People commonly have a terminal value of dragging other people down.
I’m doubtful this is true, because it’s easy to see that dragging people down is not a terminal value, since there must be something gained by dragging others down, and getting that thing is the thing terminally valued. For example, maybe dragging people down makes someone feel good in some way, then getting that good feeling is the thing valued, not the dragging people down. Dragging people down is a strategy, not something terminal.
This suggests the core thesis is mistaken: it’s not that people are innately evil, it’s that they’ve learned a bad strategy to get what they want and are trapped in a local maximum where that strategy keeps working and other strategies are locally worse even if they would be globally better if they took the time to reorient themselves to those alternative strategies.
I’m not sure this has much of an impact on some parts of this post, like the bits about bullying, but it does call into question many of the inferences you try to draw about people in general.
By this reasoning almost nothing normally described as a terminal value is a terminal value. “He robs banks because he wants money because getting money makes him feel good”.
But this is still a type error even if you think the strategy is being executed without any regard to why it’s being executed. It’s like mixing up the policy for the utility function.
Is this an objection? That a person fails to conceptualize what they are doing doesn’t change the reality of what they are doing except by their own understanding of it.
For example, many people wander around in a state of cognitive fusion with the world, causing them to do things like read intent into places where there is none because they can’t tell apart their own motivations from observations about the world. This doesn’t really mean though that, for example, the curb on the sidewalk was out to get them when they tripped over it.
So it can still be a type error regardless of if the mind bothers to check this or not; it’s a type error within the normal meanings we give to categories like value and strategy and terminal.
This suggests the core thesis is mistaken: it’s not that people are innately evil, it’s that they’ve learned a bad strategy to get what they want and are trapped in a local maximum where that strategy keeps working and other strategies are locally worse even if they would be globally better if they took the time to reorient themselves to those alternative strategies.
Are you advocating blank statism where humans can freely chose their own strategies without regards for various inbuild heuristics? A lot of humans engaging in evil behavior (strategies that are not optimal for any goal) is one of Michael Vassar’s thesis. As I said in the other post, I did notice one very minor action that falls in that category (it was also very far from a normal strategy for me).
Given that you also have plenty of awareness training I would expect that you will find such impulses as well if you look for them in interaction with friends (especially one’s where you tell the friend about something where you have more expertise).
Not at all, only that values and actions taken to achieve those values are not the same thing and that people can change strategies. It’d be too far a jump to go to supposing folks are a blank slate, and we need not consider the question anyway, since the author doesn’t go so far as to propose something we need try to resolve by making such a strong claim. I am only saying that the author is mistaken about the idea that strategies are terminal.
For myself, if I look at myself and ask “why did I put so-and-so down” what I don’t find is “oh, I want to put people down”, I find “oh, I thought that if I did that it would make me look better in comparison” or something like that, where a deeper value is being served: making myself look good.
For myself, if I look at myself and ask “why did I put so-and-so down” what I don’t find is “oh, I want to put people down”, I find “oh, I thought that if I did that it would make me look better in comparison” or something like that, where a deeper value is being served: making myself look good.
If there’s an audience “making myself look good” seems to be a plausible end. If there’s however no audience and I don’t have any reason that my friends considers people who cause him pain to look good, I fail to see how that would be an end for the strategy and the impulse is still there in some situations.
It’s seems to me like a strategy that’s completely maladaptive in a 1-on-1 context with a person with whom I want to relate as friends.
Humans are social creatures. We often assume there is an audience even when there isn’t one. Even if there isn’t one, there’s still the audience of me observing myself and making judgments about how good I look to myself.
You’re right that this seems to be a maladaptive strategy, but it’s also worth remembering that humans are bounded agents. I mean, humans seem to actually do the thing I’ve described, and a reasonable explanation is that they are short sighted in policy planning.
There’s basically no time when you are actually faced with a single option you must take at this level of consideration, so this is a nonstarter. Instead, it’s that an option has been screened off so that it looks this way, but in fact there were many available that were simply not considered.
I’m doubtful this is true, because it’s easy to see that dragging people down is not a terminal value, since there must be something gained by dragging others down, and getting that thing is the thing terminally valued. For example, maybe dragging people down makes someone feel good in some way, then getting that good feeling is the thing valued, not the dragging people down. Dragging people down is a strategy, not something terminal.
This suggests the core thesis is mistaken: it’s not that people are innately evil, it’s that they’ve learned a bad strategy to get what they want and are trapped in a local maximum where that strategy keeps working and other strategies are locally worse even if they would be globally better if they took the time to reorient themselves to those alternative strategies.
I’m not sure this has much of an impact on some parts of this post, like the bits about bullying, but it does call into question many of the inferences you try to draw about people in general.
By this reasoning almost nothing normally described as a terminal value is a terminal value. “He robs banks because he wants money because getting money makes him feel good”.
Yes, exactly.
Put another way, I’d say that if it’s not grounded in a felt sense it’s not a value, but a policy/strategy/etc. for achieving some value.
Caching strategies without a functioning cache invalidator turns them into terminal values.
But this is still a type error even if you think the strategy is being executed without any regard to why it’s being executed. It’s like mixing up the policy for the utility function.
Not all minds do type checking.
Is this an objection? That a person fails to conceptualize what they are doing doesn’t change the reality of what they are doing except by their own understanding of it.
For example, many people wander around in a state of cognitive fusion with the world, causing them to do things like read intent into places where there is none because they can’t tell apart their own motivations from observations about the world. This doesn’t really mean though that, for example, the curb on the sidewalk was out to get them when they tripped over it.
So it can still be a type error regardless of if the mind bothers to check this or not; it’s a type error within the normal meanings we give to categories like value and strategy and terminal.
What I’m saying is that these categories may not map cleanly onto the messy reality of a real mind.
Are you advocating blank statism where humans can freely chose their own strategies without regards for various inbuild heuristics? A lot of humans engaging in evil behavior (strategies that are not optimal for any goal) is one of Michael Vassar’s thesis. As I said in the other post, I did notice one very minor action that falls in that category (it was also very far from a normal strategy for me).
Given that you also have plenty of awareness training I would expect that you will find such impulses as well if you look for them in interaction with friends (especially one’s where you tell the friend about something where you have more expertise).
Not at all, only that values and actions taken to achieve those values are not the same thing and that people can change strategies. It’d be too far a jump to go to supposing folks are a blank slate, and we need not consider the question anyway, since the author doesn’t go so far as to propose something we need try to resolve by making such a strong claim. I am only saying that the author is mistaken about the idea that strategies are terminal.
For myself, if I look at myself and ask “why did I put so-and-so down” what I don’t find is “oh, I want to put people down”, I find “oh, I thought that if I did that it would make me look better in comparison” or something like that, where a deeper value is being served: making myself look good.
If there’s an audience “making myself look good” seems to be a plausible end. If there’s however no audience and I don’t have any reason that my friends considers people who cause him pain to look good, I fail to see how that would be an end for the strategy and the impulse is still there in some situations.
It’s seems to me like a strategy that’s completely maladaptive in a 1-on-1 context with a person with whom I want to relate as friends.
Humans are social creatures. We often assume there is an audience even when there isn’t one. Even if there isn’t one, there’s still the audience of me observing myself and making judgments about how good I look to myself.
You’re right that this seems to be a maladaptive strategy, but it’s also worth remembering that humans are bounded agents. I mean, humans seem to actually do the thing I’ve described, and a reasonable explanation is that they are short sighted in policy planning.
what if sometimes it is not a bad strategy, but the only strategy?
For example nazi scientists did some cruel and evil experiments on humans, but in exchange they got what they wanted.
There’s basically no time when you are actually faced with a single option you must take at this level of consideration, so this is a nonstarter. Instead, it’s that an option has been screened off so that it looks this way, but in fact there were many available that were simply not considered.