Why does any kind of cynicism appeal to people? Because it seems like a mark of maturity, of sophistication, like you’ve seen… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Crocker's Rules didn't give you the right to say anything offensive, but other people could say potentially offensive things to you, and… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
My successes already accomplished have mostly been taking existing science and getting people to apply it in their everyday lives. — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it. — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
You will find ambiguity a great ally on your road to power. Give a sign of Slytherin on one day, and contradict… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
I keep trying to explain to people that the archetype of intelligence is not Dustin Hoffman in 'The Rain Man;' it is… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
If I could create a world where people lived forever, or at the very least a few billion years, I would do… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Through rationality we shall become awesome, and invent and test systematic methods for making people awesome, and plot to optimize everything in… — 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
There's a popular concept of 'intelligence' as book smarts, like calculus or chess, as opposed to, say, social skills. So people say… — 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
[...] intelligent people only have a certain amount of time (measured in subjective time spent thinking about religion) to become atheists. After… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Not every change is an improvement but every improvement is a change; you can't do anything BETTER unless you can manage to… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Most Muggles lived in a world defined by the limits of what you could do with cars and telephones. Even though Muggle… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Maybe you just can't protect people from certain specialized types of folly with any sane amount of regulation, and the correct response… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
The people I know who seem to make unusual efforts at rationality, are unusually honest, or, failing that, at least have unusually… — 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
Boys," said Hermione Granger, "should not be allowed to love girls without asking them first! This is true in a number of… — 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
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
What people really believe doesn't feel like a BELIEF, it feels like the way the world IS. — 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