Re: Protective coloration, was Re: Boy Genius or Craft Idiot?

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sat May 31 2003 - 14:01:03 MDT

  • Next message: Jef Allbright: "Re: Boy Genius or Craft Idiot?"

    Olga Bourlin wrote:
    >
    > If the comment, "I believe I was given a special gift from God" is *not*
    > arrogant, then what is? This kind of reminds me when a plane crashes where
    > (i.e.) 199 people die and one person survives, the survivor usually says,
    > "It's a miracle! God saved *me!*" God always get the credit (one
    > survivor), but never the blame (199 deaths). Each one of us (although
    > irreplaceable and exceedingly precious to ourselves and to those who love
    > us) is one little monkey in 6,000,000,000+ (and counting). To believe any
    > one of us is any more "special" to some supernatural unseen unknowable
    > nonexistent nonbeing-with-a-mean-streak is at the very least little goofy,
    > and indubitably arrogant. In short, the unfortunate (but right on) phrase
    > "get over yourself" comes to mind ...

    Er... leaving aside the question of why someone else's attitude should
    even anger you in the first place: any person not already a signed and
    sealed rationalist, who walks out the sole survivor of a train crash that
    killed 199 other people, can be forgiven for wondering whether something
    strange is going on. If you are a naive statistician, it requires no
    great bias toward self-importance - it is only natural - to look at the
    smoking wreckage and say to yourself: "What the heck?" I see no reason
    why the same train of thought should not honestly occur to a 13-year-old
    who finds himself graduating college.

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


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