Was pointed to this great article that makes the same point with several additional examples, e.g.:
If you take suffering seriously (farmed chickens, children in poor countries, etc), you’re in a lot of trouble—because there’s a lot of suffering, and suffering is very important. So you should drop whatever you’re doing, and start doing something about suffering. Or at the very least, you should donate money.
Same if you take politics seriously. Same if you take many other things seriously.
The easy solution is to say: “Those aren’t that important”. I’ve been doing that for years. “Actually, I don’t care about chickens, or any other animals”.
With synthesis, I have arrived at a much better solution:
Things are important and I won’t work on them and it doesn’t make me a bad person
This means that I can care about chickens now—because caring about chickens, or poor children, or anything, no longer compels me to start doing something to help them. This has amazing long-term implications:
I am more likely to help chickens in the future, because this is easier when I care;
I am more likely to spend time helping whoever I want, become good at it, level up at various skills like “execution”, and if I decide to help chickens in the future, I will be more efficient at that.
The specific examples in your quote remind me of my idea of curiosity stoppers from fear of psychological pain and guilt. Maybe wanting things to be either good or bad (me being curious about them or them being horrible) is an underlying cause of this specific curiosity stopper.
Was pointed to this great article that makes the same point with several additional examples, e.g.:
The specific examples in your quote remind me of my idea of curiosity stoppers from fear of psychological pain and guilt. Maybe wanting things to be either good or bad (me being curious about them or them being horrible) is an underlying cause of this specific curiosity stopper.