We all know what happened to Donald Rumsfeld, when he went to war with the army he had, instead of the army he needed.
Sorry Eliezer, but when it comes to politics you are often wrong. AFAIK Donald Rumsfeld is doing fine and made a lot of money with the war, as did many others in power. Using your words: he is smiling from the top of a giant heap of utility. Do you really think he cares about the army or Iraq?
Addendum:
Ironically, based on what I know Psychiatry is perhaps the biggest Existential Angst Factory in existance.
Eliezer,
I really enjoy your articles, but one petpeeve I have is that you sometimes seem to endorse certain medical treatments.
In this article you mentioned:
stomach reduction surgery Based on what I read this procedure is quite dangerous and based on statistics generally bad although doctors make good money with it. Google for it.
neuropharmaceutical interventions. Also highly controversial. Psychiatry has it’s own set of problems. Google Thomas Szasz and anti psychiatry.
Eliezer never forget that for many readers you are an authority figure and so be careful with what you endorse.
Roland
I can’t believe no one wrote those two quotes yet:
“Those who don’t learn from history are damned to repeat it.”
“What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.”
michael vassar:
I would agree with you if there were no cognitive biases, but alas, there are and I think they are one of the main causes why reasoning errors happen. In fact this is why this blog exists.
When I look at my past such reasoning errors abound and they are the result of a biased human mind. According to your definition I don’t think those where “honest” mistakes, at the same time I think it is unfair to label them “dishonest”. The biases simply reflect the way human minds work.
michael vassar:
I would agree with you if there were no cognitive biases, but alas, there are and I think they are one of the main causes why reasoning errors happen. In fact this is why this blog exists.
When I look at my past such reasoning errors abound and they are the result of a biased human mind. According to your definition I don’t think those where “honest” mistakes, at the same time I think it is unfair to label them “dishonest”. The biases simply reflect the way human minds work.
@michael vassar: When you find someone who disagrees with you this is very strong evidence that either you or that other person or both HAVE NOT BEEN TRYING to reach true beliefs in the relevant domain.
How about the case where you have been trying hard but simply went down the wrong way because of undetected reasoning errors?
Only the first interpretatio is correct!
I would agree with the 4. before “because”, which says the same thing as the first. After “because” there is an error of circular reasoning: our desires will determine our desires. Wrong! Our desires are the result of subconcious mental processing of our brain. Anyway Schopenhauer didn’t say anything about the origin of our will or desire in this sentence so there is no point in interpreting it into it.
I agree with the above commenters. What we need is a decent forum! Why don’t create one in google groups? This site is meant to be a blog, not a forum and TypePad sucks!
At first I tend to side with Zaire. The pie should be divided according to everyone’s needs. But what if Zaire has a bigger body and generally needs to eat more? Should he always get more? Should the others receive less and be penalized because Zaire happens to be bigger? This is not easy, sigh...
What is inclusive genetic fitness? Is it the same as inclusive fitness as defined on wikipedia?
Suppose you learned, suddenly and definitively, that nothing is moral and nothing is right; that everything is permissible and nothing is forbidden.
Suppose I proved that all utilities equaled zero.
If I still feel hunger then food has an utility > 0. If I don’t feel anything anymore, then I wouldn’t care about anything.
So our morality is defined by our emotions. The decisions I make are a tradeoff. Do I tip the waiter? Depends on my financial situation and if I’m willing to endure the awkwardness of breaking a social convention. Yes, I’ve often eaten without tipping.
Do I save the human in need? Yes, I have the tendency to do so, although this also depends on a series of factors. And I’m aware that this is also hardwired empathy. Abstract moral principles are just rationalizations from our emotionally hardwired brain.
I cannot imagine myself without morality because that wouldn’t be me, but another brain.
Does your laptop care if the battery is running out? Yes, it will start beeping, because it is hardwired to do so. If you removed this hardwired beeping you have removed the laptop’s morality.
Morality is not a ghost in the machine, but it is defined by the machine itself.
Eliezer you can prove to me that all utilities are 0 but since that wouldn’t change my emotional wiring, for me some utilities would still be != 0.
I forgot one important link regarding PU, one of the biggest forums of all:
www.fastseduction.com
Kaj Sotala
I tried to post a list of good links here, but the spamfilter blocked it. It is now awaiting the approval of the blog owner. If this doesn’t show up later I will try again.
Kaj Sotala:
Is this stuff available online somewhere? I’d be curious to see what those procedures are like, and what sort of reasoning there’s behind them.
Yes, here we go:
How to build stories from your life(scroll down past the podcast announcement).
A good book.(free sample chapters download).
Free podcasts. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
If you are a torrent fan, join bitseduce while it is open to join. Tons of stuff there.
(I’d add the standard “I’m just curious, I’m not interested in actually applying such things” disclaimer, if I thought that anybody reading this would actually believe me. ;))
Why do you feel the need to add this disclaimer? It’s interesting that a lot of men feel embarrassed to seek pick up advice. What conclusions can we draw from this? Btw, I’m not implying that you are seeking advice but you still felt the need to add that disclaimer. It’s a sad fact that men are mostly on their own when it comes to picking up, while women on the other hand have no problem in turning to their peers to seek advice and talk about it. Fortunately the pick up community has changed this!
Addendum regarding pick-up artist:
Most of them will tell you that you can’t think logically when trying to understand women and that their brain is wired differently. So they are well aware of this gap between the sexes.
Regarding pick-up artists. This is very interesting, they reverse-engineer the female brainware through social experiments(approaching girls). If you look at the results that some of them get it is quite amazing. I heard of guys who went out 8 nights in a row and got laid 7 times, each night with a different girl they met on the same night. This means in each of these situations they only had a few hours(1-4) from the time they approached the girl until they ended in bed.
If you read or watch some of their materials it is amazing how much thought and structure goes into their procedures. I agree that they don’t have a full understanding of the female brain, but most of them are result oriented so they are happy enough with getting laid.
What is even more interesting: most of them are much better dating advisers to other men than the best women. Women itself are not good dating advisers for men, which seems paradoxical. While a woman certainly can tell when she is attracted to a man she can’t break down why exactly this man is attractive to her and will say general things like: “He is charming”, etc… A pick up artist can break it down to you and tell you exactly what you have to do to cause the “charming” impression.
Here is a nice breakdown with graphics of how to maintain an optimal relationship: http://crap.fi/archive/6497.jpg
Sorry, I just remembered: Titanic. For sure everyone that embarked on that ship was more worried about other things like: financial troubles, health problems, love affairs, etc… after all, the ship was built to be unsinkable.
Regarding the LHC, the mentioned risks are black holes and strangelets. What about the things no one has thought about? The truth is, no one knows what might come out when we open the pandora box.
Eliezer, why do you call this awakening “naturalistic”? I don’t see where your previous view was not “naturalistic”.