This doesn’t seem obviously bad to me… You just have to differentiate times when you have a gut feeling that something’s true because you worked it out before, or because of some stupid reason like your parents telling it to you when you were a kid. Right?
I think I can tell apart rationalizations I’m creating on the spot with reasoning I remember constructing in the past. And if I’m creating rationalizations on the spot, I make an effort to rationalize in the opposing direction a bit for balance.
I find myself thinking “I remember believing X. Why did I believe X? Oh right, because Y and Z. Yes, I was definitely right” with alarming frequency.
When reading old LW posts and comments and seeing I’ve upvoted some comment, I find myself thinking “Wait, why have I upvoted this comment?”
This doesn’t seem obviously bad to me… You just have to differentiate times when you have a gut feeling that something’s true because you worked it out before, or because of some stupid reason like your parents telling it to you when you were a kid. Right?
I think I can tell apart rationalizations I’m creating on the spot with reasoning I remember constructing in the past. And if I’m creating rationalizations on the spot, I make an effort to rationalize in the opposing direction a bit for balance.