I think we learned that when you tell people to not destroy the world they try to not destroy the world. How is [press this button and the world ends → don’t press button] different from [press this button or else the world ends → press button]?
The asymmetry is the button itself. If I understand correctly, Chris got this message on a separate channel, and the button still looked the same; it still said “enter launch codes to destroy LessWrong”. It was still clearly meant to represent the launch of nukes.
Stretching just a bit, I think you might be able to draw an analogy here, where real people who might actually launch nuclear weapons (or have done so in other branches of the multiverse) have thought they had reasons important enough to justify doing it. But in fact, the rule is not “don’t launch nukes unless there seems to be sufficient reason for it”, but rather “don’t launch nukes”.
Good point. I didn’t see the button setup before it went down, and I was thinking the OP did not receive the main email and just got the “special instructions” they posted. This does make it more analogous to a “false alarm” situation.
I think we learned that when you tell people to not destroy the world they try to not destroy the world. How is [press this button and the world ends → don’t press button] different from [press this button or else the world ends → press button]?
I think we learned that trolls will destroy the world.
The asymmetry is the button itself. If I understand correctly, Chris got this message on a separate channel, and the button still looked the same; it still said “enter launch codes to destroy LessWrong”. It was still clearly meant to represent the launch of nukes.
Stretching just a bit, I think you might be able to draw an analogy here, where real people who might actually launch nuclear weapons (or have done so in other branches of the multiverse) have thought they had reasons important enough to justify doing it. But in fact, the rule is not “don’t launch nukes unless there seems to be sufficient reason for it”, but rather “don’t launch nukes”.
Good point. I didn’t see the button setup before it went down, and I was thinking the OP did not receive the main email and just got the “special instructions” they posted. This does make it more analogous to a “false alarm” situation.
I recieved both messages