I don’t know why people care so much. He chose to dramatically increase his risk of dying. If he was that bothered by the prospect of dying enough he would have made a more thorough investigation. Most people obviously choose not to maximize their lifespans as the serious longevity crowd is a tiny niche.
If by “I don’t know why people care so much” you mean “I don’t know why rationalists care that Steve Jobs was killed by dysrationalia”, I think the answer is obvious. We live in a terrifyingly insane world, where woo science can claim a genius who should have known better. This is worth regretting.
If he was that bothered by the prospect of dying enough he would have made a more thorough investigation.
I don’t think that is true. People aren’t automatically rational, and we definitely aren’t rational economic agents.
Steve Jobs’ death wasn’t caused by his disvaluing his life. It was caused by insanity, the kind we all have, and the kind that only rationalists have begun to fight back against. Nobody else realizes how sick they are.
I cut people making decisions before google a lot more slack. If you make a bad a decision because of a lack of info that was on the first page of a google search on the topic I’m not really worried about your shitty outcomes.
But then it is pretty much tautologous, as we’re probably going to call anyone who has decided to try and fight their irrational desires a rationalist.
I largely agree with the above. However, I would express a caution on the line of thinking that says, “nobody else realizes how sick they are.” The world has heard that line of thinking before from people who claimed to be the world’s only hope for clear thinking and healthy minds.
One such was Wilhelm Reich. Reich believed that he had unified two conflicting “scientific” theories of his day: Freudian personality theory and Marxist economics. He believed that he had discovered the common cause of physical, mental, and social disorders in the form of “character armor”, or muscular and mental tension generated by sexual repression. And for this he was driven out of two countries. (Admittedly, the first was Nazi Germany, which wasn’t so big on his advocacy for sexual liberation or his Marxism.)
And that was all before he came to the belief that the cure for these disorders was the blue energy field he called “orgone”; that he could cure cancer and depression and bad weather with devices made with layers of organic and inorganic material; and that when the FDA came around to get him to stop selling quack medical devices, that they were attempting to assert governmental authority over primordial energy forces.
My point: Watch out for the “nobody else realizes how sick they are” mentality. At least sometimes, it points down the cult attractor.
Oh, sure. Reich was pretty good on much of his analysis of authoritarian personality, for instance, and anticipated later work by Fromm, Adorno, and others. But after half a lifetime of actually being persecuted, he apparently lost the ability to say “oops” and went paranoid.
Bayesian rationality, cognitive science, and AI have better math and better data about the mind than early-20th-century psychoanalysts or late-19th-century economists. But we still have to watch out for death spirals.
I don’t know why people care so much. He chose to dramatically increase his risk of dying. If he was that bothered by the prospect of dying enough he would have made a more thorough investigation. Most people obviously choose not to maximize their lifespans as the serious longevity crowd is a tiny niche.
If by “I don’t know why people care so much” you mean “I don’t know why rationalists care that Steve Jobs was killed by dysrationalia”, I think the answer is obvious. We live in a terrifyingly insane world, where woo science can claim a genius who should have known better. This is worth regretting.
I don’t think that is true. People aren’t automatically rational, and we definitely aren’t rational economic agents.
Steve Jobs’ death wasn’t caused by his disvaluing his life. It was caused by insanity, the kind we all have, and the kind that only rationalists have begun to fight back against. Nobody else realizes how sick they are.
I cut people making decisions before google a lot more slack. If you make a bad a decision because of a lack of info that was on the first page of a google search on the topic I’m not really worried about your shitty outcomes.
Let’s not assume that LW (if that is what you mean by rationalists) has the monopoly on rational thought.
As for Steve Jobs, his “reality distortion field” has been legendary for decades, no wonder his opinions weren’t always very rational.
It reads to me as rationalists in general
But then it is pretty much tautologous, as we’re probably going to call anyone who has decided to try and fight their irrational desires a rationalist.
I largely agree with the above. However, I would express a caution on the line of thinking that says, “nobody else realizes how sick they are.” The world has heard that line of thinking before from people who claimed to be the world’s only hope for clear thinking and healthy minds.
One such was Wilhelm Reich. Reich believed that he had unified two conflicting “scientific” theories of his day: Freudian personality theory and Marxist economics. He believed that he had discovered the common cause of physical, mental, and social disorders in the form of “character armor”, or muscular and mental tension generated by sexual repression. And for this he was driven out of two countries. (Admittedly, the first was Nazi Germany, which wasn’t so big on his advocacy for sexual liberation or his Marxism.)
And that was all before he came to the belief that the cure for these disorders was the blue energy field he called “orgone”; that he could cure cancer and depression and bad weather with devices made with layers of organic and inorganic material; and that when the FDA came around to get him to stop selling quack medical devices, that they were attempting to assert governmental authority over primordial energy forces.
My point: Watch out for the “nobody else realizes how sick they are” mentality. At least sometimes, it points down the cult attractor.
Reversed stupidity is not intelligence. The fact that a crank believed something does not make it false.
And anyway, I think “nobody else realizes how sick they are” is a pretty basic restatement of “people are crazy, the world is mad.”
Except for the “else” term.
Oh, sure. Reich was pretty good on much of his analysis of authoritarian personality, for instance, and anticipated later work by Fromm, Adorno, and others. But after half a lifetime of actually being persecuted, he apparently lost the ability to say “oops” and went paranoid.
Bayesian rationality, cognitive science, and AI have better math and better data about the mind than early-20th-century psychoanalysts or late-19th-century economists. But we still have to watch out for death spirals.
So, someone trying to cure all diseases with a blue energy field is evidence that people generally aren’t crazy?