From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sat Apr 13 2002 - 22:04:56 MDT
Eliezer-as-moderator:
Just a reminder... this is not the Extropians list and all political issues
that do not contain *direct* futuristic content are not appropriate for
SL4. I'm not saying that a good pre-Singularity sapiens should never think
about politics or that politics has no conceivable impact on the
Singularity, but SL4 does specialize and there are more appropriate forums.
Eliezer-in-personal-capacity:
The great social game of politics can affect the Singularity and it's okay
to pay attention to it, but actually becoming emotionally involved in it is
a separate issue. Naturally our hunter-gatherer genes predispose us to
grant an enormous amount of attention to the modern-day equivalent of tribal
factional politics, and naturally this is not the rational distribution of
effort for a Singularitarian or anyone else who can leverage their effect on
the future through more effective means than enjoyable political argument.
Politics, viewed externally, is a real phenomenon that has a real impact on
the Singularity; viewed internally, it is a sport with teams.
Eliezer-as-moderator:
It's okay to have a favorite team. It may even genuinely be the best team
for the Singularity. But please don't cheer your team on SL4.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://intelligence.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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