Civilization Quote by Eliezer Yudkowsky

“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

“‎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

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

— 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…

— Eliezer Yudkowsky

“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

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

— Eliezer Yudkowsky

“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

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

— Eliezer Yudkowsky

“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

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

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

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