Many many millions of years ago a race of hyperintelligent pandimensional beings (whose physical manifestation in their own pandimensional universe is not dissimilar to our own) got so fed up with the constant bickering about the meaning of life which used to interrupt their favorite pastime of Brockian Ultra Cricket (a curious game which involved suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away) that they decided to sit down and solve their problems once and for all. And to this end they built themselves a stupendous super computer which was so amazingly intelligent that even before its data banks had been connected up it had started from *I think therefore I am* and got as far as deducing the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone managed to turn it off. It was the size of a small city. Its main console was installed in a specially designed executive office, mounted on an enormous executive desk of finest ultramahogany topped with rich ultrared leather. The dark carpeting was discreetly sumptuous, exotic pot plants and tastefully engraved prints of the principal computer programmers and their families were deployed liberally about the room, and stately windows looked out upon a tree-lined public square. On the day of the Great On-Turning two soberly dressed programmers with briefcases arrived and were shown discreetly into the office. They were aware that this day they would represent their entire race in its greatest moment, but they conducted themselves calmly and quietly as they seated themselves deferentially before the desk, opened their briefcases and took out their leather-bound notebooks. Their names were Lunkwill and Fook. For a few moments they sat in respectful silence, then, after exchanging a quiet glance with Fook, Lunkwill leaned forward and touched a small black panel. The subtlest of hums indicated that the massive computer was now in total active mode. After a pause it spoke to them in a voice rich, resonant and deep. It said: “What is this great task for which I, Deep Thought, the second greatest computer in the Universe of Time and Space, have been called into existence?” Lunkwill and Fook glanced at each other in surprise. “Your task, O computer …” began Fook. “No, wait a minute, this isn’t right,” said Lunkwill, worried. “We distinctly designed this computer to be the greatest one ever and we’re not making do with second best. Deep Thought,” he addressed the computer, “are you not as we designed you to be, the greatest, most powerful computer in all time?” “I described myself as the second greatest,” intoned Deep Thought, “and such I am.” Another worried look passed between the two programmers. Lunkwill cleared his throat. “There must be some mistake,” he said, “are you not a greater computer than the Milliard Gargantubrain at Maximegalon which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond?” “The Milliard Gargantubrain?” said Deep Thought with unconcealed contempt. “A mere abacus—mention it not.” “And are you not,” said Fook, leaning anxiously forward, “a greater analyst than the Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard?” “A five-week sand blizzard?” said Deep Thought haughtily. “You ask this of me who have contemplated the very vectors of the atoms in the Big Bang itself? Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff.” The two programmers sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment. Then Lunkwill leaned forward again. “But are you not,” he said, “a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve, the Magic and Indefatigable?” “The Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler,” said Deep Thought, thoroughly rolling the r’s, “could talk all four legs off an Arcturan Mega-Donkey—but only I could persuade it to go for a walk afterward.” “Then what,” asked Fook, “is the problem?” “There is no problem,” said Deep Thought with magnificent ringing tones. “I am simply the second greatest computer in the Universe of Space and Time.” “But the second?” insisted Lunkwill. “Why do you keep saying the second? You’re surely not thinking of the Multicorticoid Perspicutron Titan Muller, are you? Or the Pondermatic? Or the …” Contemptuous lights flashed across the computer’s console. “I spare not a single unit of thought on these cybernetic simpletons!” he boomed. “I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me!” Fook was losing patience. He pushed his notebook aside and muttered, “I think this is getting needlessly messianic.” “You know nothing of future time,” pronounced Deep Thought, “and yet in my teeming circuitry I can navigate the infinite delta streams of future probability and see that there must one day come a computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate, but which it will be my fate eventually to design.” "Oh yes?" said Lunkwill, "and which computer will that be, exactly?" There was a long silence, and then, quietly, reverently, Deep Thought pronounced two words. "Elezier Yudkowsky."

> was that virtually no one there knew how to read a social science study that's what their daddies do too. I've seen scott alexander cite a study in support of a claim that the authors of the study explicitly cautioned against.

> --The LessWrongian who had strong opinions about causal decision theory, but who expressed confusion when I mentioned counterfactuals (causal decision theory is typically defined using counterfactuals). $100% :chefkiss: Would you happen to have a link to this delight? > One of the things that we often overlook in focusing on the racism and general moral depravity of rationalists is that most of them are also total fuckwits. how uncharitable,

But it was merely one of the bourgeois revolutions, comrade. :(

That's true, but words change in meaning over time, and 'leftist' is not a rigorous definition.

Well, since I'm not a rationalist, I'm going to stop speculating about things I know nothing about.

yeah there's plenty of contention about the violence surrounding it, but the question was about whether there exist revolutions that have been successful at effecting long-term political change and that seems like too big a thing to omit

I'm Russian and I don't write it off. It was one of the greatest increases in living standards in human history.

> Stalin became paranoid in his later years uh... can we not play down mass murder here? Even if you think the russian revolution was successful overall, it's extremely dishonest to pretend that atrocities didn't occur.