wedrifid comments on NKCDT: The Big Bang Theory - Less Wrong

-12 [deleted] 10 November 2012 01:15PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 11 November 2012 04:24:44AM *  1 point [-]

"Your denial of the importance of objectivity amounts to announcing your intention to lie to us. No-one should believe anything you say."

That isn't exactly true. Instead people should expect what he says to be true if the incentives (including risks of punishment) are such that it is in his best interest to tell the truth. Which, as it turns out, is approximately the rule of thumb I use when listening to any human. That most often I expect the falsehoods to be the result of instinctive hypocrisy than self aware intent to deceive is not significant.

Comment author: Ritalin 11 November 2012 09:49:35PM 0 points [-]

I find that sort of mentality to be amazingly depressing. If the world were like that, why get out of the bed in the morning?

Comment author: wedrifid 12 November 2012 12:06:58AM *  2 points [-]

I find that sort of mentality to be amazingly depressing. If the world were like that, why get out of the bed in the morning?

Because I can't cook bacon from in bed. Bacon is delicious!

There is no rule "If I understand something about the world that differs from a simple ideology then I must make myself sad". So I don't do that.

What is true is already so.
Owning up to it doesn't make it worse.
Not being open about it doesn't make it go away.
And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with.
Anything untrue isn't there to be lived.
People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.

—Eugene Gendlin

Comment author: Ritalin 12 November 2012 04:05:00AM 1 point [-]

As a matter of fact, that's wrong when it comes to knowledge about humans; your expectations about a human (or rather, the signalling thereof) will change how said human behaves. Your beliefs (or rather, others' perception thereof) change reality. If you expect someone to be good, they may well feel compelled to meet that expectation. If you expect people to respect you and find you atractive, all alse being equal, they will be more likely to find you respectable and attractive.

And if you expect people to be selfish assholes whose kindness is nothing more than a complex deception of themselves and each other, and they pick up on that, you're more likely to get a treatment that fits that description.