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Loren comments on The Brooklyn Society For Ethical Culture - Less Wrong
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Interesting. I rejected belief in God and the afterlife also at age 12, because I realized that the only reason I believed those things were true was that it made me feel good to believe them. It was a lasting intellectual high knowing that I had overcome my base emotions with some clear thought.
Emotional manipulation is like propaganda. One of things I found most striking about OB was the high signal-to-noise ratio. No base emotional pleas, no Giant Implicit Moral Framework silently guiding the discourse. I'd hate to see this community lose that by stooping to emotionally drugging its members in an attempt to "replace church".
Can't we just tell people the truth? You want transformation? Take psilocybin. You want to feel like things are more meaningful? Smoke marijuana. You want willpower and IQ? Take amphetamines. These all carry risks, just as religious emotional manipulation does. At least they don't soak up precious time and words.
I guess it comes down to the epistemic/instrumental divide. I'm here for the truth, not for a bag of naive attempts to stimulate dopamine release.
logi's comments are in quotes.
"Emotional manipulation is like propaganda".
I'm not talking about emotional manipulation. I'm talking about a healthy emotional life, one that provides authentic happiness. Emotions are wonderful so long as they're guided by reason.
"Can't we just tell people the truth?" Yes, absolutely!
Apparently logi has given up on the idea the transformation, meaning, and willpower are achievable without doing long-term damage to oneself. I totally disagree, it is possible if we just open up our thinking a little bit.
"I'm here for the truth" So am I!
I don't think I know what you mean by "healthy emotional life" or "authentic happiness" here.
But earlier, you said to the question of simulating drugs:
Drugs are a direct form of emotional and cognitive manipulation, so what I mean by "simulating drugs" is to achieve something similar.
I never claimed otherwise. I actually even value some emotions that aren't "guided by reason". But I certainly try not to let any of them in turn guide my reason.
No, I think you miss my points. One, I'm saying this stuff is totally orthogonal to what I find valuable in a rational community. This in the end must be a personal objection, but I am probably not alone in it.
Two, I'm as skeptical of the content of these "transformations" and "meanings" as I am of their drug-induced counterparts, regardless of their long-term harm or other drawbacks.
We probably share a concept of "willpower", and it's probably true that there are generally effective and sustainable techniques superior to drugs.
I don't know what this means.