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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on If epistemic and instrumental rationality strongly conflict - Less Wrong
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If you're not talking about shooting yourself in the head, I don't know of any method I, myself, could use to stop believing in pandas.
Interesting given that you believe there is evidence that could convince you 2+2=3.
Given that you don't know of such a method, I would guess that you haven't tried very hard to find one.
I don't think this is a fair analogy. We're talking about ceasing to believe in red pandas without the universe helping; the 2+2=3 case had the evidence appearing all by itself.
I think I might be able to stop believing in red pandas in particular if I had to (5% chance?) but probably couldn't generalize it to most other species with which I have comparable familiarity. This is most likely because I have some experience with self-hacking. ("They're too cute to be real. That video looks kind of animatronic, doesn't it, the way they're gamboling around in the snow? I don't think I've ever seen one in real life. I bet some people who believe in jackalopes have just never been exposed to the possibility that there's no such thing. Man, everybody probably thinks it's just super cute that I believe in red pandas, now I'm embarrassed. Also, it just doesn't happen that a lot rides on me believing things unless those things are true. Somebody's going to an awful lot of effort to correct me about red pandas. Isn't that a dumb name? Wouldn't a real animal that's not even much like a panda be called something else?")
Alicorn is correct; and similarly, there is of course a way I could stop believing in pandas, in worlds where pandas never had existed and I discovered the fact. I don't know of anything I can actually do, in real life, over the next few weeks, to stop believing in pandas in this world where pandas actually do exist. I would know that was what I was trying to do, for one thing.
Not that hard. Jimmy will gladly help you.
Okay, so there's no such thing as jackalopes. Now I know.
Hee hee.
I wasn't making an analogy exactly. Rather, that example was used to point out that there appears to be some route to believing any proposition that isn't blatant gibberish. And I think Eliezer is the sort of person who could find a way to self-hack in that way if he wanted to; that more or less used to be his 'thing'.
Exactly - "red pandas" were clearly made up for Avatar: the Last Airbender.
No, in AtLA they're called "fire ferrets".