Daniel_Franke

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TGGP: A more convincing counterexample to this pattern would be Hermes.

Hmm, I just noticed that there's a slight contradiction here:

"I know. Believe me, I know. Only youth can Administrate. That is the pact of immortality."

Then how is it possible for there to be such person as a Lord Administrator, if the title takes 100 years to obtain? While a civilization of immortals would obviously redefine their concept of youth, it seems like a stretch to call a centenarian young if 500 is still considered mind-bogglingly old.

Kevin, seconded. I'm half-expecting Eliezer to copy-paste a few paragraphs from the climax of Foundation's Edge into the middle of the story in order to see if anyone notices :-)

How is it that these aliens' anatomy is so radically different from humans', yet they have a word for "kick"?

The URL for the site ought to be community.overcomingbias.com. That doesn't have to be its title; you can still title it "Less Wrong".

Economic weirdtopia: being rich is socially unacceptable; not because the society values equality, but because it's considered decadent and, in a certain sense, cheating. Weirdtopia's system of morality is virtue-based, and one of their highest virtues is a peculiar sort of self-sufficiency. Essentially, you're expected to be able to make yourself safe and comfortable by relying only on your wits and not on material goods. Needing to consume natural resources is accepted as a fact of life, but you should be able to do as much as possible with as little as possible. There is no concept of land ownership. In a loose sense of the word "own", you own the chattels that you produce with your own hands, but accepting the products of others' labor is a vice.

Exchanging knowledge and techniques is normal and acceptable. Being knowledgable about things that others have discovered is entirely amoral. Innovating earns you respect, but equally so regardless of whether you're the first to ever discover something or whether you figured out something widely-known on your own.

Silas, what do you mean by a subjective feeling of discontinuity, and why is it an ethical requirement? I have a subjective feeling of discontinuity when I wake up each morning, but I don't think that means anything terrible has happened to me.

EY, I'm not following your comment about CI versus Alcor. What do you see as the benefits of choosing Alcor, and what does your age have to do with choosing to forego them?

I second Roland's suggestion of a two-tier system.

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