Rationality Quote by Eliezer Yudkowsky

“If you didn't predict that something would happen, if it took you completely by surprise, then what you believed about the world when you didn't see it coming, isn't enough to explain [what has happened].” quote by Eliezer Yudkowsky — Download Open image

““If you didn't predict that something would happen, if it took you completely by surprise, then what you believed about the world when you didn't see it coming, isn't enough to explain [what has happened].””

Eliezer Yudkowsky

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Rationality

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“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…

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“I am not sure how to explain it, except that - truth matters to us.”

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I see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how it makes its victims complicit…

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“He really really really shouldn't have done that. Amazing how much more obvious that became one second after it was too late.”

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

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“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 your argument on a point, ask yourself in advance what you would say if that point were decisively refuted. Would you relinquish your previous conclusion? Would you actually change your mind? If not, maybe that point…

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

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“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. Actually it did make it less effective, but unfortunately not ineffective. The same could be said of Draco's clever use of reciprocation pressure for an unsolicited gift, a technique which Harry had read about in his…

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

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It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that…

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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…

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