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Comment by james5 on How Many LHC Failures Is Too Many? · 2008-11-18T21:56:00.000Z · LW · GW

Of course the future repeated failures of the LHC have got to seem non-miraculous though since the likelhood of each experiment failing becomes lower the more experiments you plan on running.

Perhaps some sort of funding problem after a collapse of the world financial system, but that`s not likely, is it?

Its like the idea applying the idea of quantum immortality and the anthropic principle to my own experience. Wouldnt it make sense for me to observe my apparent immortality in a world where immortality wasnt miraculous, such as when technology had advanced to a point where it wasnormal`.

A bit of a contradiction there, technology advances to the point where destruction of humanity is easy, but immortality is possible as well.

Comment by james5 on How Many LHC Failures Is Too Many? · 2008-11-18T21:34:00.000Z · LW · GW

If it fails 100 times in a row, i`ll sue the researchers for killing me a hundred times in all those other realities.

Oh the humanity-ity-ity-ty-ty-y-y-y-y!

Comment by james5 on Scarcity · 2008-03-27T08:52:39.000Z · LW · GW

haha, reminds me of when i first got my gmail account almost four years ago. ah, but i still love it. i guess this theory explains why i keep my hotmail accounts even though i don't use them anymore--they were grandfathered over from when syncing with outlook was free.

Comment by james5 on If You Demand Magic, Magic Won't Help · 2008-03-27T06:56:00.000Z · LW · GW

"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." - Larry Niven

I thought that was Arthur C. Clarke (RIP).

I agree with the basic argument of the post: magic is exciting because it's unattainable. The moment it became real and in mass-use, the novelty would wear off. I'm happily smitten with current and upcoming technology. One example: I still get sufficiently blown away when I think about the ramifications of a camera that captures millions of frames per second. I read about it 4-5 years ago. Forget 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, think about counting the moments passing in 25 million, 50 million, 75 million...
http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=RSINAK000074000012005026000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes