Even in the case of Sam Harris, who seems relatively normal, he lost a decade of his life pursuing “enlightenment” though meditation
What kind of a cost-benefit analysis is this?
if you start from the assumption that something isn’t useful, of course spending time on that thing is a waste. As far as I can see, this is the totality of your argument. You can do this for just about anyone, e.g.:
Even in the case of Scott Garrabrant who seems relatively normal, he lost a decade of his life pursuing “AI alignment” through the use of mathematics.
I happen to think that Scott did amazing work at Miri, but objectively speaking, it is significantly harder to justify his time spent doing research at Miri than that of Sam Harris pursuing englightenment in India. Sam has released the Waking Up app, which is effectively a small company making a ton of money, donating 10% of its income to the most effective charities (arguably that alone is more than enough to pay for one decade of Sam’s time) and has thousands of people reporting enormous psychological benefits. I’m one of them; in terms of productivity alone, I’d say my time working as increased by at least 20% and has gotten at least 10% more effective at a fairly low cost of time, negligible cost of money, and no discernible downside or risk. (I’ve never taken psychedelics.)
I get that you think Enlightenment is bullshit. (Or at least I assume that’s what you think, correct me if this is wrong.) I strongly sympathize with this position because I think it’s the logical conclusion if you evaluate the question via pattern matching. But the person you just cited is enormously successful & personally credits his decade in meditation for that, and he created a product directly causally upstream of that decade which has thousands of more people reporting similar things. (And makes a ton of money.) I don’t fault you for still thinking that the entire project is bullshit, but obviously his case is Bayesian evidence against your position.
What kind of a cost-benefit analysis is this?
if you start from the assumption that something isn’t useful, of course spending time on that thing is a waste. As far as I can see, this is the totality of your argument. You can do this for just about anyone, e.g.:
I happen to think that Scott did amazing work at Miri, but objectively speaking, it is significantly harder to justify his time spent doing research at Miri than that of Sam Harris pursuing englightenment in India. Sam has released the Waking Up app, which is effectively a small company making a ton of money, donating 10% of its income to the most effective charities (arguably that alone is more than enough to pay for one decade of Sam’s time) and has thousands of people reporting enormous psychological benefits. I’m one of them; in terms of productivity alone, I’d say my time working as increased by at least 20% and has gotten at least 10% more effective at a fairly low cost of time, negligible cost of money, and no discernible downside or risk. (I’ve never taken psychedelics.)
I get that you think Enlightenment is bullshit. (Or at least I assume that’s what you think, correct me if this is wrong.) I strongly sympathize with this position because I think it’s the logical conclusion if you evaluate the question via pattern matching. But the person you just cited is enormously successful & personally credits his decade in meditation for that, and he created a product directly causally upstream of that decade which has thousands of more people reporting similar things. (And makes a ton of money.) I don’t fault you for still thinking that the entire project is bullshit, but obviously his case is Bayesian evidence against your position.