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Your Strength as a Rationalist — LessWrong

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The following happened to me in an IRC chatroom, long enough ago that I was still hanging around in IRC chatrooms. Time has fuzzed the memory and my report may be imprecise. So there I was, in an IRC chatroom, when someone reports that a friend of his needs medical advice. His friend says that he’s been having sudden chest pains, so he called an ambulance, and the ambulance showed up, but the paramedics told him it was nothing, and left, and now the chest pains are getting worse. What should his friend do? I was confused by this story. I remembered reading about homeless people in New York who would call ambulances just to be taken someplace warm, and how the paramedics always had to take them to the emergency room, even on the 27th iteration. Because if they didn’t, the ambulance company could be sued for lots and lots of money. Likewise, emergency rooms are legally obligated to treat anyone, regardless of ability to pay.1 So I didn’t quite understand how the described events could ha

x Your Strength as a Rationalist — LessWrong Thinking Better on Purpose Noticing Rationalization Rationality Frontpage 344 Your Strength as a Rationalist by Eliezer Yudkowsky 11th Aug 2007 3 min read 124 344 The following happened to me in an IRC chatroom, long enough ago that I was still hanging around in IRC chatrooms. Time has fuzzed the memory and my report may be imprecise. So there I was, in an IRC chatroom, when someone reports that a friend of his needs medical advice. His friend says that he’s been having sudden chest pains, so he called an ambulance, and the ambulance showed up, but

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