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newerspeak comments on Wanting to Want - Less Wrong
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Okay.
I'm Paul Erdos. I've been taking amphetamine and ritalin for 20-odd years to enhance my cognitive performance. In general I want to want these drugs, because they help me do good, important and enjoyable work, which is impossible for me without them.
I can stop wanting these drugs when I want to, like when my friend bet me $500 that I couldn't. I wanted to win that bet, so I wanted not to want the drugs, so I stopped wanting them. Was that my only motivation?
Also, I don't want others to want to want amphetamines just because I want to want amphetamines.
A while ago I took Euler's place as the most prolific mathematician of all time.
Paul Erdös did it regularly, yes. Successfully, it seems — but I wonder about the costs. Does anyone have consistent data on that?
Picking only Erdös' case, would, I'm afraid, be a case of both survivorship bias and hasty generalization.