ciphergoth comments on Raising the Sanity Waterline - Less Wrong

112 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 March 2009 04:28AM

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Comment author: Annoyance 12 March 2009 07:34:05PM 3 points [-]

If you don't care about consistency, there's really no way to be argued into caring about it. Not rationally, anyway, and not even with unconscious logic. It can only be done by "pushing a motivational button", and without a very detailed model of how your mind works, someone else can only do that by flailing about at random.

Self-consistency is the most basic aspect of effective thought.

Comment author: thomblake 12 March 2009 08:19:22PM 2 points [-]

The contrapositive of this:

If you don't want people to be able to easily manipulate you, be irrational and inconsistent.

Is this right?

Comment author: ciphergoth 13 March 2009 09:23:30AM 5 points [-]

If you were to try this, you would instead be irrational in a consistent way described by well-known cognitive biases, and therefore unusually easy to manipulate.

Comment author: David_Gerard 21 February 2011 11:41:51AM 0 points [-]

How manipulable do you find the determinedly irrational in practice?

Mostly I just find them deeply painful and try to avoid dealing with them except by occasionally poking them with sticks.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 21 February 2011 03:59:28PM 2 points [-]

Depends on what I'm trying to get them to do, and how well I understand the framework of their irrationality. In many cases, I find them highly manipulable; in other cases, not at all.

Comment author: wedrifid 21 February 2011 05:24:04PM 1 point [-]

How manipulable do you find the determinedly irrational in practice?

Extremely. But when people are already acting against their own interests it is sometimes more convenient to exploit their current practice without trying to influence them significantly.