patrissimo comments on "Stuck In The Middle With Bruce" - Less Wrong

54 Post author: CronoDAS 09 April 2009 12:24AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 April 2009 12:31:31PM 10 points [-]

I... honestly feel like I have no clue at all what this emotion feels like. I wonder if my brain would actually show that burst of reward.

I read the article and thought, "Hm, I have an inner name-of-loser-relative", which was a very frightening thought; but I didn't parse that in terms of enjoyment, that seemed to me like needless psychoanalysis. It was just a loser side with bad habits, probably formed mostly by hyperbolic discounting or poor impulse control. And it occurred to me that I should give this side a name and separate it out from my real me.

Now I'm wondering if the part about "enjoyment" wasn't mere psychoanalysis but something I either unusually lack, or which is unusually obscured from my sight. I know there are men who get sexual pleasure out of being kicked in the balls but I don't really know what goes on in their minds. I'm trying not to sound boastful here, but losing, generally speaking, hurts like a bastard. I can imagine other minds in which a little flash of malicious enjoyment or self-flagellation or something is tacked on, but I have no idea if that imagination is the right one.

Comment author: patrissimo 11 April 2009 01:41:08AM 2 points [-]

Most poker players, even the losing ones, don't like losing, but I think it is sometimes a driver for losing players continuing to play. Sometimes it is self-hatred (vindicating the feeling that you don't deserve to win). Sometimes it is the desire to whine - to have something bad happen to you that can plausibly be blamed on someone else.

Actually, from what I have read, feeling like one doesn't deserve to succeed, and self-sabotaging, and feeling some kind of sick satisfaction when one fails, is pretty common.