Part of the rationalist ethos is binding yourself emotionally to an absolutely lawful reductionistic universe - a universe containing no ontologically basic… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share Image
Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good… — 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
“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
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
“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
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
“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
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
“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
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
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
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
“Frigideiro! " said Hermione again from the desk next to him. Her water was solid ice and there were white crystals forming on the rim… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share
“And then Harry Potter had launched in to a speech that was inspiring, yet vague. A speech to the effect that Fred and George… — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share
“And I know that I'd just make myself unhappy by comparing that reality to... something perfect that I built up in my imagination.” — Eliezer Yudkowsky Copy Share
