There’s a pattern that shows up in some ethics discussions where it is argued that an action that you could actually go out and start doing (so no 3^^^3 dust specs or pushing fat people in front of runaway trains) that diverges from everyday social conventions is a good idea. I get the sense from some people that they feel obliged to either dismiss the idea by any means, or start doing the inconvenient but convincingly argued thing right away. And they seem to consider dismissing the idea with bad argumentation a lesser sin than conceding a point or suspending judgment and then continuing to not practice whatever the argument suggested. This shows up often in discussions of vegetarianism.
I got the idea that XiXiDu was going crazy because he didn’t see any options beyond dedicating his life to door-to-door singularity advocacy or finding the fatal flaw which proved once and for all that SI are a bunch of deluded charlatans, and he didn’t want to do the former just because a philosophical argument told him to and couldn’t quite manage the latter.
If this is an actual thing, people with this behavior pattern would probably freak out if presented with an argument for terrorism they weren’t able to dismiss as obviously flawed extremely quickly.
I think what Risto meant was “an argument for terrorism they weren’t able to (dismiss as obviously flawed extremely quickly)”, not “people with this behavior pattern would probably freak out (..) extremely quickly”.
How long it takes for the hypothetical behavior pattern to manifest is, I think, beside their point.
There’s a pattern that shows up in some ethics discussions where it is argued that an action that you could actually go out and start doing (so no 3^^^3 dust specs or pushing fat people in front of runaway trains) that diverges from everyday social conventions is a good idea. I get the sense from some people that they feel obliged to either dismiss the idea by any means, or start doing the inconvenient but convincingly argued thing right away. And they seem to consider dismissing the idea with bad argumentation a lesser sin than conceding a point or suspending judgment and then continuing to not practice whatever the argument suggested. This shows up often in discussions of vegetarianism.
I got the idea that XiXiDu was going crazy because he didn’t see any options beyond dedicating his life to door-to-door singularity advocacy or finding the fatal flaw which proved once and for all that SI are a bunch of deluded charlatans, and he didn’t want to do the former just because a philosophical argument told him to and couldn’t quite manage the latter.
If this is an actual thing, people with this behavior pattern would probably freak out if presented with an argument for terrorism they weren’t able to dismiss as obviously flawed extremely quickly.
XiXi was around for a while before he began ‘freaking out’.
I think what Risto meant was “an argument for terrorism they weren’t able to (dismiss as obviously flawed extremely quickly)”, not “people with this behavior pattern would probably freak out (..) extremely quickly”.
How long it takes for the hypothetical behavior pattern to manifest is, I think, beside their point.