“The Second World War, as a whole, was probably the most catastrophic event in humanity’s recorded history. The world was pretty much screwed as soon as it started—indeed, probably as soon as Hitler acquired control of Germany.”
WWII was just a continuation of WWI, which was a much less ‘noble’ war, if such a thing can even be said to exist.
War begets more war.
“What if the alternative was for the U.S. to firebomb and blockade Japan [...]”
That was probably another possibility, but certainly not the only alternative to nuking cities.
How about nuking somewhere very visible but not so populated with the message: “We have more where that came from. Surrender or the next one won’t be in a daisy field.” ?
I wrote something a little while ago about how Nagasaki was a secondary target, and Kokura was saved by cloudy conditions.
http://michaelgr.com/2008/02/01/nagasakis-nuke-was-supposed-to-be-dropped-on-kokura/
“Actually, the apple-recognition machinery in the human brain really does turn off on a regular basis. You have to be awake in order to recognize an apple; you can’t do it while sleeping.”
I don’t remember ever dreaming about fruits, but I’m pretty sure I could recognize an apple if it happened. Did I just set myself up to have a weird dream tonight? Oh boy...
The fact that the pattern that makes the apple module light up comes from different places while dreaming than while awake doesn’t matter; you don’t stop recognizing it, so the model probably isn’t ‘off’.
Thank you for writing, Anne. Your comments here, as well as your recent ‘interview’ posts on your blog, have been most interesting.
“Once upon a time, when all of civilization was a single galaxy and a single star: and a single planet, a place called Earth.”
Did this dialogue take place aboard the Battlestar Galactica? :-P
Great post!
“later came to reject (on a deliberate level) the idea that the Bible was not written by the hand of God
Don’t you mean “was written by...” here?
Not too different from the rest of this crowd: Fund a bunch of high risk, high reward scientific research projects.
Will the eBooks also be available as hard copies? I’m probably not alone in preferring to read long texts on paper, and printing them out isn’t quite the same.
“That’s what Richard Dawkins understands that Michael Rose doesn’t—that Reason is not a game.”
Dawkins is also acutely aware that his opponents won’t always play fair, and have often quoted him and other scientists out of context to try to make it seem like they hold position that they don’t actually hold. That’s why he wants to have a tape recorder when he dies, so there can’t be rumors about his “deathbed conversion”.
You need a chess clock next time. John talks way too much.
While on the topic of conferences that might interest this crowd, Aging 2008 will take place on June 27th in Los Angeles at UCLA.
“leading scientists and thinkers in stem cell research and regenerative medicine will gather in Los Angeles at UCLA for Aging 2008 to explain how their work can combat human aging, and the sociological implications of developing rejuvenation therapies.
Aging 2008 is free, with advance registration required”
More details here:
It seems like this post isn’t as clear as it could be—or at least not as clear as Elizer’s best posts.
Either it needs another draft, or the problem lies with me and I just need to re-read it more carefully...
All I can say is that when I scrolled down and saw the photo, my first thought was ‘awesome’.
Nice illustration of your previous post, Eliezer.
Definitely good advice on textbooks.
I’ve been slowly, sloooowly reading Molecular Biology of the Cell (5th ed, brand new) by Alberts, and Lehninger: Principles of Biochemistry (4th ed). So far, I prefer the first one.
Until recently I was too intimidated to buy them because that’s far from what I studied, but now I regret it. I should have started sooner.
I wish this kind of stuff was taught to more children. Too few people fall in love with reality.
Trivia: The stars & girlfriend story was mentioned by Richard Feynman in “What Do YOU Care what Other People Think?”
I might be a bit late with this, but here’s my 2 cents:
“Maybe spend another month or two doing large transhumanist sequences, either on the Singularity Institute blog (currently fairly defunct) or here on Overcoming Bias if the readers really want that.”
I suggest writing the Transhumanist stuff on either a new blog (wordpress.com is free and easy to set up) or the SIAI blog, and link that prominently from Overcoming Bias. Maybe even do a weekly roundup/linkfest post here to remind people.
This would mean that you wouldn’t lose those who are interested, and that those who aren’t can easily skip it and spare us the complaining.
“I agree, but Eli has already announced his intentions to rewrite most of the material, which will require a great deal of work.”
Indeed, but less than coming up with it in the first place, and the total return on investment will likely be much higher.
f.ex., if for 1000 hours of work he got 5,000 regular readers here, for 1300 hours of work he might be able to get 100,000+ (not all at once, but over a few years) with relatively little overlap between both groups.
“Publishing this kind of a book is essentially a shotgun approach”
I’m not sure I completely agree with that. There is certainly a shotgun element, but book readers—like blog readers—are also self-selecting, and it is very unlikely that everybody who would select it is already reading this blog. And if they are now, will they be in 3 years?
“The blog posts, so far as I can tell, are doing as well a job of teaching their readers as can reasonably be expected.”
I would argue that a book would be better at teaching. Personally, I know that on some days I missed posts for one reason or another (traveling, too busy, whatever), and by the time I started reading again I had a long backlog, which was tedious to read on the screen, etc. There’s simply a bigger barrier to entry, especially for people who aren’t already convinced, or people who simply don’t read much on the net in their free time but pick up lots of books.
Newcomers might also find this blog and see a hard post that belong in the middle of a series (or simply something that happens to not interest them) and simply give up and not come back. I suspect this is happening every day. With a book, you have the benefit of having everybody start from the beginning and you can gradually hook them.
″ We will need to prepare something for the next generation, but that’s caused by the nature of blogging, not some deficiency in Eli’s postings.”
Exactly. The current format is crippling the potential of the material, so onward with the book(s)!
I want to echo others here and thank you for the great article, and wish you a good break. Get a nice omega 3/folic acid/vitamin D/zinc cocktail and recharge that brain :)