From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Wed Jan 24 2001 - 16:21:34 MST
David McFadzean wrote:
>
> So I guess the answer to your question is the same as my original response.
> My comparing the society to a living thing does not really have an influence
> on my life. It doesn't really matter. I'm just annoyed by people who insist
> on rejecting different views because they are, well, incompatible with their
> preferred mode of thinking.
>
> > What things would you do differently if you didn't believe that
> > society is a living entity?
>
> I probably wouldn't do anything differently.
There may be some people to whom saying that "society is a living entity"
is not a matter of opinion, but a major and WRONG statement - people who
associate different functional characteristics with "life" and "nonlife".
They may easily find statements that "society is a living entity" to be as
annoying as someone insisting that evolution versus creationism is just a
matter of opinion.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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