I think “believe true things” is incredibly misleading and hides way too much. Quoting myself from Facebook again:
The thing that needs to be more explicitly acknowledged in the conversation about how to promote true beliefs and social processes that help people acquire true beliefs is that acquiring true beliefs is a profoundly horrifying experience, and if you are not screaming as you do it then you are not really having it.
The quest to believe true things can take away everything you love. There was a man who commented on HPMoR about living in a highly religious community, with a loving wife and family and everything, and finding that the process of reading HPMoR had unexpectedly broken his ability to believe in God; he didn’t feel like he could interact with his community and his family the way he used to ever again. What was he supposed to do? I can’t imagine what it’s like to transition from thinking that you live in a fundamentally safe and good universe where God will take care of you to… not that. Everyone who’s ever done this has my profound sympathy and respect.
“Believe true things” and “make good choices” are dramatically in tension, in a way that this slogan doesn’t even begin to acknowledge. Most people, in most situations, have to believe all sorts of false things, or at least claim to, in order to fit in with their peers. (This is worth screaming about, if you haven’t already.) What’s the good choice here? It’s very unclear.
A more honest description of rationality would make it clear that it involves making a sacrifice; when done properly, you’re sacrificing your ability to comfort yourself with self-deception because there’s something you care about more than comfort. (But you can’t just go around saying this to people, either; it’s a dick move for several reasons.)
I think this epic LARP attitude to rationality isn’t very fruitful. Most discoveries are made due to simple curiosity. To me rationality is a natural result of being interested in something, you begin to wonder what’s true.
There’s a kind of person that can get started on rationality this way; many can’t, because other emotions get in the way and actively inhibit curiosity.
Sacrifice is definitely an important part of the process, yes. But I think waxing poetic about how miserable it is to be rational to an average person will make them think we are very weird and likely not correct, while my phrase is really difficult to disagree with and so is less likely to invite criticism. Both my phrase and talking about sacrifice are honest, but the former has a better effect on my status. I think it is a better PR move, basically, to have an agreeable elevator pitch.
Why would you want to optimize for agreeableness? There are some people who don’t want to make this sacrifice, and I personally want to leave those people alone. An honest pitch is a better filter; the people who aren’t turned off by an honest pitch are in fact the people we want.
Oh, interesting. To want to leave alone people who aren’t willing to make the right kinds of sacrifices makes a lot of sense to me. I can come up with objections off the top of my head, and objections to those and so on, so I haven’t thought about it enough to agree or disagree with the idea. The reason I was aiming for agreeableness is that the phrase is intended for answering questions like, “What are your hobbies?” or “What is your friend so-and-so like?” in a short way that communicates the basic idea and keeps the conversation pleasant. I honestly hadn’t considered protecting people from rationality. But now that it’s on my radar, I still am thinking that the vast majority of people who will hear this phrase from me will think “That’s nice,” and move on without ever considering learning more. I also think that for the people who are interested in learning more, I can filter them for devotedness immediately after they express interest.
Now that I think about it, filtering for devotedness is actually pretty tricky, because to admit that you’d rather live in a comfortable lie than with an unpleasant truth is embarrassing. People will be put under pressure to agree to take the red pill even if they really would rather not. I’m not sure what to do about this.
The reason I was aiming for agreeableness is that the phrase is intended for answering questions like, “What are your hobbies?” or “What is your friend so-and-so like?” in a short way that communicates the basic idea and keeps the conversation pleasant.
This makes sense as a thing to want but it’s pretty different from either a motto or an elevator pitch.
Now that I think about it, filtering for devotedness is actually pretty tricky, because to admit that you’d rather live in a comfortable lie than with an unpleasant truth is embarrassing. People will be put under pressure to agree to take the red pill even if they really would rather not. I’m not sure what to do about this.
Yeah, I don’t even bring up the self-deception angle except among people who I already think care about it.
I think “believe true things” is incredibly misleading and hides way too much. Quoting myself from Facebook again:
The quest to believe true things can take away everything you love. There was a man who commented on HPMoR about living in a highly religious community, with a loving wife and family and everything, and finding that the process of reading HPMoR had unexpectedly broken his ability to believe in God; he didn’t feel like he could interact with his community and his family the way he used to ever again. What was he supposed to do? I can’t imagine what it’s like to transition from thinking that you live in a fundamentally safe and good universe where God will take care of you to… not that. Everyone who’s ever done this has my profound sympathy and respect.
“Believe true things” and “make good choices” are dramatically in tension, in a way that this slogan doesn’t even begin to acknowledge. Most people, in most situations, have to believe all sorts of false things, or at least claim to, in order to fit in with their peers. (This is worth screaming about, if you haven’t already.) What’s the good choice here? It’s very unclear.
A more honest description of rationality would make it clear that it involves making a sacrifice; when done properly, you’re sacrificing your ability to comfort yourself with self-deception because there’s something you care about more than comfort. (But you can’t just go around saying this to people, either; it’s a dick move for several reasons.)
(Related: Venkatesh Rao on “Sociopaths”.)
I think this epic LARP attitude to rationality isn’t very fruitful. Most discoveries are made due to simple curiosity. To me rationality is a natural result of being interested in something, you begin to wonder what’s true.
There’s a kind of person that can get started on rationality this way; many can’t, because other emotions get in the way and actively inhibit curiosity.
@Raemon: Does this roughly summarize your disagreement with the Litany of Gendlin?
Certainly seems relevant.
(Someday I assume the “@” symbol will actually properly summon people instead of be a weird internet syntax?)
Yeah, would be cool to have it actually summon people.
Sacrifice is definitely an important part of the process, yes. But I think waxing poetic about how miserable it is to be rational to an average person will make them think we are very weird and likely not correct, while my phrase is really difficult to disagree with and so is less likely to invite criticism. Both my phrase and talking about sacrifice are honest, but the former has a better effect on my status. I think it is a better PR move, basically, to have an agreeable elevator pitch.
Why would you want to optimize for agreeableness? There are some people who don’t want to make this sacrifice, and I personally want to leave those people alone. An honest pitch is a better filter; the people who aren’t turned off by an honest pitch are in fact the people we want.
Oh, interesting. To want to leave alone people who aren’t willing to make the right kinds of sacrifices makes a lot of sense to me. I can come up with objections off the top of my head, and objections to those and so on, so I haven’t thought about it enough to agree or disagree with the idea. The reason I was aiming for agreeableness is that the phrase is intended for answering questions like, “What are your hobbies?” or “What is your friend so-and-so like?” in a short way that communicates the basic idea and keeps the conversation pleasant. I honestly hadn’t considered protecting people from rationality. But now that it’s on my radar, I still am thinking that the vast majority of people who will hear this phrase from me will think “That’s nice,” and move on without ever considering learning more. I also think that for the people who are interested in learning more, I can filter them for devotedness immediately after they express interest.
Now that I think about it, filtering for devotedness is actually pretty tricky, because to admit that you’d rather live in a comfortable lie than with an unpleasant truth is embarrassing. People will be put under pressure to agree to take the red pill even if they really would rather not. I’m not sure what to do about this.
This makes sense as a thing to want but it’s pretty different from either a motto or an elevator pitch.
Yeah, I don’t even bring up the self-deception angle except among people who I already think care about it.