I rarely have problems with hyperfixation. When I do, I just come back to the problem later, or prime myself with a random stimulus. (See Steelmanning Divination.)
Peacefulness is enjoyable and terminally desirable, but in many contexts predators want to induce peacefulness to create vulnerability. Example: buying someone a drink with ill intent. (See “Safety in numbers” by Benjamin Ross Hoffman. I actually like relaxation, but agree with him that feeling relaxed in unsafe environments is a terrible idea. Reality is mostly an unsafe environment. Am getting to that.)
I have no problem enjoying warm fuzzies. I had problems with them after first talking with Vassar, but I re-equilibrated. Warm fuzzies are good, helpful, and worth purchasing. I am not a perfect utilitarian. However, it is important that when you buy fuzzies instead of utils, as Scott would put it, you know what you are buying. Many will sell fuzzies and market them as utils.
I sometimes round things, it is not inherently bad.
Dimming things is not good. I like being alive. From a functionalist perspective, the degree to which I am aroused (with respect to the senses and the mind) is the degree to which I am a real, sapient being. Dimming is sometimes terminally valuable as relaxation, and instrumentally valuable as sleep, but if you believe in Life, Freedom, Prosperity And Other Nice Transhumanist Things then dimming being bad in most contexts follows as a natural consequence.
On the second paragraph:
This is because people compartmentalize. After studying a thing for a long time, people will grasp deep nonverbal truths about that thing. Sometimes they are wrong; without the legibility of the elucidation, false ideas such gained are difficult to destroy. Sometimes they are right! Mathematical folklore is an example: it is literally metis among mathematicians.
Highly knowledgeable and epistemically skilled people delineate. Sometimes the natural delineation is “this is true everywhere and false nowhere.” See “The Proper Use of Humility,” and for an example of how delineations often should be large, “Universal Fire.”
On the first paragraph:
Reality is hostile through neutrality. Any optimizing agent naturally optimizes against most other optimization targets when resources are finite. Lifeforms are (badly) optimized for inclusive genetic fitness. Thermodynamics looks like the sort of Universal Law that an evil god would construct. According to a quick Google search approximately 3,700 people die in car accidents per day and people think this is completely normal.
Many things are actually effective. For example, most places in the United States have drinkable-ish running water. This is objectively impressive. Any model must not be entirely made out of “the world is evil” otherwise it runs against facts. But the natural mental motion you make, as a default, should be, “How is this system produced by an aggressively neutral, entirely mechanistic reality?”
See the entire Sequence on evolution, as well as Beyond the Reach of God.
On the third paragraph:
I rarely have problems with hyperfixation. When I do, I just come back to the problem later, or prime myself with a random stimulus. (See Steelmanning Divination.)
Peacefulness is enjoyable and terminally desirable, but in many contexts predators want to induce peacefulness to create vulnerability. Example: buying someone a drink with ill intent. (See “Safety in numbers” by Benjamin Ross Hoffman. I actually like relaxation, but agree with him that feeling relaxed in unsafe environments is a terrible idea. Reality is mostly an unsafe environment. Am getting to that.)
I have no problem enjoying warm fuzzies. I had problems with them after first talking with Vassar, but I re-equilibrated. Warm fuzzies are good, helpful, and worth purchasing. I am not a perfect utilitarian. However, it is important that when you buy fuzzies instead of utils, as Scott would put it, you know what you are buying. Many will sell fuzzies and market them as utils.
I sometimes round things, it is not inherently bad.
Dimming things is not good. I like being alive. From a functionalist perspective, the degree to which I am aroused (with respect to the senses and the mind) is the degree to which I am a real, sapient being. Dimming is sometimes terminally valuable as relaxation, and instrumentally valuable as sleep, but if you believe in Life, Freedom, Prosperity And Other Nice Transhumanist Things then dimming being bad in most contexts follows as a natural consequence.
On the second paragraph:
This is because people compartmentalize. After studying a thing for a long time, people will grasp deep nonverbal truths about that thing. Sometimes they are wrong; without the legibility of the elucidation, false ideas such gained are difficult to destroy. Sometimes they are right! Mathematical folklore is an example: it is literally metis among mathematicians.
Highly knowledgeable and epistemically skilled people delineate. Sometimes the natural delineation is “this is true everywhere and false nowhere.” See “The Proper Use of Humility,” and for an example of how delineations often should be large, “Universal Fire.”
On the first paragraph:
Reality is hostile through neutrality. Any optimizing agent naturally optimizes against most other optimization targets when resources are finite. Lifeforms are (badly) optimized for inclusive genetic fitness. Thermodynamics looks like the sort of Universal Law that an evil god would construct. According to a quick Google search approximately 3,700 people die in car accidents per day and people think this is completely normal.
Many things are actually effective. For example, most places in the United States have drinkable-ish running water. This is objectively impressive. Any model must not be entirely made out of “the world is evil” otherwise it runs against facts. But the natural mental motion you make, as a default, should be, “How is this system produced by an aggressively neutral, entirely mechanistic reality?”
See the entire Sequence on evolution, as well as Beyond the Reach of God.