Thanks for the link, and the summary. Somehow I don’t find that at all surprising… but I still haven’t found any other cause that I consider worth converting to.
At the time I converted, Singularitarianism was nowhere near a mass movement. It consisted almost entirely of the few of us in the SL4 mailing list. But maybe the size of the movement doesn’t actually matter.
And it’s not “being part of a movement” that I value, it’s actually accomplishing something important. There is a difference between a general pool of people who want to be fanatical about a cause, just for the emotional high, and the people who are seriously dedicated to the cause itself, even if the emotions they get from their involvement are mostly negative. This second group is capable of seriously examining their own beliefs, and if they realize that they were wrong, they will change their beliefs. Though as you just explained, the first group is also capable of changing their minds, but only if they have another group to switch to, and they do this mostly for social reasons.
Seriously though, the emotions I had towards christianity were mostly negative. I just didn’t fit in with the other christians. Or with anyone else, for that matter. And when I converted to Singularitarianism, I didn’t exactly get a warm welcome. And when I converted, I earned the disapproval of all the christians I know. Which is pretty much everyone I have ever met in person. I still have not met any Singularitarian, or even any transhumanist, in person. And I’ve only met a few atheists. I didn’t even have much online interaction with other transhumanists or Singularitarians until very recently. I tried to hang out in the SL4 chatroom a few years ago, but they were openly hostile to the way I treated Singularitarianism as another belief system to convert to, another group to be part of, rather than… whatever it is that they thought they were doing instead. And they didn’t seem to have a high opinion of social interaction in general. Or maybe I’m misremembering this.
Anyway, I spent my first approximately 7 years as a Singularitarian in almost complete isolation. I was afraid to request social interaction for the sake of social interaction, because somehow I got the idea that every other Singularitarian was so totally focused on the mission that they didn’t have any time at all to spare to help me feel less lonely, and so I should either just put up with the loneliness or deal with it on my own, without bothering any of the other Singularitarians for help. The occasional attempt I made to contact some of the other Singularitarians only further confirmed this theory. I chose the option of just putting up with the loneliness. That may have been a bad decision.
And just a few weeks ago, I found out that I’m “a valued donor”, to SIAI. Though I’m still not sure what this means. And I found out that other Singularitarians do, in fact, socialize just for the sake of socializing. And I found out that most of them spend several hours a day “goofing off”. And that they spend a significant percentage of their budget on luxuries that technically they could do without, without having a significant effect on their productivity. And that most of them live generally happy, productive, and satisfying lives. And that it was silly of me to feel guilty for every second and every penny that I wasted on anything that wasn’t optimally useful for the mission. In addition to the usual reasons why feeling guilty is counterproductive
Anyway, things are finally starting to get better now, and I don’t think I’ll accomplish anything by complaining more.
Also, most of this was probably my own fault. It turns out that everyone living at the SIAI house was totally unaware of my situation. And this is mostly my fault, because I was deliberately avoiding contacting them, because I was afraid to waste their time. And wasting the time of some one who’s trying to save the universe is a big no-no. I was also afraid that if I tried to contact them, then they would ask me to do things that I wasn’t actually able to do, but wouldn’t know for sure that I wasn’t able to do, and would try anyway because I felt like giving up wasn’t an option. And it turns out this is exactly what happened. A few months ago I contacted Michael Vassar, and he started giving me things to help with. I made a terrible mess out of trying to arrange the flights for the speakers at the 2009 Singularity Summit. And then I went back to avoiding any contact with SIAI. Until Adelene Dawner talked to them for me, without me asking her to. Thanks Ade :)
Um… one other thing I just realized… well, actually Adelene Dawner just mentioned it in Wave, where I was writing a draft of this post… the reason why I haven’t been trying to socialize with people other than Singularitarians is… I was afraid that anyone who isn’t a Singularitarian would just write off my fanaticism as general insanity, and therefore any attempt to socialize with non-Singularitarians would just end up making the Singularitarian movement look bad… I already wrote about how this is a bad habit I carried with me from christianity. It’s strange that I hadn’t actually spent much time thinking about this, I just somehow wrote it off as not an option, to try to socialize with non-Singularitarians, and ended up just not thinking about it after that. I still made a few careful attempts at socializing with non-Singularitarians, but the results of these experiments only confirmed my suspicions.
Oh, and another thing I just realized: Confirmation Bias. These experiments were mostly invalid, because they were set up to detect confirming evidence of my suspicions, but not set up to be able to falsify them. oops. I made the same mistake with my suspicions that normal people wouldn’t be able to accept my fanatical Singularitarianism, my suspicions that the other Singularitarians are all so totally focused on the mission that they don’t have any time at all for socializing, and also my suspicions that my parents wouldn’t be able to accept my atheism. yeah, um, oops. So I guess it would be really silly of me to continue blaming this situation on other people. Yes, it may have been theoretically possible for someone else to notice and fix these problems, but I was deliberately taking actions that ended up preventing them from having a chance to do so.
There’s probably more I could say, but I’ll stop writing now.
um… after reviewing this comment, I realize that the stuff I wrote here doesn’t actually count as evidence that I don’t have True Believer Syndrome. Or at least not conclusive evidence.
oh, and did I mention yet that I also seem to have some form of Saviour Complex? Of course I don’t actually believe that I’m saving the world through my own actions, but I seem to be assigning at least some probability that my actions may end up making the difference between whether our efforts to achieve a positive Singularity succeed or fail.
but… if I didn’t believe this, then I wouldn’t bother donating, would I?
Do other people manage to believe that their actions might result in making the difference between whether the world is saved or not, without it becoming a Saviour Complex?
PeerInfinity, I don’t know you personally and can’t tell whether you have True Believer Syndrome. I’m very sorry for provoking so many painful thoughts… Still. Hoffer claims that the syndrome stems from lack of self-esteem. Judging from what you wrote, I’d advise you to value yourself more for yourself, not only for the faraway goals that you may someday help fulfill.
no need to apologise, and thanks for pointing out this potential problem.
(random trivia: I misread your comment three times, thinking it said “I know you personally can’t tell whether you have True Believe Syndrome”)
as for the painful thoughts… It was a relief to finally get them written down, and posted, and sanity-checked. I made a couple attempts before to write this stuff down, but it sounded way too angry, and I didn’t dare post it. And it turns out that the problem was mostly my fault after all.
oh, and yeah, I am already well aware that I have dangerously low self-esteem. but if I try to ignore these faraway goals, then I have trouble seeing myself as anything more valuable than “just another person”. Actually I often have trouble even recognizing that I qualify as a person...
also, an obvious question: are we sure that True Believer Syndrome is a bad thing? or that a Saviour Complex is a bad thing?
random trivia: now that I’ve been using the City of Lights technique for so long, I have trouble remembering not to use a plural first-person pronoun when I’m talking about introspective stuff… I caught myself doing that again as I checked over this comment.
Several comments above you wrote that both Christianity and Singularitarianism drained you of the resources you could’ve spent on having fun. As far as I can understand, neither ideology gave you anything back.
At first I misread what you said and was about to reply with this paragraph:
oh. that’s mostly because I was Doing It Wrong. I was pushing myself harder than I could actually sustain in the long term, and that ended up being counterproductive to singularitarianism. ( and also counterproductive to fun, though I still don’t consider fun to be of any significant inherent value, compared to the value of the mission)
But then I noticed that when I read your comment, I was automatically adding the words “and this would be bad for the mission”, which probably isn’t what you meant.
and I might as well admit that as I was thinking about what else to say in reply, everything I thought of was phrased in terms of what mattered to singularitarianism. I was going to resist the suggestion that I should be paying any attention to what the ideology could give back. I was going to resist the suggestion that fun had any use other than helping me stay focused on the mission, if used in moderation.
And I’m still undecided about whether this reaction is a bad thing, because I’m still measuring good and bad according to singularitarian values, not according to selfish values. And I would still resist any attempt to change my values to anything that might conflict with singularitarianism, even in a small way.
ugh… even if everyone from SIAI told me to stop taking this so seriously, I would probably still resist. And I might even consider this as a reason to doubt how seriously they are taking the mission.
ok, so I guess it would be silly of me to claim that I don’t have a true believer’s complex, or a saviour complex, or just fanaticism in general.
though I still need to taboo the word “fanaticism”… I’m still undecided about whether I’m using it as if it means “so sincerely dedicated that the dedication is counterproductive”, or “so sincerely dedicated that anyone who hasn’t tried to hack their own mind into being completely selfless would say that I’m taking this way too far”.
By the first definition, I would of course consider my fanaticism to be counterproductive and harmful. But I would naturally treat the second definition as an example of other people not taking the mission seriously enough.
And now I’m worrying that all this stuff I’m saying is actually not true, and is really just an attempt to signal how serious and dedicated I am to the mission. Actually, yeah, I would be really surprised if there wasn’t any empty signalling going on, and if the signalling wasn’t causing my explanations to be inaccurate.
In other news, I’m really tired at the moment, but I’m pushing myself to type this anyway, because it feels really important and urgent.
I think there was more I wanted to say, but whatever it was, I forget it now, and this comment is already long, and I’m tired, so I’ll stop writing for now.
also, an obvious question: are we sure that True Believer Syndrome is a bad thing?
Say it was the case that promoting a singularity was a bad idea and that, in particular, SIAI did more harm than good. If someone had compelling evidence of this and presented it to you would you be capable of altering your beliefs and behavior in accordance with this new data? I take it the True Believer would not and that we can all agree with would be a bad thing.
ah, but Singularitarianism is different: a True Singularitarian is supposed to be able to update on this evidence, even if it means abandoning SIAI entirely.
Presented with evidence of the counterproductivity of SIAI, a True Singularitarian would then try to find a better way to help the efforts to achieving a positive Singularity, even if it meant creating an entirely new group for this purpose.
Note that “Singularitarian” is not the same as “SIAI Supporter”, or “Eliezer Follower”
actually, I think the same applies to a True Christian. If a True Christian finds out that the church isn’t doing its job properly, and the church refuses to correct what’s wrong, then the True Christian is supposed to start their own church. And this actually happened many times through history...
Maybe instead of imagining your actions as having some probability of ‘making the difference,’ try thinking of them as slightly boosting the probability of a positive singularity?
At any rate, the survival of someone wheeled in through the doors of a hospital might depend on the EMTs, the nurses, the surgeons, the lab techs, the pharmacists, the janitors and so on and so on. I’d say they’re all entitled to take a little credit without being accused of having a savior complex!
um… can you please explain what the difference is, between “having some probability X of making the difference between success and failure, of achieving a positive Singularity” and “boosting the probability of a positive Singularity, by some amount Y”? To me, these two statements seem logically equivalent. Though I guess they focus on different details...
oh, I just noticed one obvious difference: X is not equal to Y
Yeah, what I wrote was intended as an alternative way of thinking about the situation that might make you feel better, rather than an accusation of wrongness.
I guess I’ll still need to think about this some more...
some random observations:
if X > 0, then Y > 0
if Y > 0, then X > 0
I was about to question whether maybe X = Y after all, but further thought reveals that X isn’t clearly defined, and I really would be better off focusing on Y, because Y is more clearly defined than X, and thinking about Y seems to trigger less panic than thinking about X.
So, yeah, thanks again for your comment. It was helpful. :)
Yes, it may have been theoretically possible for someone else to notice and fix these problems, but I was deliberately taking actions that ended up preventing them from having a chance to do so.
Nitpick for clarity’s sake: I’ve seen no evidence that this was deliberate in the sense implied, and I would expect to have seen such evidence if it did exist. It may have been deliberate or quasi-deliberate for some other reason, such as social anxiety (which I have seen evidence of).
er, yes, that’s what I meant. sorry for the confusion. I wasn’t deliberately trying to prevent anyone from helping, I was deliberately trying to avoid wasting their time, by having no contact with them, which prevented them from being able to help.
Thanks for the link, and the summary. Somehow I don’t find that at all surprising… but I still haven’t found any other cause that I consider worth converting to.
At the time I converted, Singularitarianism was nowhere near a mass movement. It consisted almost entirely of the few of us in the SL4 mailing list. But maybe the size of the movement doesn’t actually matter.
And it’s not “being part of a movement” that I value, it’s actually accomplishing something important. There is a difference between a general pool of people who want to be fanatical about a cause, just for the emotional high, and the people who are seriously dedicated to the cause itself, even if the emotions they get from their involvement are mostly negative. This second group is capable of seriously examining their own beliefs, and if they realize that they were wrong, they will change their beliefs. Though as you just explained, the first group is also capable of changing their minds, but only if they have another group to switch to, and they do this mostly for social reasons.
Seriously though, the emotions I had towards christianity were mostly negative. I just didn’t fit in with the other christians. Or with anyone else, for that matter. And when I converted to Singularitarianism, I didn’t exactly get a warm welcome. And when I converted, I earned the disapproval of all the christians I know. Which is pretty much everyone I have ever met in person. I still have not met any Singularitarian, or even any transhumanist, in person. And I’ve only met a few atheists. I didn’t even have much online interaction with other transhumanists or Singularitarians until very recently. I tried to hang out in the SL4 chatroom a few years ago, but they were openly hostile to the way I treated Singularitarianism as another belief system to convert to, another group to be part of, rather than… whatever it is that they thought they were doing instead. And they didn’t seem to have a high opinion of social interaction in general. Or maybe I’m misremembering this.
Anyway, I spent my first approximately 7 years as a Singularitarian in almost complete isolation. I was afraid to request social interaction for the sake of social interaction, because somehow I got the idea that every other Singularitarian was so totally focused on the mission that they didn’t have any time at all to spare to help me feel less lonely, and so I should either just put up with the loneliness or deal with it on my own, without bothering any of the other Singularitarians for help. The occasional attempt I made to contact some of the other Singularitarians only further confirmed this theory. I chose the option of just putting up with the loneliness. That may have been a bad decision.
And just a few weeks ago, I found out that I’m “a valued donor”, to SIAI. Though I’m still not sure what this means. And I found out that other Singularitarians do, in fact, socialize just for the sake of socializing. And I found out that most of them spend several hours a day “goofing off”. And that they spend a significant percentage of their budget on luxuries that technically they could do without, without having a significant effect on their productivity. And that most of them live generally happy, productive, and satisfying lives. And that it was silly of me to feel guilty for every second and every penny that I wasted on anything that wasn’t optimally useful for the mission. In addition to the usual reasons why feeling guilty is counterproductive
Anyway, things are finally starting to get better now, and I don’t think I’ll accomplish anything by complaining more.
Also, most of this was probably my own fault. It turns out that everyone living at the SIAI house was totally unaware of my situation. And this is mostly my fault, because I was deliberately avoiding contacting them, because I was afraid to waste their time. And wasting the time of some one who’s trying to save the universe is a big no-no. I was also afraid that if I tried to contact them, then they would ask me to do things that I wasn’t actually able to do, but wouldn’t know for sure that I wasn’t able to do, and would try anyway because I felt like giving up wasn’t an option. And it turns out this is exactly what happened. A few months ago I contacted Michael Vassar, and he started giving me things to help with. I made a terrible mess out of trying to arrange the flights for the speakers at the 2009 Singularity Summit. And then I went back to avoiding any contact with SIAI. Until Adelene Dawner talked to them for me, without me asking her to. Thanks Ade :)
Um… one other thing I just realized… well, actually Adelene Dawner just mentioned it in Wave, where I was writing a draft of this post… the reason why I haven’t been trying to socialize with people other than Singularitarians is… I was afraid that anyone who isn’t a Singularitarian would just write off my fanaticism as general insanity, and therefore any attempt to socialize with non-Singularitarians would just end up making the Singularitarian movement look bad… I already wrote about how this is a bad habit I carried with me from christianity. It’s strange that I hadn’t actually spent much time thinking about this, I just somehow wrote it off as not an option, to try to socialize with non-Singularitarians, and ended up just not thinking about it after that. I still made a few careful attempts at socializing with non-Singularitarians, but the results of these experiments only confirmed my suspicions.
Oh, and another thing I just realized: Confirmation Bias. These experiments were mostly invalid, because they were set up to detect confirming evidence of my suspicions, but not set up to be able to falsify them. oops. I made the same mistake with my suspicions that normal people wouldn’t be able to accept my fanatical Singularitarianism, my suspicions that the other Singularitarians are all so totally focused on the mission that they don’t have any time at all for socializing, and also my suspicions that my parents wouldn’t be able to accept my atheism. yeah, um, oops. So I guess it would be really silly of me to continue blaming this situation on other people. Yes, it may have been theoretically possible for someone else to notice and fix these problems, but I was deliberately taking actions that ended up preventing them from having a chance to do so.
There’s probably more I could say, but I’ll stop writing now.
um… after reviewing this comment, I realize that the stuff I wrote here doesn’t actually count as evidence that I don’t have True Believer Syndrome. Or at least not conclusive evidence.
oh, and did I mention yet that I also seem to have some form of Saviour Complex? Of course I don’t actually believe that I’m saving the world through my own actions, but I seem to be assigning at least some probability that my actions may end up making the difference between whether our efforts to achieve a positive Singularity succeed or fail.
but… if I didn’t believe this, then I wouldn’t bother donating, would I?
Do other people manage to believe that their actions might result in making the difference between whether the world is saved or not, without it becoming a Saviour Complex?
PeerInfinity, I don’t know you personally and can’t tell whether you have True Believer Syndrome. I’m very sorry for provoking so many painful thoughts… Still. Hoffer claims that the syndrome stems from lack of self-esteem. Judging from what you wrote, I’d advise you to value yourself more for yourself, not only for the faraway goals that you may someday help fulfill.
no need to apologise, and thanks for pointing out this potential problem.
(random trivia: I misread your comment three times, thinking it said “I know you personally can’t tell whether you have True Believe Syndrome”)
as for the painful thoughts… It was a relief to finally get them written down, and posted, and sanity-checked. I made a couple attempts before to write this stuff down, but it sounded way too angry, and I didn’t dare post it. And it turns out that the problem was mostly my fault after all.
oh, and yeah, I am already well aware that I have dangerously low self-esteem. but if I try to ignore these faraway goals, then I have trouble seeing myself as anything more valuable than “just another person”. Actually I often have trouble even recognizing that I qualify as a person...
also, an obvious question: are we sure that True Believer Syndrome is a bad thing? or that a Saviour Complex is a bad thing?
random trivia: now that I’ve been using the City of Lights technique for so long, I have trouble remembering not to use a plural first-person pronoun when I’m talking about introspective stuff… I caught myself doing that again as I checked over this comment.
I’m pretty sure of that. Not because of what it does to your goals, but because of what it does to you.
Please forgive my ignorance, or possibly my deliberate forgetfulness, but… can you please remind me what you think it does to me?
Several comments above you wrote that both Christianity and Singularitarianism drained you of the resources you could’ve spent on having fun. As far as I can understand, neither ideology gave you anything back.
At first I misread what you said and was about to reply with this paragraph:
oh. that’s mostly because I was Doing It Wrong. I was pushing myself harder than I could actually sustain in the long term, and that ended up being counterproductive to singularitarianism. ( and also counterproductive to fun, though I still don’t consider fun to be of any significant inherent value, compared to the value of the mission)
But then I noticed that when I read your comment, I was automatically adding the words “and this would be bad for the mission”, which probably isn’t what you meant.
and I might as well admit that as I was thinking about what else to say in reply, everything I thought of was phrased in terms of what mattered to singularitarianism. I was going to resist the suggestion that I should be paying any attention to what the ideology could give back. I was going to resist the suggestion that fun had any use other than helping me stay focused on the mission, if used in moderation.
And I’m still undecided about whether this reaction is a bad thing, because I’m still measuring good and bad according to singularitarian values, not according to selfish values. And I would still resist any attempt to change my values to anything that might conflict with singularitarianism, even in a small way.
ugh… even if everyone from SIAI told me to stop taking this so seriously, I would probably still resist. And I might even consider this as a reason to doubt how seriously they are taking the mission.
ok, so I guess it would be silly of me to claim that I don’t have a true believer’s complex, or a saviour complex, or just fanaticism in general.
though I still need to taboo the word “fanaticism”… I’m still undecided about whether I’m using it as if it means “so sincerely dedicated that the dedication is counterproductive”, or “so sincerely dedicated that anyone who hasn’t tried to hack their own mind into being completely selfless would say that I’m taking this way too far”.
By the first definition, I would of course consider my fanaticism to be counterproductive and harmful. But I would naturally treat the second definition as an example of other people not taking the mission seriously enough.
And now I’m worrying that all this stuff I’m saying is actually not true, and is really just an attempt to signal how serious and dedicated I am to the mission. Actually, yeah, I would be really surprised if there wasn’t any empty signalling going on, and if the signalling wasn’t causing my explanations to be inaccurate.
In other news, I’m really tired at the moment, but I’m pushing myself to type this anyway, because it feels really important and urgent.
I think there was more I wanted to say, but whatever it was, I forget it now, and this comment is already long, and I’m tired, so I’ll stop writing for now.
Say it was the case that promoting a singularity was a bad idea and that, in particular, SIAI did more harm than good. If someone had compelling evidence of this and presented it to you would you be capable of altering your beliefs and behavior in accordance with this new data? I take it the True Believer would not and that we can all agree with would be a bad thing.
ah, but Singularitarianism is different: a True Singularitarian is supposed to be able to update on this evidence, even if it means abandoning SIAI entirely.
Presented with evidence of the counterproductivity of SIAI, a True Singularitarian would then try to find a better way to help the efforts to achieving a positive Singularity, even if it meant creating an entirely new group for this purpose.
Note that “Singularitarian” is not the same as “SIAI Supporter”, or “Eliezer Follower”
actually, I think the same applies to a True Christian. If a True Christian finds out that the church isn’t doing its job properly, and the church refuses to correct what’s wrong, then the True Christian is supposed to start their own church. And this actually happened many times through history...
Maybe instead of imagining your actions as having some probability of ‘making the difference,’ try thinking of them as slightly boosting the probability of a positive singularity?
At any rate, the survival of someone wheeled in through the doors of a hospital might depend on the EMTs, the nurses, the surgeons, the lab techs, the pharmacists, the janitors and so on and so on. I’d say they’re all entitled to take a little credit without being accused of having a savior complex!
um… can you please explain what the difference is, between “having some probability X of making the difference between success and failure, of achieving a positive Singularity” and “boosting the probability of a positive Singularity, by some amount Y”? To me, these two statements seem logically equivalent. Though I guess they focus on different details...
oh, I just noticed one obvious difference: X is not equal to Y
Yeah, what I wrote was intended as an alternative way of thinking about the situation that might make you feel better, rather than an accusation of wrongness.
I guess I’ll still need to think about this some more...
some random observations:
if X > 0, then Y > 0
if Y > 0, then X > 0
I was about to question whether maybe X = Y after all, but further thought reveals that X isn’t clearly defined, and I really would be better off focusing on Y, because Y is more clearly defined than X, and thinking about Y seems to trigger less panic than thinking about X.
So, yeah, thanks again for your comment. It was helpful. :)
No problem!
Nitpick for clarity’s sake: I’ve seen no evidence that this was deliberate in the sense implied, and I would expect to have seen such evidence if it did exist. It may have been deliberate or quasi-deliberate for some other reason, such as social anxiety (which I have seen evidence of).
er, yes, that’s what I meant. sorry for the confusion. I wasn’t deliberately trying to prevent anyone from helping, I was deliberately trying to avoid wasting their time, by having no contact with them, which prevented them from being able to help.