Eliezer Yudkowsky Short Quotes

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Trying and getting hurt can't possibly be worse for you than being... stuck.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
If cryonics were a scam it would have far better marketing and be far more popular.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Rationality is the master lifehack which distinguishes which other lifehacks to use.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
I don't want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly organised.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms.

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

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Part of the Player Character Code is that you don't give up when something seems impossible.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
I'm lazy! I hate work! Hate hard work in all its forms! Clever shortcuts, that's all I'm about!

Eliezer Yudkowsky
To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
When you are older, you will learn that the first and foremost thing which any ordinary person does is nothing.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Every mystery ever solved had been a puzzle from the dawn of the human species right up until someone solved it.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
I'm wondering if there's a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominous resolution.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
There's something in science like the shine of the Patronus Charm, driving back all sorts of darkness and madness...

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Lonely dissent doesn't feel like going to school dressed in black. It feels like going to school wearing a clown suit.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it?

Eliezer Yudkowsky
There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model.

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
I see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how it makes its victims complicit in their own destruction.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Okay, so either (a) I just teleported somewhere else entirely (b) they can fold space like no one's business or (c) they are simply ignoring all the rules.

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
The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation for any outcome, you have zero knowledge.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
I have sometimes thought that all professional lectures on rationality should be delivered while wearing a clown suit, to prevent the audience from confusing seriousness with solemnity.

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
Science has heroes, but no gods. The great Names are not our superiors, or even our rivals, they are passed milestones on our road; and the most important milestone is the hero yet to come.

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