ciphergoth comments on Whining-Based Communities - Less Wrong

59 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 07 April 2009 08:31PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 07 April 2009 10:32:03PM *  0 points [-]

I see your point and your purpose, but I have 2 caveats:

  • The fact that it would be wonderful and inspirational if rationality was always the winning strategy, doesn't mean that rationality is always the winning strategy.
  • I think there are a lot of losers who handicap themselves by making excuses; and there are a lot of winners who believe that winning proves virtue, and not winning proves a lack of virtue. Both are wrong. But the winners are in the positions of power; and so their errors do more damage.

The whole issue resists analysis, because "my fault" vs. "not my fault" reduces to free will vs. determinism. As materialists, we kind of have to believe that nothing is anyone's "fault" or "accomplishment". At least, not in the old-fashioned moralistic sense.

Comment author: ciphergoth 08 April 2009 08:04:45AM 2 points [-]

As materialists, we kind of have to believe that nothing is anyone's "fault" or "accomplishment". At least, not in the old-fashioned moralistic sense.

I find this one of the hardest and most enlightening disciplines of being a materialist. It certainly is the single thing that puts the most distance between me and most people in the way I think about the world.

I keep hoping to either write or read a top-level post about this.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 April 2009 09:21:28AM 5 points [-]

Causality and Moral Responsibility

(It's being reduced to parts, not explained away.)

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