Interesting perspective, though I don't agree with it.
I would ideally prefer to be the sort of person who will do everything in his power to prevent bad things from happening, but who, if they happen anyway, will not further decrease utility by feeling miserable (apart from being a terminal disutility, grief tends to result in additional bad things happening both to oneself and the surviving people one cares about).
The Newcomb analogy basically suggests "what if you can't have both?". In that case, granted, I would rather have the former. And that is the trade-off evolution found: it's as if it can't trust us to protect people we care about, without holding over our heads a credible threat of harm to them being reflected in harm to ourselves.
But unlike Newcomb, I don't think the trade-off here is logically necessary. Just because evolution wasn't able to create minds that have it both ways, does not, it seems to me, preclude the possibility of such minds coming into existence in the future by other means.
(Whether and to what extent we could by means available today modify our existing minds to have it both ways is, granted, another question, to which I don't currently have a definite answer.)
(Whether and to what extent we could by means available today modify our existing minds to have it both ways is, granted, another question, to which I don't currently have a definite answer.)
Cognitive behavioral therapy tries to do this (and Alicorn's luminosity techniques are similar in some ways).
Hi Less Wrong. I am moving into a 5 bedroom house in North Berkeley with Mike Blume and Emil Gilliam. We have an extra bedroom available.
It's located in the Gourmet Ghetto neighborhood (because we can afford to eat at Chez Pannise when we aren't busy saving the world, right? I didn't think so) and is about 1/2 mile from the Downtown Berkeley and North Berkeley BART stations. From Downtown Berkeley to Downtown SF via BART, it is a painless 25 minute commute. The bedroom is unfurnished and available right now. Someone willing to commit to living there for one year is preferred, but willing to consider six month or month to month leases.
I'm open to living with a wide range of people and tend to be extremely tolerant of people's quirks. I am not tolerant to drama, so I am open to living with anyone that will not bring any sort of unneeded conflict to my living space.
~$750/month+utilities. Easy street parking available.
Feel free to ask questions via email (kfischer @# gmail %# com) or in the comments here.
And before any of you pedants downvote me because "Less Wrong is not Craigslist", this is kind of like a year long Less Wrong meetup.