Part of the rationalist ethos is binding yourself emotionally to an absolutely lawful reductionistic universe - a universe containing no ontologically basic mental things such as souls or magic and pouring all your hope and all your care into that merely real universe and its possibilities, without disappointment.
Eliezer YudkowskyIf you handed [character] a glass that was 90% full, he'd tell you that the 10% empty part proved that no one really cared about water.
Eliezer YudkowskyExistential depression has always annoyed me; it is one of the world's most pointless forms of suffering.
Eliezer YudkowskyThere is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to! WE care! There IS light in the world, and it is US!
Eliezer YudkowskyMany have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them.
Eliezer YudkowskyYou cannot rationalize what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called truthization. There is no way to obtain more truth for a proposition by bribery, flattery, or the most passionate argument - you can make more people believe the proposition, but you cannot make it more true.
Eliezer Yudkowsky