My 3 pieces of advice, for someone already convinced that something fairly accurate is going on, would be:
1) Try to sign up for cryonics before dying.
2) When donating to charity, use the recommendations of an organization like GiveWell (“the practical approach”), or donate to a charity working on existential risk (“the ‘taking ideas seriously’ approach).
3) (My one best piece of rationality advice) Other people have good reasons for their actions, according to themselves. That doesn’t mean you’ll think they’re good once you find them out—but it does mean you should try to find them out.
Other people have good reasons for their actions, according to themselves.
Do they? (Or are you referring to the fact that people, when asked explicitly why they did something, make up some reason and convince themselves that that was it? Context suggests to me, though, that “according to themselves” refers to what they think, not what they say (and maybe then think) upon asking.)
I believe that people can only do what makes sense to them, for some very expansive meaning of “makes sense”. The gain from believing this is to give up the delusion that what feels right to me should automatically transfer to other people.
True, but I know I do a lot of things without first thinking about whether they make sense. I don’t generally have the time to check that for every single action I take (e.g. performing a speech act in a conversation).
That’s kind of where I was pointing with “very expansive meaning of “makes sense” “—system 1 has its own background premises, even if they aren’t verbal or filtered through the conscious mind.
It seems to me that the situation is this: everybody does everything for a reason (surprise, surprise), but they may not know it, you may not know it, it may not be what they say it is even if they try to be honest, and it may not be a good reason.
That, unfortunately, is not a neatly summarisable point, and the question of what moral to draw from it is not trivial.
My 3 pieces of advice, for someone already convinced that something fairly accurate is going on, would be:
1) Try to sign up for cryonics before dying.
2) When donating to charity, use the recommendations of an organization like GiveWell (“the practical approach”), or donate to a charity working on existential risk (“the ‘taking ideas seriously’ approach).
3) (My one best piece of rationality advice) Other people have good reasons for their actions, according to themselves. That doesn’t mean you’ll think they’re good once you find them out—but it does mean you should try to find them out.
Do they? (Or are you referring to the fact that people, when asked explicitly why they did something, make up some reason and convince themselves that that was it? Context suggests to me, though, that “according to themselves” refers to what they think, not what they say (and maybe then think) upon asking.)
I believe that people can only do what makes sense to them, for some very expansive meaning of “makes sense”. The gain from believing this is to give up the delusion that what feels right to me should automatically transfer to other people.
True, but I know I do a lot of things without first thinking about whether they make sense. I don’t generally have the time to check that for every single action I take (e.g. performing a speech act in a conversation).
That’s kind of where I was pointing with “very expansive meaning of “makes sense” “—system 1 has its own background premises, even if they aren’t verbal or filtered through the conscious mind.
I’ll see if I can come up with a better phrasing.
It seems to me that the situation is this: everybody does everything for a reason (surprise, surprise), but they may not know it, you may not know it, it may not be what they say it is even if they try to be honest, and it may not be a good reason.
That, unfortunately, is not a neatly summarisable point, and the question of what moral to draw from it is not trivial.
I think the latter.