So I imagined myself at this person’s speech, and found it fairly predictable for the most part. When he said he wanted to ask a few questions before the speech, I knew that the questions would actually be “part of” the speech, and I felt I should put the effort to try to answer them honestly (at least internally, if I were too embarrassed to admit the true answers publicly), as he probably chose the questions to trigger some insight later on.
When he asks if I was 50% confident I would kill myself to save 10, I was pretty torn, and I suspect I would not have resolved the question (and thus not raised my hand) by the time he moved on to the next question.
When he asks if I’m 95% confident I would kill myself to save 10, this was a much easier question. I know I’m not 95% confident and thus did not even consider raising my hand.
When he asks if I would spend 20 years in jail to save 10, my first gut instinct was to raise my hand, and I think I would have raised my hand. But, with my hand still in the air, I think I would immediately start regretting it, as I know that I, personally, am terrible at intuiting time duration, and started to wonder “how long is 20 years, really? That’s practically my whole life so far… am I really willing to give up almost as much time as all the time I’ve ever experienced so far?”
“Too late”, I imagined thinking to myself, “he’s moved on to the next question.” Would I live in eternal poverty to save 10? This again was an easy answer: definitely not. If 20 years was uncomfortably long, there’s no way I’d live 60-80, or longer (if I sign up for cryonics?) without being able to afford videogames, internet access, etc.
And I’d at first be surprised by the number of hands that went up, but then I’d figure this is typical of neurotypicals (I’m on the autistic spectrum), who don’t say what they mean, and don’t even realize they don’t mean what they are saying.
Then, as soon as the speaker said
In both situations if the people die, you will be rich; if they live, you will be poor, and it is within your power to decide which it is to be. In either situation if you decide that they should die in order that you can be rich, you have put your happiness, or not actually even that, you have put material riches for yourself above 10 people’s lives.
I successfully predicted that this speech would be about donating money to the poor.
So to answer the implied question:
I’d be really interested to hear what the Less Wrong community thinks of this.
I can tell you that my thoughts really didn’t have much to do with poverty, morality, charities or Africa, but a lot more to do with people (in general, not just neurotypicals) not actually thinking about nor realizing what it is that they are saying. As an Autist, I “knew” on some level that NTs weren’t doing this intentionally, but this speech actually really hit me hard with the idea that they really weren’t doing it intentionally.
the next time you hear someone unhesitatingly repeating a meme you think is silly or false, you’ll think, “Cached thoughts.” My belief is now there in your mind, waiting to complete the pattern. But is it true? Don’t let your mind complete the pattern! Think!
So I imagined myself at this person’s speech, and found it fairly predictable for the most part. When he said he wanted to ask a few questions before the speech, I knew that the questions would actually be “part of” the speech, and I felt I should put the effort to try to answer them honestly (at least internally, if I were too embarrassed to admit the true answers publicly), as he probably chose the questions to trigger some insight later on.
When he asks if I was 50% confident I would kill myself to save 10, I was pretty torn, and I suspect I would not have resolved the question (and thus not raised my hand) by the time he moved on to the next question.
When he asks if I’m 95% confident I would kill myself to save 10, this was a much easier question. I know I’m not 95% confident and thus did not even consider raising my hand.
When he asks if I would spend 20 years in jail to save 10, my first gut instinct was to raise my hand, and I think I would have raised my hand. But, with my hand still in the air, I think I would immediately start regretting it, as I know that I, personally, am terrible at intuiting time duration, and started to wonder “how long is 20 years, really? That’s practically my whole life so far… am I really willing to give up almost as much time as all the time I’ve ever experienced so far?”
“Too late”, I imagined thinking to myself, “he’s moved on to the next question.” Would I live in eternal poverty to save 10? This again was an easy answer: definitely not. If 20 years was uncomfortably long, there’s no way I’d live 60-80, or longer (if I sign up for cryonics?) without being able to afford videogames, internet access, etc.
And I’d at first be surprised by the number of hands that went up, but then I’d figure this is typical of neurotypicals (I’m on the autistic spectrum), who don’t say what they mean, and don’t even realize they don’t mean what they are saying.
Then, as soon as the speaker said
I successfully predicted that this speech would be about donating money to the poor.
So to answer the implied question:
I can tell you that my thoughts really didn’t have much to do with poverty, morality, charities or Africa, but a lot more to do with people (in general, not just neurotypicals) not actually thinking about nor realizing what it is that they are saying. As an Autist, I “knew” on some level that NTs weren’t doing this intentionally, but this speech actually really hit me hard with the idea that they really weren’t doing it intentionally.
This really reminds me of Eliezer’s Cached Thought concept.