From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Jun 15 2003 - 17:51:35 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> One bad thing about not giving lip-service in the denunciation
> of Hitler (or whoever), is that it creates doubt in the minds
> of the other side about where one stands. Yet sometimes---when
> I do pay such lip service---some will think that I am posturing
> or not being true to form! (How can we win?)
By being rational. To thine own self be Bayesian. This is the only win
you will ever get.
> Well, we should inspect the tiny kernel of truth in such charges,
> if any such truth there be. For example, I had difficulty *while
> the war was on* (a brief time indeed), not thinking of American
> dissenters as treasonous---I even provided definitions of "treason".
> This, IMO, *should* give rise to sincere questions about patriotism
> and loyalty, and what roles they truly ought to play, according to
> the visions of the various posters. Thankfully, such discussions
> have taken place, (and I'm even still interested in the topic, though
> perhaps that should warrant a separate thread).
I have marked patriotism and loyalty as "considered harmful" since before
the age of sixteen. I have seen nothing within the recent debacle on the
Extropian mailing list that leads me to reconsider this. "Patriotism
switches on, brain switches off" appears to be the rule. I shall side
with the right whether it be this country or another. Patriotism cannot
help, can only hinder, in computing this. If America is right then
America is right whether I had been born American or French. If America
is wrong then America is wrong whether I had been born British or Iraqi.
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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