aausch comments on It's okay to be (at least a little) irrational - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (58)
There are many, many things for which we need a constant rolling sense of "OK for all moments before now, but not OK for all moments from now into the future". So I forgive myself for all past instances of irrationality, which permits me to admit them to myself without shame and so avoid the cognitive dissonance trap; but I don't give myself permission to be irrational in the future. This of course is a very poor fit for the way we are used to thinking about ourselves, and that's one of the biggest challenges in aspiring to rationality.
Under which conditions would the negation of the first part of the sentence be worth while?
Assuming a rational, human agent, are there any worthwhile behavior heuristics which lead to statements that follow this pattern: "This behavior will not be ok for me in the future, and has never been ok for me in the past"?
That depends on something other than the words you use -- it depends on whether "not ok" is being interpreted as referring to the person or the behavior.
In terms of effectiveness at changing behavior, our friends in the religious conspiracy got at least one thing right: "love the sinner, hate the sin."