From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Tue Jun 04 2002 - 11:48:12 MDT
While Eli's first 3-line version of this was justly ridiculed by E. Shaun,
I have to say that this post reminds me why sifting through all the mine
tailings on this list is worth it--this is a perfect example of the rare
gem of thought you just won't find anywhere else in the world.
> (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience@pobox.com>):
>
> Very well then; I shall explicate.
>
> I can't read Shakespeare. It's old, it's slow, it's barely comprehensible,
> there are too many cliches, and "Romeo and Juliet", however venerable it may
> be, contains maybe one-twentieth the tragic impact of, say, "Dancer in the
> Dark". I am sure that Hitchcock was a brilliant filmmaker in his time but
> today, "Psycho" contains roughly the total horror of, say, thirty seconds
> worth of Hellraiser II. And the special effects in Star Wars are, to put it
> kindly, lame.
>
> These comparisons may be deemed unfair by some. They are unfair. They are
> also true.
>
> Kipling remains one of my favorite poets. And he may have been an
> enlightened guy, for his time; didn't he suggest that the British actually
> had some responsibility toward their subject nations, rather than simply
> exploiting them followed by wiping them off the globe? But there were still
> some educated white British, even in Kipling's time, who came to the
> realization that other races were not only human but in fact no different
> and fully deserving of equal rights. It was not impossible to come to that
> realization in Kipling's time, only difficult. And regardless of whether we
> choose to regard the circumstances as excusing him, Kipling was a racist and
> this does detract from my ability to enjoy certain of his poetry.
>
> Let us take Ayn Rand. Was she, perhaps, comparatively enlightened for her
> times? Yes. Was she rational by the standards of her times? Yes. Is she
> a strong rationalist by today's standards? No. Greg Egan is a
> rationalist. Robert Pirsig is a rationalist. Nick Bostrom is a
> rationalist. Today Ayn Rand qualifies at most as an aspiring student of
> rationality and not a very good student at that. She bears the same
> relation to a rational analyst of morality as does Plato to Karl Popper;
> Plato simply knew how to line up pseudo-rationalisms in the service of his
> prior conclusions, while Karl Popper knew how to use actual rational
> thoughts to produce new ideas and not just prove the ideas you started out
> with. I doubt that Ayn Rand's attempt to produce a rational morality
> produced any more morality than she started with, and from the perspective
> of a modern, evolutionary-psychology-aware altruist, "Atlas Shrugged" simply
> amounts to "This is why *my* tribe should rule the world."
>
> Yes, I've read Atlas Shrugged. It didn't strike as brilliant, it struck me
> as one more instance of moralizing tribalism. I could see, reading it, why
> it might have been hot stuff a few generations back; and I could see,
> reading it, why it might still be able to seduce impressionable minds
> today. But it is no longer a brilliant work by modern-day standards. Nor
> should it be. Time advances. Knowledge advances. Rationality advances.
> What was once brilliant is no longer adequate. What was once enlightened is
> no longer tolerable. I like living in that world. It means we're getting
> somewhere. It may also mean that in a few generations, or more likely less
> than one generation, Eliezer Yudkowsky circa 2002 will look like an idiot.
> I like living in that world too.
>
> Let us make no excuses for those on whose shoulders we stand. Let us use
> them and then discard them like used Kleenex. We may respect them as
> individuals for having advanced the knowledge of their generation. If their
> ideas and works no longer meet the standards of today's generation, those
> ideas should on no account be respected more because of their age.
> Individual brilliance in any given generation is measured by how much you
> advance the knowledge of your times, but it is expected that, having
> advanced knowledge, your ideas will in turn be overtaken and left in the
> dust by future generations. Ayn Rand may still be worthy of respect.
> "Atlas Shrugged" is now a heap of junk. It is the ENIAC of libertarian
> fiction. It is neither entertaining or morally tolerable to a modern-day
> thinker. Let us leave it in the dustbin of history where it belongs, to be
> studied only by those who are interested in the pathology of past mistakes.
>
> -- -- -- -- --
> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
> Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:35 MST