Tellmemore

Karma: 23

Tellmemore 11 Jan 2012 2:10 UTC
22 points
in reply to: Manfred’s comment on: On Leverage Research’s plan for an optimal world
Those linked basic claims look well falsified already.

People always believe that all of their intrinsic goods will be achieved...This is, according to Connection Theory, an inviolable law of the mind.

Wishful thinking is not THAT ubiquitous and unbeatable. Lots of people expect to die without an afterlife and wish it wasn’t so.

According to Connection Theory, the sole source of a person’s irrationality is that person’s need to believe that all of his or her intrinsic goods will be fulfilled. This need is a constraint; given this constraint, everyone forms the most reasonable beliefs that they can on the basis of the evidence they encounter

Falsified all over the place, by most of the heuristics and biases literature for one, unless “that they can” is interpreted in a slippery fashion to describe whatever people in fact do.

According to Connection Theory, every action that every person takes is part of an implicit plan for achieving all of that person’s intrinsic goods. A person may pursue some intrinsic goods first and others later, but none can be permanently sacrificed

This looks like it denies that people ever make real tradeoffs, but they do.

Tellmemore 11 Jan 2012 0:05 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Manfred’s comment on: On Leverage Research’s plan for an optimal world
If you write a longer comment or discussion post explaining what you found, e.g. how “Connection Theory” hamstrings them, I will upvote it.