Eliezer Yudkowsky - People Quotes

14 Sourced Quotes

View all Eliezer Yudkowsky Quotes
Crocker's Rules didn't give you the right to say anything offensive, but other people could say potentially offensive things to you, and it was your responsibility not to be offended. This was surprisingly hard to explain to people; many people would read the careful explanation and hear, "Crocker's Rules mean you can say offensive things to other people."

Eliezer Yudkowsky
The people I know who seem to make unusual efforts at rationality, are unusually honest, or, failing that, at least have unusually bad social skills.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Litmus test: If you can't describe Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage and explain why people find it counterintuitive, you don't know enough about economics to direct any criticism or praise at "capitalism" because you don't know what other people are referring to when they use that word.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Not every change is an improvement but every improvement is a change; you can't do anything BETTER unless you can manage to do it DIFFERENTLY, you've got to let yourself do better than other people!

Eliezer Yudkowsky
This is crunch time for the whole human species, and not just for us but for the intergalactic civilization whose existence depends on us. This is the hour before the final exam and we're trying to get as much studying done as possible. It may be that you can't make yourself feel that for a decade or thirty years or however long this crunch time lasts, but the reality is one thing and the emotions are another... If you confront it full on, then you can't really justify trading off any part of intergalactic civilization for any intrinsic thing you could get nowadays, and at the same time, it's also true that there are very few people who can live like that (and I'm not one of them myself).

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Why does any kind of cynicism appeal to people? Because it seems like a mark of maturity, of sophistication, like you've seen everything and know better. Or because putting something down feels like pushing yourself up.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
If I'm teaching deep things, then I view it as important to make people feel like they're learning deep things, because otherwise, they will still have a hole in their mind for "deep truths" that needs filling, and they will go off and fill their heads with complete nonsense that has been written in a more satisfying style.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
If people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
There's a standard Internet phenomenon (I generalize) of a Sneer Club of people who enjoy getting together and picking on designated targets. Sneer Clubs (I expect) attract people with high Dark Triad characteristics, which is (I suspect) where Asshole Internet Atheists come from - if you get a club together for the purpose of sneering at religious people, it doesn't matter that God doesn't actually exist, the club attracts psychologically f'd-up people. Bullies, in a word, people who are powerfully reinforced by getting in what feels like good hits on Designated Targets, in the company of others doing the same and congratulating each other on it.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Through rationality we shall become awesome, and invent and test systematic methods for making people awesome, and plot to optimize everything in sight, and the more fun we have the more people will want to join us.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Maybe you just can't protect people from certain specialized types of folly with any sane amount of regulation, and the correct response is to give up on the high social costs of inadequately protecting people from themselves under certain circumstances.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
If you declare Crocker's Rules, other people don't need to worry about being tactful to you. (You still need to worry about being tactful to them — Crocker's Rules only work one way.)

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Boys," said Hermione Granger, "should not be allowed to love girls without asking them first! This is true in a number of ways and especially when it comes to gluing people to the ceiling!

Eliezer Yudkowsky
What people really believe doesn't feel like a BELIEF, it feels like the way the world IS.

Eliezer Yudkowsky