I think it’s a good idea to support the right to have a berserk button.
I don’t, and here’s why: having a negative emotional response to something kills rationality dead. It causes people to forget their well-thought out goals and engage in compulsive, stereotyped behaviors attached to the specific emotion involved, whether it’s going off to sulk in a corner, flaming, plotting revenge, or loudly lecturing everyone on proper behavior… ALL of which are unlikely to support rational goals, outside the evolutionary environment that drove the development of those emotions.
(And let’s not even get started on motivated reasoning… which, AFAICT, is motivated almost exclusively to avoid negative emotions rather than to obtain positive ones.)
Anyway, if you allow yourself to have a “berserk button” that hijacks your rationality on a regular basis, (and aren’t doing anything about it), you’re only giving lip service to rationality. Okay, modify that slightly: maybe you don’t know HOW to get rid of or work around your button. But you sure as heck shouldn’t be arguing for a right to keep it!
(I expect that objections to this comment will largely focus on individual boo lights that people will put forth in support of the idea that some things should be allowed to set off “berserk buttons”. But I hope that those people won’t bother, unless they can explain why their particular boo light requires them to have a compulsive, fixated response that’s faster than their conscious minds can consider the situation and evaluate their options. And I also hope they’ll consider why they feel the need to use boo lights to elevate their failings as a rationalist to the status of a moral victory! Lacking a compulsive emotional response to a boo light doesn’t alter one’s considered outlook or goals, only one’s immediate or compulsive reactions.)
With all due respect, I (not at all calmly) disagree. The mistakes that you can make by being emotional are not inevitable, and they are not mistakes because of your emotion—a true emotion is true—they are mistakes because you didn’t say, “I can feel my heart racing—did this person just say what I thought they said, or am I misreading?” And so forth.
But if you’re right? And if your response is proportionate? Your anger (or ebullience, or jubilation, or bewilderment, if you really want to be rational about analyzing the effects of emotion on rationality) is your power. Do you think Eliezer Yudkowsky works as hard as he does on FAI because, oh, it’s a way to spend the time? Do you think that his elegy* for Yehuda Yudkowsky was written out of a sedate sense of familial responsibility? Do you somehow imagine that anything of consequence has ever been accomplished without the force of passion behind it?
I pity your cynicism, if you do.
Edit: I will concede instantly that “berserk button” is a deceptive term, however—what I am discussing is not an instant trigger for unstoppable rage, but merely something which infuriates.
* Edit 2: The term “cri de coeur” was suggested over the message system in place of “elegy”—I think it may well hit nearer the mark as a description.
The mistakes that you can make by being emotional are not inevitable, and they are not mistakes because of your emotion—a true emotion is true—they are mistakes because you didn’t say, “I can feel my heart racing—did this person just say what I thought they said, or am I misreading?” And so forth.
If your heart weren’t racing, you wouldn’t have needed to ask the question.
Meanwhile, “true emotion” is rhetoric: the feeling of fear as the hot poker approaches is not rational, unless blind struggling will get it away from your face… and mostly in modern life, it will not… which means you’re simply adding unnecessary insult to your imminent injury.
Do you somehow imagine that anything of consequence has ever been accomplished without the force of passion behind it?
Passion != anger. If it feels bad, you’re doing it wrong.
What I am discussing is not an instant trigger for unstoppable rage, but merely something which infuriates.
Doesn’t matter to my argument: at least a rage trigger is over relatively quickly, while being infuriated over a principle can ruin your life for days or weeks at a time. ;-)
Bad feelings feel bad for a reason: they are actually bad for you.
In regards to the right to have a berzerk button: This depends at least partly on what you mean by a right.
People do have berzerk buttons. I hear “don’t have the right to have a berzerk button” as “should make it go away right now—shouldn’t have had it in the first place”. On the other hand, “do have the right to have a berzerk button” is problematic in the sense that it can imply that berzerk buttons are a sort of personal property which should never be questioned.
It occurs to me that this is a problem with English which is at least as serious as gendered pronouns. A sense of process isn’t built into the language in some places where it would be really useful.
The problem is there in the word “can”. Does “you can do it” mean you can do it right now, perhaps if you just tried a bit harder? If you tried a lot harder (and you really should)? After ten years of dedicated work? Something in between?
I don’t, and here’s why: having a negative emotional response to something kills rationality dead. It causes people to forget their well-thought out goals and engage in compulsive, stereotyped behaviors attached to the specific emotion involved, whether it’s going off to sulk in a corner, flaming, plotting revenge, or loudly lecturing everyone on proper behavior… ALL of which are unlikely to support rational goals, outside the evolutionary environment that drove the development of those emotions.
(And let’s not even get started on motivated reasoning… which, AFAICT, is motivated almost exclusively to avoid negative emotions rather than to obtain positive ones.)
Anyway, if you allow yourself to have a “berserk button” that hijacks your rationality on a regular basis, (and aren’t doing anything about it), you’re only giving lip service to rationality. Okay, modify that slightly: maybe you don’t know HOW to get rid of or work around your button. But you sure as heck shouldn’t be arguing for a right to keep it!
(I expect that objections to this comment will largely focus on individual boo lights that people will put forth in support of the idea that some things should be allowed to set off “berserk buttons”. But I hope that those people won’t bother, unless they can explain why their particular boo light requires them to have a compulsive, fixated response that’s faster than their conscious minds can consider the situation and evaluate their options. And I also hope they’ll consider why they feel the need to use boo lights to elevate their failings as a rationalist to the status of a moral victory! Lacking a compulsive emotional response to a boo light doesn’t alter one’s considered outlook or goals, only one’s immediate or compulsive reactions.)
With all due respect, I (not at all calmly) disagree. The mistakes that you can make by being emotional are not inevitable, and they are not mistakes because of your emotion—a true emotion is true—they are mistakes because you didn’t say, “I can feel my heart racing—did this person just say what I thought they said, or am I misreading?” And so forth.
But if you’re right? And if your response is proportionate? Your anger (or ebullience, or jubilation, or bewilderment, if you really want to be rational about analyzing the effects of emotion on rationality) is your power. Do you think Eliezer Yudkowsky works as hard as he does on FAI because, oh, it’s a way to spend the time? Do you think that his elegy* for Yehuda Yudkowsky was written out of a sedate sense of familial responsibility? Do you somehow imagine that anything of consequence has ever been accomplished without the force of passion behind it?
I pity your cynicism, if you do.
Edit: I will concede instantly that “berserk button” is a deceptive term, however—what I am discussing is not an instant trigger for unstoppable rage, but merely something which infuriates.
* Edit 2: The term “cri de coeur” was suggested over the message system in place of “elegy”—I think it may well hit nearer the mark as a description.
If your heart weren’t racing, you wouldn’t have needed to ask the question.
Meanwhile, “true emotion” is rhetoric: the feeling of fear as the hot poker approaches is not rational, unless blind struggling will get it away from your face… and mostly in modern life, it will not… which means you’re simply adding unnecessary insult to your imminent injury.
Passion != anger. If it feels bad, you’re doing it wrong.
Doesn’t matter to my argument: at least a rage trigger is over relatively quickly, while being infuriated over a principle can ruin your life for days or weeks at a time. ;-)
Bad feelings feel bad for a reason: they are actually bad for you.
In regards to the right to have a berzerk button: This depends at least partly on what you mean by a right.
People do have berzerk buttons. I hear “don’t have the right to have a berzerk button” as “should make it go away right now—shouldn’t have had it in the first place”. On the other hand, “do have the right to have a berzerk button” is problematic in the sense that it can imply that berzerk buttons are a sort of personal property which should never be questioned.
It occurs to me that this is a problem with English which is at least as serious as gendered pronouns. A sense of process isn’t built into the language in some places where it would be really useful.
The problem is there in the word “can”. Does “you can do it” mean you can do it right now, perhaps if you just tried a bit harder? If you tried a lot harder (and you really should)? After ten years of dedicated work? Something in between?