There Is A Better Way

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Fri, 28 May 1999 03:05:29 -0500

As you can see from my new .signature, I have now installed BeOS on my machine. I am also typing this message on a Dvorak keyboard. In the last election, I voted Libertarian where possible. I'm a Singularitarian, and thus by extension a transhumanist, a science-fiction fan, and a novelty-seeker. Coincidence? I think not. For some people, There Is A Better Way.

Let us consider: Is someone running MacOS or Linux or BeOS, even though 95% of the planet uses Windows, more likely to use the Dvorak keyboard, even though 95% of the planet uses QWERTY? Is someone who votes Libertarian more likely to be a transhumanist? I have no hard statistics on the subject, but I suspect that there is considerable overlap between the groups.

I'd like to list the following items for a Better Way Award. The Better Way Awards are given to Ways (1) that inspire fanatic devotion in their users and (2) that only a minority use - and, of course, are vastly Better than the alternatives.

Vastly Better Way Awards:

BeOS: There Is A Better Operating System. Linux/OpenSource: There Is A Better Development Strategy. Dvorak: There Is A Better Keyboard. Libertarianism: There Is A Better Political Party. Design Patterns: There Is A Better Design Method. Science Fiction: There Is A Better Literature. Singularity/>H: There Is A Better Goal. Cryonics: There Is A Better Survival Strategy. Nanotechnology: There Is A Better Material World.

Better Way Awards (category 1):

XML:               There Is A Better Data Format.
PGP/RSA:           There Is A Better Cryptographic Cipher.
Godel Escher Bach: There Is A Better Book. Software Reuse: There Is A Better Development Strategy. Object-Orientation:There Is A Better Programming Paradigm.

Better Way Awards (category 2):

arXiv/cogprints: There Is A Better Scientific Paper Repository. OnSale's atCost: There Is A Better (and Vastly Cheaper) Seller. Evolution. Psych: There Is A Better Psychology.

Credit Unions:     There Is A Better Bank.
IBM Solutions:     There Is A Better Software Search Engine.
Good Drug Guide: There Is A Better Neurology. Collaborative Filtering: T.I.A.B. Way of Finding Things.
Rutan's Rotor:     There Is A Better Spaceship.
Australia:         There Is A Better Country.  (Planning to move someday...)
Ask Jeeves:        There Is A Better Search-Engine Interface.

Slightly Better Way Awards:

USA:               There Is A Better Country.
Python:            There Is A Better Programming Language.
Java:              There Is A Better Programming Language.
Scheme:            There Is A Better Programming Language.
Eiffel:            There Is A Better Programming Language.
User Friendly:     There Is A Better Comic Strip.
Extropians:        There Was A Better Mailing List (pre-1998 only).

What are *your* Better Ways?

-- 
           sentience@pobox.com          Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
        http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS           Typing in Dvorak          Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians   Heading for Singularity   There Is A Better Way