mattnewport comments on Beware of Other-Optimizing - Less Wrong

79 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 April 2009 01:58AM

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Comment author: ciphergoth 10 April 2009 11:31:22AM 10 points [-]

Do you believe that CronoDAS's interests would be served by this? If so, how is it not a problem with them? If not, why do you believe that CronoDAS's parents should or would be persuaded not to put CronoDAS's interests first?

Working for a living is enormously burdensome. Future generations won't be able to believe how much of our time it took up - and of course it takes up a lot less of our time on average than that of many other people, especially those in poorer countries or the people of the past. Still, I would argue that it's worth it, not because of the work ethic but just on a personal cost/benefit calculation.

Comment author: CronoDAS 10 April 2009 08:16:15PM 7 points [-]

Exactly!

I don't want my parents to stop supporting me, because I don't want to get stuck in some 40-hour a week job that I can barely tolerate.

For reference, modern-day hunter-gatherers "work" twenty hours a week on survival, and that's on the kind of marginal land which civilization didn't bother to invade until relatively recently. I don't think humans were designed to spend 40 hours a week doing such things as sitting in a cubicle or waiting tables.

Comment author: mattnewport 10 April 2009 08:40:43PM 1 point [-]

Are you defending your lifestyle choices to us or to yourself? I'm sure hardly anyone on here wants to tell you your choices are wrong if you are genuinely satisfied with your situation. As you recognize though, your choices do not make you a person of high social status. If that matters to you then perhaps the arguments you are making here are rationalizations?