Maybe I’ve gone far too deep into the Terrible LessWrong Cult, but could someone remind me why everyone else around me often seems to think that not-thinking and irrationality are happier, more satisfying ways to go through life than thinking clearly about stuff? Because I really don’t fucking get it anymore.
It’s much, much easier. Thinking clearly for most people ranges from hard to impossible. Worse, you might come to unpleasant or even dangerous conclusions. Much better to just go with the flow.
But the unpleasant, dangerous truths are true (by definition). Ignoring them just means getting bitten on the ass later because you didn’t want to think now!
First, you might get lucky. Second, getting bitten on the ass just indicates that the world is harsh, unjust, and personally mean to you. It can’t possibly be your fault.
Second, getting bitten on the ass just indicates that the world is harsh, unjust, and personally mean to you. It can’t possibly be your fault.
Blaming someone other than me doesn’t help me in any way whatsoever. I need to reason in actionable ways, not misread the universe’s basic randomness as a moral decree.
Blaming someone other than me doesn’t help me in any way whatsoever.
Of course it does. The status of a victim can be highly useful. Besides you get psychological comfort which is very important to a lot of people. Blaming oneself is unhealthy, dontcha know that? X-/
I need to reason in actionable ways
I see you have been corrupted by the LW cult. Thankfully, most people have not.
In general, let me suggest to you a couple of ways to think about it. First, consider people whose System 1 is much much stronger than System 2 and basically overwhelms it. Second, consider the relative importance of actual outcomes and feelings. For you actual outcomes matter more, but that is not true for everyone. To some people how they feel about something is more important that what actually happens.
I see you have been corrupted by the LW cult. Thankfully, most people have not.
See, the problem is, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t think this way, which is why I fell in with LW-types in the first place. The kinds of talks that usually end in, “Doesn’t that make you feel better?” have never made me actually feel better, because I always knew that no facts were being changed whatsoever.
For you actual outcomes matter more, but that is not true for everyone. To some people how they feel about something is more important that what actually happens.
Does anyone ever actually endorse this kind of thinking retrospectively, on reflection? That is, does anyone ever, for instance, get in a car crash and think, “Gosh, I sure felt great about not wearing a seatbelt, so the fact that I almost broke my neck and died is actually pretty ok”? That sounds pretty implausible to me.
A) The assumption that “feelings” are less important to males. They are not. I’m quite attached to mine, actually. The fact that I strongly prefer to enforce a correspondence between my emotions and events (ie: I should feel good about good things happening and bad about bad things happening) is basic common sense.
B) The assumption that for women, feelings are more important than facts.
I thought you started this subthread by complaining how normal people do not possess what is “basic common sense” to you...
As to B), that’s pure straw, I have said no such thing. Among people to whom feelings are more important than facts, women form the majority, but there are males in there, too, and the whole set is not all that large, certainly not most women. Besides, this characteristic strongly depends on age—teenage girls and middle-age women are… different :-)
Being rational, intelligent, and able to make good decisions sounds great. If you could wave a magic wand and grant these things, I’m sure many people would like to take advantage. In the absence of a magic wand, the journey can be unpleasant and fraught with peril. Making progress involves seriously examining your own life and dealing with all those problems you’d rather not confront. It can ruin your present social life and require you to find a new circle (as with recovering alcoholics recognizing the difference between friends and drinking buddies).
And there are plenty of failure modes. There’s a stereotype that the youth who first discovers atheism becomes arrogant and quarrelsome. A little learning is a dangerous thing. There’s an initial decline in effectiveness of reason before it catches up to (and eventually surpasses) good old common sense. No one likes a straw Vulcan.
I would heartily recommend Erasmus of Rotterdam’s In Praise of Folly for a satiric look at the benefits of not-thinking and irrationality. Here’s an excerpt which I think is fitting for the present discussion:
To these, as bearing great resemblance to them, may be added logicians and sophisters, fellows that talk as much by rote as a parrot; who shall run down a whole gossiping of old women, nay, silence the very noise of a belfry, with louder clappers than those of the steeple; and if their unappeasable clamorousness were their only fault it would admit of some excuse; but they are at the same time so fierce and quarrelsome, that they will wrangle bloodily for the least trifle, and be so over intent and eager, that they many times lose their game in the chase and fright away that truth they are hunting for. Yet self-conceit makes these nimble disputants such doughty champions, that armed with three or four close-linked syllogisms, they shall enter the lists with the greatest masters of reason, and not question the foiling of them in an irresistible way, nay, their obstinacy makes them so confident of their being in the right, that all the arguments in the world shall never convince them to the contrary.
It’s quite ironic, but people don’t engage in not-thinking because they think not-thinking makes them happier.
Pretty per definition, those people don’t make there decision based by thinking.
Maybe I’ve gone far too deep into the Terrible LessWrong Cult, but could someone remind me why everyone else around me often seems to think that not-thinking and irrationality are happier, more satisfying ways to go through life than thinking clearly about stuff? Because I really don’t fucking get it anymore.
It’s much, much easier. Thinking clearly for most people ranges from hard to impossible. Worse, you might come to unpleasant or even dangerous conclusions. Much better to just go with the flow.
But the unpleasant, dangerous truths are true (by definition). Ignoring them just means getting bitten on the ass later because you didn’t want to think now!
Sometimes, ignoring an unpleasant truth just means that someone else gets bitten on the ass.
And I’m supposed to not give a shit? I mean, I can’t actually be assured that they deserved it.
You can’t be rationally assured that they deserved it...
(Though in fact I think this is all one notch too cynical.)
Agreed. Let’s just stop now.
First, you might get lucky. Second, getting bitten on the ass just indicates that the world is harsh, unjust, and personally mean to you. It can’t possibly be your fault.
Blaming someone other than me doesn’t help me in any way whatsoever. I need to reason in actionable ways, not misread the universe’s basic randomness as a moral decree.
Of course it does. The status of a victim can be highly useful. Besides you get psychological comfort which is very important to a lot of people. Blaming oneself is unhealthy, dontcha know that? X-/
I see you have been corrupted by the LW cult. Thankfully, most people have not.
In general, let me suggest to you a couple of ways to think about it. First, consider people whose System 1 is much much stronger than System 2 and basically overwhelms it. Second, consider the relative importance of actual outcomes and feelings. For you actual outcomes matter more, but that is not true for everyone. To some people how they feel about something is more important that what actually happens.
See, the problem is, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t think this way, which is why I fell in with LW-types in the first place. The kinds of talks that usually end in, “Doesn’t that make you feel better?” have never made me actually feel better, because I always knew that no facts were being changed whatsoever.
Does anyone ever actually endorse this kind of thinking retrospectively, on reflection? That is, does anyone ever, for instance, get in a car crash and think, “Gosh, I sure felt great about not wearing a seatbelt, so the fact that I almost broke my neck and died is actually pretty ok”? That sounds pretty implausible to me.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
People we are talking about are not fans of retrospective thinking either and reflection—that’s what you use to check your makeup, amiright? X-)
You had to go and gender it?
Yes, I think there is considerable difference between genders in this.
In fact, guys underestimating how important are “feelings” to girls is a very widespread problem in personal relations.
I wanted to tell you why I’m downvoting.
A) The assumption that “feelings” are less important to males. They are not. I’m quite attached to mine, actually. The fact that I strongly prefer to enforce a correspondence between my emotions and events (ie: I should feel good about good things happening and bad about bad things happening) is basic common sense.
B) The assumption that for women, feelings are more important than facts.
I thought you started this subthread by complaining how normal people do not possess what is “basic common sense” to you...
As to B), that’s pure straw, I have said no such thing. Among people to whom feelings are more important than facts, women form the majority, but there are males in there, too, and the whole set is not all that large, certainly not most women. Besides, this characteristic strongly depends on age—teenage girls and middle-age women are… different :-)
No, I started the subthread by semi-complainingly asking why people think irrationality is more fun.
Aww, did someone just run into a fact he would prefer not to believe?
Being rational, intelligent, and able to make good decisions sounds great. If you could wave a magic wand and grant these things, I’m sure many people would like to take advantage. In the absence of a magic wand, the journey can be unpleasant and fraught with peril. Making progress involves seriously examining your own life and dealing with all those problems you’d rather not confront. It can ruin your present social life and require you to find a new circle (as with recovering alcoholics recognizing the difference between friends and drinking buddies).
And there are plenty of failure modes. There’s a stereotype that the youth who first discovers atheism becomes arrogant and quarrelsome. A little learning is a dangerous thing. There’s an initial decline in effectiveness of reason before it catches up to (and eventually surpasses) good old common sense. No one likes a straw Vulcan.
I would heartily recommend Erasmus of Rotterdam’s In Praise of Folly for a satiric look at the benefits of not-thinking and irrationality. Here’s an excerpt which I think is fitting for the present discussion:
It’s quite ironic, but people don’t engage in not-thinking because they think not-thinking makes them happier. Pretty per definition, those people don’t make there decision based by thinking.