Speaking from experience, avoiding too much thought about true beliefs that negatively impact one’s happiness without giving any value is done by monitoring one’s happiness. Or possibly by working on depression.
For quite some time, my thoughts would keep going back to the idea that your government can kill you at any time (the Holocaust). Your neighbors can kill you at any time. (Rwanda)
Eventually, I noticed that such thoughts were driven by an emotional pull rather than their relevance to anything I wanted or needed.
There’s still some residue—after all, it’s a true thought, and I don’t think I’m just spreading depression to occasionally point out that governments could build UFAI or be a danger to people working on FAI.
Unfortunately, while I remember the process of prying myself loose from that obsession, I don’t remember what might have led to the inspiration to look at those thoughts from the outside.
More generally, I believe there’s an emotional immune system, and it works better for some people than others, at some times than others, and probably (for an individual) about some subjects than others.
Speaking from experience, avoiding too much thought about true beliefs that negatively impact one’s happiness without giving any value is done by monitoring one’s happiness. Or possibly by working on depression.
For quite some time, my thoughts would keep going back to the idea that your government can kill you at any time (the Holocaust). Your neighbors can kill you at any time. (Rwanda)
Eventually, I noticed that such thoughts were driven by an emotional pull rather than their relevance to anything I wanted or needed.
There’s still some residue—after all, it’s a true thought, and I don’t think I’m just spreading depression to occasionally point out that governments could build UFAI or be a danger to people working on FAI.
Unfortunately, while I remember the process of prying myself loose from that obsession, I don’t remember what might have led to the inspiration to look at those thoughts from the outside.
More generally, I believe there’s an emotional immune system, and it works better for some people than others, at some times than others, and probably (for an individual) about some subjects than others.