain off my books, and high...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Since the rise of Homo sapiens, human beings have been the smartest minds around. But very shortly -...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY The purpose of a moral philosophy is not to look delightfully strange and counterintuitive or to pro...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they un...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for s...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curi...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think control...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY He wanted to write someone and demand a refund on his dark side which clearly ought to have irresist...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Stupidity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Textbook science is beautiful! Textbook science is comprehensible, unlike mere fascinating words tha...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY In our skulls, we carry around 3 pounds of slimy, wet, greyish tissue, corrugated like crumpled toil...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY The obvious choice isn't always the best choice, but sometimes, by golly, it is. I don't sto...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY You can never have enough books. But you certainly tried. It was a really, really, really good try.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY The voices of cold reason were talking, as usual, to deaf ears.
ELLIS PETERS Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
BERTRAND RUSSELL Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’...
AYN RAND To be, or not to be, that is the question.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Many people may be heartbroken, but not enough to take action.
CRAIG GROESCHEL It's good to be clever, but not to show it.
PROVERB It's good to be clever, but not to show it.
FRENCH PROVERB To be or not to be. That's not really a question.
JEAN-LUC GODARD God is clever, but not dishonest.
ALBERT EINSTEIN On your quest to spirituality it is often required to suspend your rationality; but true spiritualit...
STEVE MARABOLI I know now: what is is all that matters. Not the thing you know is meant to be, not what could be, n...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS Do I have the courage of being a ruthless man to myself with the complete knowledge on my manner or ...
FEREIDOON YAZDI Not necessarily someone who is clever he was wise, but if someone is wise he definitely clever
MARSIANO REVALL The government was not happy with the level of competition existing in the fixed line market and som...
FRANCIS CHEUNG Rationality is not one of this industry's attributes.
SCOTT HAMILTON Integrity is not everything, but it is the only thing that matters.
JEFFREY FRY The strangest thing about the low quality of Internet argument is that effective argument isn't ...
BARRY EISLER Clever, but not grotesque,
CHRIS ADAMS To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don't be.
GOLDA MEIR To be mad is worse than not to be if this is what it is.
JOHNNY RICH Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy

"To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to re...
HENRY N. BEARD To be or not to be isn't the question. The question is how to prolong being.
TOM ROBBINS PEACE IS THE OBJECTIVE TO WAR, BUT THE BLOOD RUNNETH STILL
NATALIE URQUIETA Rationality will not save us.
ROBERT S. MCNAMARA Rationality is not one of this industry's attributes.
SCOTT HAMILTON It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.
FANNIE HURST It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.
FANNIE HURST It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to
FANNIE HURST In everything one thing is impossible: rationality.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE How much of this is post facto rationalization?
DAVID SHULMAN The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion, but rather to know it.
ANDRE MAUROIS The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know it.
ANDRE MAUROIS

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Intelligence is the source of technology. If we can use technology to improve intelligence, that clo...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY You cannot 'rationalize' what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called 't...
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY There's a popular concept of 'intelligence' as book smarts, like calculus or chess, as o...
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ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Univ...
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ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY There is light in the world, and it is us!
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY To worship a sacred mystery was just to worship your own ignorance.
ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY Not every change is an improvement but every improvement is a change; you can't do anything BETTER u...
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