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Nisan comments on Pain - Less Wrong
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This is plausible. As someone who experiences pain as suffering, I need to cultivate the skill of doing painful things when I consciously decide that they should be done. If I had pain asymbolia, I imagine I'd need to instead cultivate the habit of making conservative decisions about my long-term health.
Is it obvious that the second attitude would be terribly much harder to achieve? By which I mean is it clear that the cost of becoming sufficiently conservative is higher than the cost of the pain?
Certainly not. On the contrary, successfully cultivating that sense of personal responsibility seems like a rewarding activity on its own. In fact, the only way of acquiring pain asymbolia that I've heard of involves treating pain as a warning signal and taking it seriously. So it seems like there are only benefits and no downsides to acquiring pain asymbolia, as long as you aren't cruel to yourself.