It’s an artifact of my phrasing. In my experience, people do truly want good things, until those things become universally available—at which point they switch goals to something zero-sum. When they do so, they often phrase it themselves as if they really wanted the zero-sum thing all along, but that’s often a part of trying to distance themselves from their lower-status past.
Of course, I’m describing something that I only have personal and anecdotal evidence for; I’d REALLY like to be pointed towards either a legitimate, peer-reviewed description of a cognitive bias that would explain what I’m observing. (And I’d be at least equally happy if it turned out to be my cognitive bias that’s causing me to perceive people in this way.)
In my experience, people do truly want good things, until those things become universally available—at which point they switch goals to something zero-sum.
What would you expect to experience differently if, instead, people truly want zero-sum things, but they claim to want good things until the universal availability of good things makes that claim untenable?
I’ll need some time to think on this. This might just be my tendency to find the most charitable interpretation, even if other interpretations might be more parsimonious.
When they do so, they often phrase it themselves as if they really wanted the zero-sum thing all along, but that’s often a part of trying to distance themselves from their lower-status past.
So it was deliberate, and not an artifact of your phrasing. Did you perhaps misread the grandparent?
It’s an artifact of my phrasing. In my experience, people do truly want good things, until those things become universally available—at which point they switch goals to something zero-sum. When they do so, they often phrase it themselves as if they really wanted the zero-sum thing all along, but that’s often a part of trying to distance themselves from their lower-status past.
Of course, I’m describing something that I only have personal and anecdotal evidence for; I’d REALLY like to be pointed towards either a legitimate, peer-reviewed description of a cognitive bias that would explain what I’m observing. (And I’d be at least equally happy if it turned out to be my cognitive bias that’s causing me to perceive people in this way.)
What would you expect to experience differently if, instead, people truly want zero-sum things, but they claim to want good things until the universal availability of good things makes that claim untenable?
I’ll need some time to think on this. This might just be my tendency to find the most charitable interpretation, even if other interpretations might be more parsimonious.
What do you mean by “trully want”? See the phenomenon Eliezer describes here.
I intend the phrase to refer to whatever ialdabaoth meant by it when I quoted them.
So it was deliberate, and not an artifact of your phrasing. Did you perhaps misread the grandparent?