anonym comments on Spay or Neuter Your Irrationalities - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Alicorn 10 April 2009 08:08PM

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Comment author: anonym 10 April 2009 11:31:52PM *  1 point [-]

The potential problem is that our cute and trivial irrationalities are seldom the sole instances of that class of irrationality, and indulging in a cute irrationality that you're aware of may be strengthening a more harmful irrationality of the same class that you're not aware of.

For example, if "spending time making the song counts equal" shares 'neural circuits' with other OCD-like tendencies, or with a need to invent arbitrary aesthetic judgments about trivial things that you'd rather not waste time on if you could consider things from a third-person perspective, then even though the irrationality is trivial and harmless in and of itself, indulging it is harmful because of the side effects of doing so.

Comment author: Alicorn 11 April 2009 12:45:19AM *  1 point [-]

I acknowledge that indulging it has a cost (it takes time and I don't always listen to exactly the song I would most enjoy). But eradicating it would also have a cost (it would also take time, and it would be emotionally uncomfortable at least for a while). I make this tradeoff rationally, even though my rational decision concludes that I should allow myself to be mildly irrational where iTunes is concerned.