From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 18:07:43 MDT
This is an interesting idea. I think it has a degree of truth to it,
although it is not complete. If I have an idea about biorobotics I would
probably email it, saying something like "Maybe Robert can tell us if
this is likely to work..." or even directly posing it as a question to
you. But there is also an inhibitory component, especially to people who
are post-newbies but not yet feel at home enought to dare bother
luminaries (the same happens at conferences too).
But I doubt it is a major contributor to the vaunted list quality
problem. I'm starting to think that the *real* cause is that we have a
bad success / aspiration ratio. It is not that we are unsuccessful, but
that we expect to be *far more* successful! As our aspirations go to
infinity, our list-self-esteem goes to zero. This is why I think
considering this list as an intellectual salon helps: reduce the
aspiration to a more manageable level, and people get encouraged by a
better list-self-esteem to do things.
On Sun, Jul 20, 2003 at 09:57:58AM -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> Over time, it would appear to me that people get to know the
> list participants sufficiently that a self-imposed behavioral
> framework develops...
>
> a) Never open a debate with Eliezer on topics related to AI;
> b) Never open a debate with Anders on Ethics (and perhaps a
> host of other topics);
> c) Never open a debate with Robin on Economics or Physics;
> d) Never open a debate with Mike on freedom or liberty;
> e) Never open a debate with Spike on rocket science,
> motorcycles or prime numbers,
> f) Never open a philisophical debate with a whole host of people;
> etc.
>
> Such debates might be of interest (educational value) to the
> average list member but the probability that your horse is
> going to get tripped up before it even gets out of the gate
> is so high (for the individual proposing the debate) that
> makes it a relatively worthless effort to even bring it
> to the track.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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