Reading this post was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me, because I read it and went “ohhh, that’s the thing other people are talking about happening to them when they talk about what an easy trap it is to fall into scrupulosity and stuff.” This might also explain why I don’t feel that much at home with the EA community even though I’m on board with basically all the main propositions and have donated a bunch.
My brain just doesn’t do the “get hijacked by other people’s values” thing anymore. I think it got burned too much by me doing that in my late teens / early twenties and getting super depressed as a result, so now anytime I see a project that part of me wants to get excited about and subsumed by, my brain goes “Nope. Nah. Not messing with that.” To the point where it’s kind of hard for me to contemplate ambitious projects at all, because the part of me that refuses to be ruled will not submit to it.
Reading this post was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me, because I read it and went “ohhh, that’s the thing other people are talking about happening to them when they talk about what an easy trap it is to fall into scrupulosity and stuff.” This might also explain why I don’t feel that much at home with the EA community even though I’m on board with basically all the main propositions and have donated a bunch.
My brain just doesn’t do the “get hijacked by other people’s values” thing anymore. I think it got burned too much by me doing that in my late teens / early twenties and getting super depressed as a result, so now anytime I see a project that part of me wants to get excited about and subsumed by, my brain goes “Nope. Nah. Not messing with that.” To the point where it’s kind of hard for me to contemplate ambitious projects at all, because the part of me that refuses to be ruled will not submit to it.