= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Alicorn comments on Making your explicit reasoning trustworthy - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (93)
Thanks for your feedback.
Here I would guess that you're underestimating the influence of (evolutionarily conditioned) straightforwardly base motivations: c.f. the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments. I recently ran across this fascinating essay by Ron Jones on his experience running an experiment called "The Third Wave" in his high school class. I would guess that the motivation that he describes (of feeling superior to others) played a significantly larger role than abnormally explicit reasoning in the case of the Nazi regime; that (the appearance of?) abnormally explicit reasoning was a result of this underlying motivation rather than the cause.
There may be an issue generalizing from one example here; what your describing sounds to me closer to why a LW poster might have become a Nazi during Nazi times than why a typical person might have become a Nazi during Nazi times. On the other hand, I find it likely that the originators of the underlying ideas ("Aryan" nationalism, communism, Catholic doctrines) used explicit reasoning more often than the typical person does in coming to their conclusions.
I have a question regarding the Milgram experiment. Were the teachers under the impression that the learners were continuing to supply answers voluntarily?
The learner was perceived to initially agree to the experiment, but among the recordings in the programmed resistance was one demanding to be let out.
Ah, also this sentence helped my understanding:
I imagine -- perhaps erroneously -- that I would have tried to obtain the verbal agreement of the learner before continuing. But, for example, this is because I know that continuous subject consent is required whereas this might not have been generally known or true in the early 60s.
Of course, I do see the pattern that this is probably such a case where everyone wants to rate themselves as above average (but they couldn't possibly all be). Still, I will humor my hero-bone by checking out the book and reading about the heroic exceptions, since those must be interesting.