There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms.

If you want to build a recursively self-improving AI, have it go through a billion sequential self-modifications, become vastly smarter than you, and not die, you've got to work to a pretty precise standard.

Have I ever remarked on how completely ridiculous it is to ask high school students to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives and give them nearly no support in doing so? Support like, say, spending a day apiece watching twenty different jobs and then another week at their top three choices, with salary charts and projections and probabilities of graduating that subject given their test scores? The more so considering this is a central allocation question for the entire economy?

Why does any kind of cynicism appeal to people? Because it seems like a mark of maturity, of sophistication, like you’ve seen everything and know better. Or because putting something down feels like pushing yourself up.

If cryonics were a scam it would have far better marketing and be far more popular.

Existential depression has always annoyed me; it is one of the world's most pointless forms of suffering.

If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it is cool.