The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge. — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
After all, if you had the complete decision process, you could run it as an AI, and I'd be coding it up… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If you want to maximize your expected utility, you try to save the world and the future of intergalactic civilization instead of… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
The purest case of an intelligence explosion would be an Artificial Intelligence rewriting its own source code. The key idea is that… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If you've been cryocrastinating, putting off signing up for cryonics "until later", don't think that you've "gotten away with it so far".… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Remember, if you succeed in everything you try in life, you're living below your full potential and you should take up more… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
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… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If dragons were common, and you could look at one in the zoo - but zebras were a rare legendary creature that… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Our coherent extrapolated volition is our wish if we knew more, thought faster, were more the people we wished we were, had… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
When you think of intelligence, don't think of a college professor; think of human beings as opposed to chimpanzees. If you don't… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If I'm teaching deep things, then I view it as important to make people feel like they're learning deep things, because otherwise,… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If you don’t sign up your kids for cryonics then you are a lousy parent. — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Intelligence is the source of technology. If we can use technology to improve intelligence, that closes the loop and potentially creates a… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
You cannot 'rationalize' what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called 'truthization.' There is no way to… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If you handed [character] a glass that was 90% full, he'd tell you that the 10% empty part proved that no one… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If cryonics were a scam it would have far better marketing and be far more popular. — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If you want to build a recursively self-improving AI, have it go through a billion sequential self-modifications, become vastly smarter than you,… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
This is one of theprimary mechanisms whereby, if a fool says the sun is shining, we do notcorrectly discard this as irrelevant… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
“But I really am Ravenclaw, you know, not Slytherin. I don't want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
“If you regard evidence as a constraint and seek to free yourself, you sell yourself into the chains of your whims. For you cannot… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
“I am not sure how to explain it, except that - truth matters to us.” — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
I see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how it makes its victims complicit… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
“He really really really shouldn't have done that. Amazing how much more obvious that became one second after it was too late.” — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
I'm wondering if there's a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominous resolution. — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
“There’s a technique we use in our local rationalist cluster called “Is That Your True Rejection?”, and it works like this: Before you stake… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Lonely dissent doesn't feel like going to school dressed in black. It feels like going to school wearing a clown suit. — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
“Knowing that Draco's hopeful face had probably been drilled into him by months of practice did not make it any less effective, Harry observed.… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation for any… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
The human species was not born into a market economy. Bees won't sell you honey if you offer them an electronic funds transfer. The… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image