I am starting to believe that Patri is motivated by status and worldly accomplishment much more than by learning or curiosity, and if Patri is indeed (as this article suggests) forgoing opportunities to take pleasure in learning for the sake of optimizing his increases in status or accomplishment, well, then even though Patri certainly is a fine and commendable young man, that is a mistake
Yes, I am indeed attempting to choose my reading based on how it supports my consciously chosen goals, rather than simply the vague non-goal of “learning” or short-term hedonic utility (“pleasure”). There is a name for this—it’s called “instrumental rationality”, and I’m rather surprised to find an LW commenter calling it a mistake! I thought I could count on it as a shared assumption.
Now, the question of what I’m motivated by & whether that’s good is totally separate. I frankly admit that one of my goals is to climb the status ladder, and I can understand why some people might not see that as desirable. On the other hand, I’m again surprised to find “worldly accomplishment” characterized negatively—isn’t accomplishing things in the world the point of...everything?
Curiosity is fun for kids, but the world ain’t gonna save itself.
I think his point is that a lot of delusions are high status these days (and probably in any generation, though the high status delusions change from generation to generation), so prioritizing the pursuit of status over knowledge puts you at risk of becoming deluded.
I’m interpreting this:
there are some troublesome aspects to the natural human capacity to take pleasure in increases in status (aspects not shared by human curiosity), and making curiosity subservient to the former will tend to strengthen the former at the expense of the latter.
Since he’s reading Less Wrong, he probably is familiar with Robin Hanson, and Robin Hanson frequently writes about high status delusions.
Yes, I am indeed attempting to choose my reading based on how it supports my consciously chosen goals, rather than simply the vague non-goal of “learning” or short-term hedonic utility (“pleasure”). There is a name for this—it’s called “instrumental rationality”, and I’m rather surprised to find an LW commenter calling it a mistake! I thought I could count on it as a shared assumption.
Now, the question of what I’m motivated by & whether that’s good is totally separate. I frankly admit that one of my goals is to climb the status ladder, and I can understand why some people might not see that as desirable. On the other hand, I’m again surprised to find “worldly accomplishment” characterized negatively—isn’t accomplishing things in the world the point of...everything?
Curiosity is fun for kids, but the world ain’t gonna save itself.
I think his point is that a lot of delusions are high status these days (and probably in any generation, though the high status delusions change from generation to generation), so prioritizing the pursuit of status over knowledge puts you at risk of becoming deluded.
I’m interpreting this:
Since he’s reading Less Wrong, he probably is familiar with Robin Hanson, and Robin Hanson frequently writes about high status delusions.