My sense is that his worldview was ‘very sane’ in the cynical HPMOR!Quirrell sense (and he was one of the major inspirations for Quirrell, so that’s not surprising), and that he was extremely open about it in person in a way that was surprising and exciting.
I think his standout feature was breadth more than depth. I am not sure I could distinguish which of his ideas were ‘original’ and which weren’t. He rarely if ever wrote things, which makes the genealogy of ideas hard to track. (Especially if many people who do write things were discussing ideas with him and getting feedback on them.)
Good points (similar to Raemon). I would find it useful if someone created some guidance for safe ingestion (or alternative source) of MV type ideas/outlook; I do the “subtle skill of seeing the world with fresh eyes” potentially extremely valuable, which is why I suppose Anna kept on encouraging people.
I think I have this skill, but I don’t know that I could write this guide. Partly this is because there are lots of features about me that make this easier, which are hard (or too expensive) to copy. For example, Michael once suggested part of my emotional relationship to lots of this came from being gay, and thus not having to participate in a particular variety of competition and signalling that was constraining others; that seemed like it wasn’t the primary factor, but was probably a significant one.
Another thing that’s quite difficult here is that many of the claims are about values, or things upstream of values; how can Draco Malfoy learn the truth about blood purism in a ‘safe’ way?
Thanks (&Yoav for clarification). So in your opinion is MV dangerous to a class of people with certain kinds of beliefs the way Harry was to Drako (the risk was pure necessity to break out of wrong ideas) or is he dangerous because of an idea package or bad motivations of his own
When someone has an incomplete moral worldview (or one based on easily disprovable assertions), there’s a way in which the truth isn’t “safe” if safety is measured by something like ‘reversibility’ or ‘ability to continue being the way they were.’ It is also often the case that one can’t make a single small change, and then move on; if, say, you manage to convince a Christian that God isn’t real (or some other thing that will predictably cause the whole edifice of their worldview to come crashing down eventually), then the default thing to happen is for them to be lost and alone.
Where to go from there is genuinely unclear to me. Like, one can imagine caring mostly about helping other people grow, in which a ‘reversibility’ criterion is sort of ludicrous; it’s not like people can undo puberty, or so on. If you present them with an alternative system, they don’t need to end up lost and alone, because you can directly introduce them to humanism, or whatever. But here you’re in something of a double bind; it’s somewhat irresponsible to break people’s functioning systems without giving them a replacement, and it’s somewhat creepy if you break people’s functioning systems to pitch your replacement. (And since ‘functioning’ is value-laden, it’s easy for you to think their system needs replacing.)
He is referring to HPMOR, where the following happens (major spoiler for the first 25 chapters):
Harry tries to show Draco the truth about blood purism, and Draco goes through a really bad crisis of faith. Harry tries to do it effectively and gracefully, but non the less it is hard, and could even be somewhat dangerous.
Alas, I spent this year juuust coming to the conclusion that it was all more dangerous than I thought and am I still wrapping my brain around it.
I suppose it was noteworthy that I don’t think I got very damaged, and most of that was via… just not having prolonged contact with the four Vassar-type-people that I encountered (the two people whom I did have more extended contact with, I think may have damaged me somewhat)
So, I guess the short answer is “if you hang out with weird iconoclasts with interesting takes on agency and seeing the world, and you don’t spend more than an evening every 6 months with them, you will probably get a slight benefit with little to no risk. If you hang out more than that you take on proportionately more risk/reward. The risks/rewards are very person specific.”
My current take is something like “the social standing of this class of person should be the mysterious old witch who lives at the end of the road, who everyone respects but, like, you’re kinda careful about when you go ask for their advice.”
My sense is that his worldview was ‘very sane’ in the cynical HPMOR!Quirrell sense (and he was one of the major inspirations for Quirrell, so that’s not surprising), and that he was extremely open about it in person in a way that was surprising and exciting.
I think his standout feature was breadth more than depth. I am not sure I could distinguish which of his ideas were ‘original’ and which weren’t. He rarely if ever wrote things, which makes the genealogy of ideas hard to track. (Especially if many people who do write things were discussing ideas with him and getting feedback on them.)
Good points (similar to Raemon). I would find it useful if someone created some guidance for safe ingestion (or alternative source) of MV type ideas/outlook; I do the “subtle skill of seeing the world with fresh eyes” potentially extremely valuable, which is why I suppose Anna kept on encouraging people.
I think I have this skill, but I don’t know that I could write this guide. Partly this is because there are lots of features about me that make this easier, which are hard (or too expensive) to copy. For example, Michael once suggested part of my emotional relationship to lots of this came from being gay, and thus not having to participate in a particular variety of competition and signalling that was constraining others; that seemed like it wasn’t the primary factor, but was probably a significant one.
Another thing that’s quite difficult here is that many of the claims are about values, or things upstream of values; how can Draco Malfoy learn the truth about blood purism in a ‘safe’ way?
Thanks (&Yoav for clarification). So in your opinion is MV dangerous to a class of people with certain kinds of beliefs the way Harry was to Drako (the risk was pure necessity to break out of wrong ideas) or is he dangerous because of an idea package or bad motivations of his own
When someone has an incomplete moral worldview (or one based on easily disprovable assertions), there’s a way in which the truth isn’t “safe” if safety is measured by something like ‘reversibility’ or ‘ability to continue being the way they were.’ It is also often the case that one can’t make a single small change, and then move on; if, say, you manage to convince a Christian that God isn’t real (or some other thing that will predictably cause the whole edifice of their worldview to come crashing down eventually), then the default thing to happen is for them to be lost and alone.
Where to go from there is genuinely unclear to me. Like, one can imagine caring mostly about helping other people grow, in which a ‘reversibility’ criterion is sort of ludicrous; it’s not like people can undo puberty, or so on. If you present them with an alternative system, they don’t need to end up lost and alone, because you can directly introduce them to humanism, or whatever. But here you’re in something of a double bind; it’s somewhat irresponsible to break people’s functioning systems without giving them a replacement, and it’s somewhat creepy if you break people’s functioning systems to pitch your replacement. (And since ‘functioning’ is value-laden, it’s easy for you to think their system needs replacing.)
Ah sorry would you mind elaborating the Draco point in normie speak if you have the bandwidth?
He is referring to HPMOR, where the following happens (major spoiler for the first 25 chapters):
Harry tries to show Draco the truth about blood purism, and Draco goes through a really bad crisis of faith. Harry tries to do it effectively and gracefully, but non the less it is hard, and could even be somewhat dangerous.
I edited your comment to add the spoiler cover. FYI the key for this is > followed by ! and then a space.
Ah, great, thank you :)
Alas, I spent this year juuust coming to the conclusion that it was all more dangerous than I thought and am I still wrapping my brain around it.
I suppose it was noteworthy that I don’t think I got very damaged, and most of that was via… just not having prolonged contact with the four Vassar-type-people that I encountered (the two people whom I did have more extended contact with, I think may have damaged me somewhat)
So, I guess the short answer is “if you hang out with weird iconoclasts with interesting takes on agency and seeing the world, and you don’t spend more than an evening every 6 months with them, you will probably get a slight benefit with little to no risk. If you hang out more than that you take on proportionately more risk/reward. The risks/rewards are very person specific.”
My current take is something like “the social standing of this class of person should be the mysterious old witch who lives at the end of the road, who everyone respects but, like, you’re kinda careful about when you go ask for their advice.”