MichaelBishop comments on 'oy, girls on lw, want to get together some time?' - Less Wrong

31 Post author: MBlume 02 October 2009 10:50AM

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Comment author: CronoDAS 02 October 2009 04:38:19PM *  13 points [-]

Should I be embarrassed to admit my own lack of ambition on this site?

Saving the world sounds like it involves a lot of painful work. I don't like the world very much, and would prefer to escape from it instead of save it.

Addressing the topic at hand more directly, I usually assume that most of the girls here are probably located outside of convenient driving distance and aren't here to be hit on anyway. Furthermore, after considering the extent of my personal problems, I've come to the conclusion that I'd be more trouble than I'm worth to any woman who might be convinced to date me, and taken myself off the market.

Comment author: MichaelBishop 03 October 2009 04:04:47AM 8 points [-]

CronoDAS! You are trapped in a bad equilibrium, but there is no reason to believe you will be trapped in it forever. It is obvious to me that you are a thoughtful and intelligent individual. I would bet my life on the fact that you have false self-limiting beliefs. Keep experimenting in life and one day you will realize you've left that bad equilibrium.

Comment author: pdf23ds 03 October 2009 04:19:49AM *  3 points [-]

Eh. I tend to agree with CronoDAS. Not that he's objectively right that one is better off escaping from the world rather than dealing with it, but that his utility function is really screwed up by most people's standards, and that "correcting" it is extremely difficult. It's not at all simply a matter of self-limiting beliefs. In my case, at least, it's a matter of a great deal of adverse conditioning that took place when I was raised, and maybe a bit of bad genes. It's a matter of accurate assessments about the world being more emotionally disturbing to me than for most people, at a level more basic than that of beliefs.

More here.

(Note that I'm doing better recently, finally having found some meds with a decently strong placebo effect.)

Comment author: SilasBarta 03 October 2009 04:06:34AM 0 points [-]

Meh. Join the club. I tried to tell him the same thing (too sleepy to look for the link right now) but he wouldn't listen. But maybe there's some different nuance in the way you said it.