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shokwave comments on Belief in Belief vs. Internalization - Less Wrong
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Somewhat related: at least one person has internalized their belief about the Singularity in a way that appears at least as weird as our hypothetical neighbor boarding up his garage and moving house.
I wanted to add that because it is important to note that the answer to
is automatically going to be "of course they do!", and that link has a situation that ought to challenge you on this topic.
I'm not so sure. Retirement plans are far, boarding up the garage is near.
Yes, but "cancelling your 401k, not getting an IRA, minimum legal contributions to your pension, etc" seem like near-thinking reactions to the concept of the Singularity.
Yes and slightly more specifically an expected Singularity within one's own lifetime. Not unusual among those who expect a Singularity at all, but at least not universal. People who expect a Singularity in, say 200 years and also think that systems such as 401k will maintain relevance throughout their lifetime may still go with the 401k.
My apologies, I should have said "near-thinking reactions to his personal beliefs about the Singularity". The quote in that link is clearly from somebody who believes the Singularity will happen with high probability before he retires, so making it sound like it's true of any understanding of the Singularity is quite false.
Thanks, I was looking at just the more local context so responded literally.
I'm quite prepared to admit that there are many cases where my actions do not make sense in light of a gut level acceptance of my beliefs. I may not think donating money to a charity to support starving children is the highest utility use of my money, but even in spite of my own experiences with starvation, starving children are very much an invisible dragon to me.
There's a big gap between being a strong enough rationalist to acknowledge that one's actions don't make sense, and being a strong enough rationalist to reverse the situation, but at least the understanding can't hurt in making a start.
Excellent, you are ahead of me. My initial reaction to the post was to run through a list of my prominent beliefs to see if they all made sense. They all did, and I only just barely was able to catch myself in time to think "What a coincidence, every single one?". Then the "Singularity as retirement plan" quote occurred to me.
I support this 'x is my invisible dragon' turn of phrase!
I thought it would be a good figure of speech too, but I'm afraid if I used it outside the context of this thread, people would think of Sagan's dragon, not mine. This parable would have to become a lot more famous for people to start to get it.
This is the process I am trying to kickstart by throwing my support behind the phrase.
The two concepts could serve as a rhetorical crowbar:
Is this the kind of invisible dragon that isn't really there but you're in denial? ...or the kind that IS really there but you're in denial?
This in turn makes me think that there are some kinds of evidence that affect our behavior, and other kinds that affects our beliefs, and only partial overlap. (E.G. you know the dragon is there but you're not evolved to be as afraid as you should be, because you can't see, hear, or smell it.)
The standard LW terminology for this is near and far modes of thought.
My invisible dragons:
Preventative medicine. (Sanitizing things, flu shots, drinking adequate water, etc.) Risk prevention in general (backing up files, locking my possessions, not going out after dark.) I probably don't do enough of that stuff compared to how bad I'd feel if risks actually occurred. Probably include proper diet among things that I would do differently if I successfully internalized what I believe in principle.
Upvoted for
but while I'm here,
me too.