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Sam Harris – July 7, 2015

7/7 Sam Harris
  • Morality entails a certain amount of luck. Sometimes people will do a marginally immoral action (we all do, no one is perfect) , but because of bad luck, it ripples massively.
    • This concept of moral luck needs a place in the ethical discourse.
  • Nietzsche principle of eternal recurrence – the universal events are cyclical. They repeat.
  • Factual data can be ineffective if it doesn’t emotionally move you.
  • The more people you love, the more hostages to fortune you have.
  • Having children tends you calibrate your concern about the future.
  • Superintelligence creates a problem of control. How do we know that we will be able to stop machines when they become a million or even billion times smarter than us?
  • Debate format is not a good context for an intelligent conversation.
  • How do you get to artificial intelligence “without inadvertently building an angry little god in a box, that takes no more concern over your interest than we take over the interest of snails and cockroaches and ants?”
    • We are on a collision course with this reality.
    • At a certain point this progress hit superhuman intelligence, then thise intelligences systems themselves make further progress and you get an intelligence explosion. “The singularity.”
    • This is not techno religious Bullshit.
  • When you get to your desk, start by doing the one thing that, if nothing else is done, would make your day truly productive.
  • Are you meditating, or thinking with your legs crossed? You need to break through to the practice of true concentration.
    • There is no point of conscious behind your eyes. Cut through the illusion of the self and the center.
    • Sit for 1-2 minutes every hour to enforce meditative clarity throughout the day.
    • Zo Chen (dzogchen?) yogi’s use the sky.
    • Ambient noise helps with meditation.
  • Curcumen shows some protective effect against dementia.
  • Be wary of most supplements. Research shows that multivitamin supplementation is bad, often shortening lifespans.
  • Wisdom – the ability to take your own advice.
  • Religious moderates provide shelter for religious dogmatism, taking our shelter from truly criticizing dangerous ideas. The religious moderate doesn’t honestly acknowledge the horrendous things that the Holy books require.