Rationality Quotes Thread August 2015

can we have a moratorium on the suggestion that, in order to fix the system, “people have to get more involved”? This is not a solution, it is a restatement of the problem. (Saying that a problem requires massive, broad-based, spontaneous, decentralized collective action in order to be resolved is equivalent to saying that it cannot be resolved. We need to think institutionally about social problems.)

--Joseph Heath

ShanksTheTruthSeeker: "Back in the days, what motivated you to decide to cure aging ?"

Aubrey de Grey: "The correct question is, what the hell is wrong with everyone else that stops them from being motivated to cure aging? It's responsible for the overwhelming majority of global suffering. WTF?"

From a Reddit AMA.

So much of debate, including political and economic debate, is about which groups and individuals deserve higher or lower status.

Tyler Cowen

When something impossible happens, there are only two possibilities. Either your assumptions are wrong or you have gone crazy.

Psycho Pass S02E07

I think one of the most important rules of ethics is that you might be the baddies.

Ozymandias who links to this YouTube comedy clip.

The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.

Thomas Huxley, Collected Essays Volume 3 Science and Education A Liberal Education (p. 82)

To a first approximation, we care much more about whether theories are interesting than whether they are true

Fuck Nuance by Kieran Healy.

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.

Nietzsche in Daybreak: Reflections on Moral Prejudice.

http://www.lexido.com/EBOOK_TEXTS/DAYBREAK_.aspx?S=156

I wasn't aware of this quote at the time, but similar views were influential in my deconversion from Christianity. I decided that if I believed in God, that meant I needn't be afraid to subject that belief to fair tests of evidence or argumentation. In hindsight, I'm very grateful this was my view, unlike so many others I was lucky enough to avoid getting stuck in a stagnated belief system.

I now try to randomly change my priors every now and then, to the extent that I am able. I figure that either they'll repair themselves over time, or they weren't worth having in the first place. This means that I am less likely to get trapped in models at local maxima or to become stuck within any biasing cognitive finger traps. In addition to its utility as a tool, this emotionally involves a quite enjoyable sense of freedom for me. I don't have to be afraid of losing the truth, because reality is consilient. I highly recommend this technique for everyone here.

It is better to solve one problem five different ways, than to solve five problems one way

George Pólya, or at least attributed to him, as I am unable to find the exact source, despite its being widely quoted in texts related to mathematics education or problem solving in general.

If you’re doing it right -- if what you’re doing is real communication – you should be hearing NO a lot more than you used to. And some things should become more complicated than they were before.

The blog realsocialskills in an article titled Social Skills Considering Communication an Obligation

I am in competition with no one, I run my own race, I have no desire to play the game of being better than anyone, in any way, shape, or form. I just aim to improve, to be better than I was before. That's me and I'm free.

source, reminds me of this nike ad about measuring yourself on hours of hardwork, and ordinariness, and this other ad with Melo Anthony talking about being your A-game 24/7 (an ad that's really hard to find, but out there on youtube somewhere!)

Only in mathematics is it possible to demonstrate something beyond all doubt. When held to that standard, we find ourselves quickly overwhelmed.

-- Max Shron, Thinking with Data, O'Reilly 2014

Meta

I notice that recent -- all? -- rationality quotes threads have been in Main. Have they officially been demoted to Discussion?

We name things based upon how we feel about them. We also feel about things based on how we've named them ... Language manages attitude.

Ken White of Popehat

Aestheticized theory resembles these institutional spheres because connoisseurship thrives best in settings where judgment is frequent but measurement is hard.

Fuck Nuance by Kieran Healy.

The best material model of a cat is another, or preferably the same, cat.

Arturo Rosenblueth and Norbert Wiener, "The Role of Models in Science".

"But listen to me, because I saw it myself: science began poor. Science was broke and so it got bought. Science was scared and so did what it was told. It designed the gun and gave the gun to power, and power then held the gun to science's head and told it to make some more."

-- from Galileo's Dream, by Kim Stanley Robinson

I'm very fond of this bit by Robin Hanson:

A wide range of topics come up when talking informally with others, and people tend to like you to express opinions on at least some substantial subset of those topics. They typically aren’t very happy if you explain that you just adopted the opinion of some standard expert source without reflection, and so we are encouraged to “think for ourselves” to generate such opinions.

“Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the ‘someday I’ll’ philosophy.” -Denis Waitley google books

We lose information by adding detail.

Fuck Nuance by Kieran Healy.

all the things i've been most proud of are the things upon which the threshold I felt most afraid

-female actor with singing background in a Libra ad

Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.

– Naval Ravikant

Context: Randy has left his longtime girlfriend and now has a different girlfriend. They are a better match, but his old acquaintances are judgmental, with the following exception of one couple he knows:

Randy hadn't the faintest idea what these people thought of him and what he had done, but he could sense right away that, essentially that was not the issue because even if they thought he had done something evil, they at least had a framework, a sort of procedure manual, for dealing with transgressions.

To translate it into UNIX system administration terms (Randy's fundamental metaphor for just about everything), the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz, society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand everything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack.

They were, in other words, capable of displaying adaptability.

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

I don't think that religious beliefs are intrinsically necessary to this sort of functional moral adaptability. But I do like the illustration provided by it. Heuristics are sometimes valuable even when they cannot be straightforwardly applied, because they at least encourage certain semi-orderly patterns of response, allowing for failures to be more graceful and less chaotic.

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.

Nietzsche in Daybreak: Reflections on Moral Prejudice.

http://www.lexido.com/EBOOK_TEXTS/DAYBREAK_.aspx?S=156

I wasn't aware of this quote at the time, but similar views were influential in my deconversion from Christianity. I decided that if I believed in God, that meant I needn't be afraid to subject that belief to fair tests of evidence or argumentation. In hindsight, I'm very grateful this was my view, unlike so many others I was lucky enough to avoid getting stuck in a stagnated belief system.

I now try to randomly change my priors every now and then, to the extent that I am able. I figure that either they'll repair themselves over time, or they weren't worth having in the first place. This means that I am less likely to get trapped in models at local maxima or to become stuck within any cognitive finger traps. I highly recommend it to everyone, since in addition to its utility as a tool, it emotionally involves a quite enjoyable sense of freedom for me. I don't have to be afraid of losing the truth, reality is consilient.

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.

Nietzsche in Dawn: Reflections on Moral Prejudice. http://www.lexido.com/EBOOK_TEXTS/DAYBREAK_.aspx?S=156

I wasn't aware of this quote at the time, but similar views were influential in my deconversion from Christianity. I decided that if I believed in God, that meant I should not be afraid to subject that belief to fair tests of evidence and argumentation. Surely God's might and glory would persuade even the most skeptical of men, so what danger was skepticism really? In hindsight, I'm very grateful that this was my view, it meant that unlike so many others I was lucky enough to avoid getting stuck in a stagnated belief system. That alternative is terrifying to me: therefore I now try to randomly change my priors on occasion until they repair themselves, in order to help minimize my odds of getting trapped in local maxima.

Context (Hacker is Britain's Prime Minister, Sir Humphrey is his chief subordinate, the Russians are their enemy in the Cold War)

Double Context: This quote is from "Yes Prime Minister", a british comedy show.

Sir Humphrey: Bernard, what is the purpose of our defence policy?

Bernard: To defend Britain.

Sir Humphrey: No, Bernard. It is to make people believe Britain is defended.

Bernard: The Russians?

Sir Humphrey: Not the Russians, the British! The Russians know it's not.

I'm very busy doing things I don't need to do in order to avoid doing things I'm actually supposed to be doing. - a funny ecard on procrastination you can just google for.

"Irrationality is intellectual violence against which the pacifism of rationality may or may not be an adequate weapon."

• Jack Good, Good Thinking, page 25.

Context: Randy has left his longtime girlfriend and now has a different girlfriend. They are a better match, but his old acquaintances are judgmental, with the following exception of one couple he knows:

Randy hadn't the faintest idea what these people thought of him and what he had done, but he could sense right away that, essentially that was not the issue because even if they thought he had done something evil, they at least had a framework, a sort of procedure manual, for dealing with transgressions.

To translate it into UNIX system administration terms (Randy's fundamental metaphor for just about everything), the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz, society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand everything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack.

They were, in other words, capable of displaying adaptability.

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

I don't think that such religious beliefs are necessary for such functional moral adaptability. But I do like the illustration provided by them. Heuristics, even bad heuristics, are sometimes valuable even when they cannot be straightforwardly applied. In such situations, they at least encourage certain semi-orderly patterns of response, allowing for failures which are less chaotic and more graceful.

This seems related to the social analysis given at the beginning of Slate Star Codex's essay, "I can tolerate anything except the outgroup".

The idea that you need to do anything is stupid. And people always used to tell me that, like “oh you need to grow up”. To do what?! To die? To fall into line? To follow a pattern?

You don’t need to do anything. Nobody needs to do anything. You need to breathe. You need to eat food. The rest of it is just a structure that we invented to give ourselves something to do when we wake up in the morning. “Oh it’s 9 am, time to go to work”. Work is not real! The car is not real. Life’s not real.

This is what’s real: heartbeats. And when they stop, all that shit you created and stockpiled and worked for means nothing! It’s just objects that don’t even exist when you’re dead.

When you’re dead you go to another dimension where you can’t take this stuff with you. Or not. Or the lights just shut off.

--Joe Rogan in JRE #466

H/T levels.io

"Do not subordinate fundamental principles to minor details." -[here](www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/fundamental-principles-versus-minor-details.html/_

It's like a lay bayes

We wear a mask that grins and lies

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes

This debt we pay to human guile

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile *

emotional honesty

"Everyone tries to find money when they should be busy making money find them. Anyone who gets that sentence should 2x their income."

• wall street playboys

'Never again'

-Various, including more recently, Les Brown and Magneto from that epic scene from X-Men

Emotively evoked when people have strong preferences against historic states of weaknesses or helplessness

You can have anything in this world you want, if you want it badly enough and you're willing to pay the price.

-Mary Kay Ash

Continuing the tradition of quotes that will probably result in more downvotes than other post or comment I make...

In many cases, one could argue that scientists living in their ivory towers seem to be the least capable ones of seeing certain simple things in the human society.

Luboš Motl

There is a battle of two wolves inside us. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope humility, kindness, empathy and truth. The wolf that wins is the one you feed.

~ Native American Proverb, Cherokee

"It’s not their pain you are afraid of. It’s yours. The past is a construct of the mind. It blinds us. It fools us into believing it." - Total Recall (movie)

Placeholder for the quote that ends in ' eternal protection until your eternal demise' from the new movie Get Hard. I don't want to post a new quote for this because this adds no value on it's own, and both are from movies.

"it's immoral let sucker keep his money" -Canada Bill Jones citation

Presumably applicable where the sucker would have had his money taken anyway by a less scrupulous party than the subject of the agent who receives the recommendation to take suckers' money. Or, where the agent taking recommended to take suckers' money is better at maximising individual welfare with that money than a competitor, depending on your ethics.