Correct. However, if "experiencing thrills" is one of my terminal goals, then that thrill is >helping me.
Yes, that's trivially true.
No, it just means my happiness system isn't mediated by expected utility calculations. >If your implication is that it "should" be, then you're committing a grievous is/ought >error.
Just because I'm using a "should" doesn't make it an error. I mean it in the same way that your car "should" transport you from one place to another. Yes, I can describe it as it "is", but that don't mean it ain't broke.
Do you really have a problem with that? If so, when do you think it's acceptable to use the word "should"?
You're assuming that "thrills" and "happiness" serve specific, narrow purposes >(presumably the ones evolution "intended" them for). I don't share your assumption.
It sounds like you're saying that they didn't "serve a purpose" that caused them to be selected for, but I think you mean to say that you just don't care.
There are abstract things that I want (which aligns fairly closely with what would have helped me reproduce as a caveman), and there are lower level feedback mechanisms that were selected because they helped people achieve (almost) these goals. To the extent that they don't enforce the 'right' behavior, I'd prefer to change that instead of having to choose between cheap thrills and abstract goals.
Correct. However, if "experiencing thrills" is one of my terminal goals, then that thrill is helping me.
Yes, that's trivially true.
Then how is a thrill-seeker not "getting it"? Or are you claiming thrill-seekers don't exist?
To the extent that they don't enforce the 'right' behavior, I'd prefer to change that instead of having to choose between cheap thrills and abstract goals.
That's you. Your original comment wasn't phrased in the first person, however:
...If you still get thrill out of slot machines, it just means that you don'
(Since there didn't seem to be one for this month, and I just ran across a nice quote.)
A monthly thread for posting any interesting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently on the Internet, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages.