If someone says, “I’m going to flip that switch”, then by default, they mean they’re going to try to flip the switch.
Nonsense. If someone says “I’m going to flip that switch” they can just as easily be making a prediction as stating an intention. Consider the similar phrases “I’m going to die in three months” or “He’s going to flip that switch.” If you wish to emphasize that something is an intention and not a prediction, your chances are not affected by adding “try to.” Yudkowsky knows this:
Well, colloquially, “I’m going to flip the switch” and “I’m going to try to flip the switch” mean more or less the same thing, except that the latter expresses the possibility of failure. This is why I originally took offense at Yoda for seeming to deny the possibility.
In fact that’s nicely put! So what happened that EY suddenly saw Yoda’s ridiculous point? “I am going to remake the world” is cliched bombast. It is just as easy for an ambitious loser to say so as for an ambitious winner. If you want to chastise the utterer of “I’m going to die in three months” for their bad attitude then you are in the company of Deepak Chopra, not Julius Caesar.
I don’t like this post at all.
Nonsense. If someone says “I’m going to flip that switch” they can just as easily be making a prediction as stating an intention. Consider the similar phrases “I’m going to die in three months” or “He’s going to flip that switch.” If you wish to emphasize that something is an intention and not a prediction, your chances are not affected by adding “try to.” Yudkowsky knows this:
In fact that’s nicely put! So what happened that EY suddenly saw Yoda’s ridiculous point? “I am going to remake the world” is cliched bombast. It is just as easy for an ambitious loser to say so as for an ambitious winner. If you want to chastise the utterer of “I’m going to die in three months” for their bad attitude then you are in the company of Deepak Chopra, not Julius Caesar.