Rationality Quotes January 2013

6 Post author: katydee 02 January 2013 05:23PM

Happy New Year! Here's the latest and greatest installment of rationality quotes. Remember:

  • Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately.  (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments.  If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
  • Do not quote yourself
  • Do not quote comments/posts on LessWrong or Overcoming Bias
  • No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please

Comments (604)

Comment author: katydee 01 January 2013 01:37:48PM 26 points [-]

The dream is damned and dreamer too if dreaming's all that dreamers do.

--Rory Miller

Comment author: Document 03 January 2013 04:46:38AM *  4 points [-]
Comment author: taelor 01 January 2013 03:02:53PM *  9 points [-]

As for the hopeful, it does not seem to make any difference who it is that is seized by a wild hope -- whether it be an enthusiastic intellectual, a land-hungry farmer, a get-rich-quick speculator, a sober merchant or industrialist, a plain workingman or a noble lord -- they all proceed recklessly with the present, wreck it if they must, and create a new world. [...] When hopes and dreams are loose on the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monsterous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

Comment author: nabeelqu 01 January 2013 03:33:09PM *  38 points [-]

Not long ago a couple across the aisle from me in a Quiet Car talked all the way from New York City to Boston, after two people had asked them to stop. After each reproach they would lower their voices for a while, but like a grade-school cafeteria after the lunch monitor has yelled for silence, the volume crept inexorably up again. It was soft but incessant, and against the background silence, as maddening as a dripping faucet at 3 a.m. All the way to Boston I debated whether it was bothering me enough to say something. As we approached our destination a professorial-looking man who’d spoken to them twice got up, walked back and stood over them. He turned out to be quite tall. He told them that they’d been extremely inconsiderate, and he’d had a much harder time getting his work done because of them.

“Sir,” the girl said, “I really don’t think we were bothering anyone else.”

“No,” I said, “you were really annoying.”

“Yes,” said the woman behind them.

“See,” the man explained gently, “this is how it works. I’m the one person who says something. But for everyone like me, there’s a whole car full of people who feel the same way.”

-- Tim Kreider, The Quiet Ones

Comment author: tut 02 January 2013 09:13:05PM 4 points [-]

Since this has got 22 upvotes I must ask: What makes this a rationality quote?

Comment author: nabeelqu 02 January 2013 09:55:50PM 6 points [-]

I'd say it comes under the 'instrumental rationality' heading. The chatter was clearly bothering the writer, but - irrationally - neither he nor the others (bar one) actually got up and said anything.

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 10:02:46PM 6 points [-]

Every actual criticism of an idea/behaviour is likely to imply a much larger quantity of silent doubt/disapproval.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 02 January 2013 10:20:38PM 7 points [-]

Sometimes, but you need to take into account what P(voices criticism | has criticism) is. Otherwise you'll constantly cave to vocal minorities (situations where the above probability is relatively large).

Comment author: Toddling 03 January 2013 10:05:28AM 3 points [-]

You could argue that the silence of the author and the woman behind the couple is an example of the bystander effect.

Comment author: roystgnr 02 January 2013 09:16:53PM 16 points [-]

"This is how it sometimes works", I would have said. Anything more starts to sound uncomfortably close to "the lurkers support me in email."

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 January 2013 09:34:32PM 12 points [-]

...but why wait until they'd almost gotten to Boston?

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 02 January 2013 09:46:16PM 21 points [-]

Perhaps because at that point, one is not faced with the prospect of spending several hours in close proximity to people with whom one has had an unpleasant social interaction.

Comment author: nabeelqu 02 January 2013 09:51:40PM 7 points [-]

The passage states that he'd already spoken to them twice.

Comment author: shminux 02 January 2013 09:54:47PM 13 points [-]

No one wants to appear rude, of course. As this was almost the end of the ride, the person who rebuked them minimized the time he'd have to endure in the company of people who might consider him rude because of his admonishment, whether or not they agree with him. I wonder if this is partly a cultural thing.

Comment author: Alejandro1 01 January 2013 03:46:33PM 8 points [-]

The universe is not indifferent. How do I know this? I know because I am part of the universe, and I am far from indifferent.

--Scott Derrickson

Comment author: MixedNuts 01 January 2013 04:47:35PM 7 points [-]

I touched her hand. Her hand touched her boob. By the transitive property, I got some boob. Algebra's awesome!

-- Steve Smith, American Dad!, season 1, episode 7 "Deacon Stan, Jesus Man", on the applicability of this axiom.

Comment author: BerryPick6 01 January 2013 04:54:19PM *  8 points [-]

We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions. Moral choices. Some are on a grand scale. Most of these choices are on lesser points. But! We define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are in fact the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, human happiness does not seem to have been included, in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love, that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying, and even to find joy from simple things like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more.

-- Closing lines of Crimes and Misdemeanors, script by Woody Allen.

Comment author: Alejandro1 01 January 2013 09:59:23PM 0 points [-]

I agree with the sentiment expressed in this quote, and I don't see it as opposed to the one expressed i mine, but judging from the pattern of up votes and downvotes, people do not agree.

I guess the quote I posted is ambiguous. You could read it as a kind of bad theistic argument ("since there is meaning in my life, there must be Ultimate Meaning in the universe"). Or you could read it as an anti-nihilistic quote ("even if there is no Ultimate Meaning, the fact that there is meaning in my life is enough to make it false that the universe is meaningless"). I was assuming the second reading, but I guess either the people who voted either assumed the first one. Or perhaps they saw the second one and just judged it a poor way of stating this idea.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 02 January 2013 03:13:39AM 6 points [-]

The fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole (or even of every proper part).

Comment author: taelor 02 January 2013 04:57:20AM 1 point [-]

Scott Derrickson may be a part of the universe, but he is not the universe.

Comment author: Kindly 02 January 2013 02:59:53PM 13 points [-]

Scott Derrickson is indifferent. How do I know this? I know because Scott Derrickson's skin cells are part of Scott Derrickson, and Scott Derrickson's skin cells are indifferent.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 11:44:59PM 5 points [-]

If you interpret “X is indifferent” as “no part of X cares”, the original quote is valid and yours isn't.

Comment author: NoisyEmpire 02 January 2013 07:26:46PM 12 points [-]

While affirming the fallacy-of-composition concerns, I think we can take this charitably to mean "The universe is not totally saturated with only indifference throughout, for behold, this part of the universe called Scott Derrickson does indeed care about things."

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 11:42:06PM 2 points [-]

That's the way I interpreted it, too. There's a speech in HP:MOR where Harry makes pretty much the same point.

Comment author: NoisyEmpire 03 January 2013 01:38:40AM 7 points [-]

“There is light in the world, and it is us!”

Love that moment.

Comment author: Alejandro1 04 January 2013 09:52:27PM *  2 points [-]

That's exactly the sentiment I was aiming for with the quote.

Comment author: BerryPick6 01 January 2013 04:15:35PM 14 points [-]

Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.

-- John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement.

Comment author: dspeyer 01 January 2013 04:37:36PM *  35 points [-]

You're better at talking than I am. When you talk, sometimes I get confused. My ideas of what's right and wrong get mixed up. That's why I'm bringing this. As soon as I start thinking it's all right to steal from our employees, I'm going to start hitting you with the stick.

later

If it makes you feel any better, I agree with your logic completely.

No, what would make me feel better is for you to stop hitting me!

--Freefall

Comment author: ygert 01 January 2013 05:29:18PM *  19 points [-]

I was rereading HP Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu lately, and the quote from the Necronomicon jumped out at me as a very good explanation of exactly why cryonics is such a good idea.

(Full disclosure: I myself have not signed up for cryonics. But I intend to sign up as soon as I can arrange to move to a place where it is available.)

The quote is simply this:

That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange aeons even death may die.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 January 2013 06:18:01PM *  8 points [-]

So strange that this quote hasn't already been memed to death in support of cryonics.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 January 2013 08:32:29PM 6 points [-]

RationalWiki is extremely sceptical of cryonics and still it has quoted that.

Comment author: Raemon 02 January 2013 05:54:12AM 0 points [-]

It featured prominently in last year's Solstice.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 05:59:55AM 1 point [-]

In retrospect, I don't think I have a good reason for not coming to that.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 January 2013 01:23:32PM 10 points [-]

Er... logical fallacy of fictional evidence, maybe? I wince every time somebody cites Terminator in a discussion of AI. It doesn't matter if the conclusion is right or wrong, I still wince because it's not a valid argument.

Comment author: MixedNuts 02 January 2013 02:36:07PM 12 points [-]

The original quote has nothing to do with life extension/immortality for humans. It just happens to be an argument for cryonics, and it seems to be a valid one: death as failure to preserve rather than cessation of activity, mortality as a problem rather than a fixed rule.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 06:47:04PM 3 points [-]

Yeah, I wasn't saying that it should be used because it's "so true." Just that it's easy to appropriate.

Comment author: Document 03 January 2013 04:51:11AM *  1 point [-]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/1pq/rationality_quotes_february_2010/1js5

(Full disclosure: I myself don't intend to sign up for cryonics.)

Comment author: ygert 03 January 2013 08:39:46AM 1 point [-]

Huh... Before posting the quote I did try searching to see if it had already been posted before, but that didn't show up. Oh well.

Comment author: James_Miller 01 January 2013 05:34:35PM 25 points [-]

We cannot dismiss conscious analytic thinking by saying that heuristics will get a “close enough” answer 98 percent of the time, because the 2 percent of the instances where heuristics lead us seriously astray may be critical to our lives.

Keith E. Stanovich, What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought

Comment author: DanArmak 01 January 2013 07:02:14PM 2 points [-]

For instance, you need analytical thinking to design your heuristics. Let your heuristics build new heuristics and a 2% failure rate compounded will give you a 50% failure rate in a few tens of generations.

Comment author: James_Miller 01 January 2013 07:23:05PM *  9 points [-]

Possibly, but Stanovich thinks that most heuristics were basically given to us by evolution and rather than choose among heuristics what we do is decide whether to (use them and spend little energy on thinking) or (not use them and spend a lot of energy on thinking).

Comment author: crap 02 January 2013 12:01:58PM *  3 points [-]

What is analytical thinking, but a sequence of steps of heuristics well vetted not to lead to contradictions?

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 10:38:57PM 1 point [-]

A heuristic is a "rule of thumb," used because it is computationally cheap for a human brain and returns the right answer most of the time.

Analytical thinking uses heuristics, but is distinctive in ALSO using propositional logic, probabilistic reasoning, and mathematics - in other words, exceptionless, normatively correct modes of reasoning (insofar as they are done well) that explicitly state their assumptions and "show the work." So there is a real qualitative difference.

Comment author: crap 02 January 2013 10:42:58PM 2 points [-]

Propositional logic is made of many very simple steps, though.

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 10:48:32PM 2 points [-]

Sure. The point is that "A->B; A, therefore B" is necessarily valid.

Unlike, say, "the risk of something happening is proportional to the number of times I've heard it mentioned."

Calling logic a set of heuristics dissolves a useful semantic distinction between normatively correct reasoning and mere rules of thumb, even if you can put the two on a spectrum.

Comment author: crap 02 January 2013 11:10:26PM *  2 points [-]

Ohh, I agree. I just don't think that there is a corresponding neurological distinction. (Original quote was about evolution).

Comment author: James_Miller 01 January 2013 05:46:59PM 23 points [-]

What You Are Inside Only Matters Because of What It Makes You Do

David Wong, 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person. Published in Cracked.com

Comment author: DanArmak 01 January 2013 06:54:25PM 4 points [-]

For Instance It Makes You Write With Odd Capitalization.

Comment author: dspeyer 01 January 2013 07:28:08PM 8 points [-]

It's probably a section title.

Comment author: Paulovsk 02 January 2013 02:09:59AM 0 points [-]

It's a copywriting technique. It makes easier for people to read (note how the subjects of newsletters campaings usually come like that). Don't ask me for the research, I have no idea where I've read it.

In this case, I guess he just pasted the title here.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 01:49:05PM *  1 point [-]

Don't ask me for the research, I have no idea where I've read it.

So, is there any research done about this kind of stuff? All the discussions of this kind of things I've seen on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and places like that appear to be based on people Generalizing From One Example.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 January 2013 08:29:35PM 4 points [-]

I wish my 17-year-old self had read that article.

Comment author: ChristianKl 01 January 2013 08:53:54PM 7 points [-]

It a misleading claim. Studying of how parents influence their kids generally conclude that "being" of the parent is more important than what they specifically do with the kids.

From the article:

"But I'm a great listener!" Are you? Because you're willing to sit quietly in exchange for the chance to be in the proximity of a pretty girl?

The author of the article doesn't seem to understand that there such a thing as good listening. If a girl tell you about some problem in her life it can be more effective to empathize with the girl than to go and solve the problem.

If something says "It's what's on the inside that matters!" a much better response would be ask: What makes you think that your inside is so much better than the inside of other people?

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 02 January 2013 12:41:09AM *  3 points [-]

Studying of how parents influence their kids generally conclude that "being" of the parent is more important than what they specifically do with the kids.

Could you explain this? Or link to info about such studies? (Or both?)

Comment author: Paulovsk 02 January 2013 02:05:23AM 3 points [-]

Yep.

I'm rather curious how parents can "be" something to children without doing, since it's supposed children don't know their parents before their first contact (after birth, I mean).

Comment author: Omegaile 02 January 2013 02:27:45PM 2 points [-]

I think I have heard of such studies, but the conclusion is different.

Who the parents are matter more than things like which school do the kids go, or in which neighborhood they live, etc.

But in my view, that's only because being something (let's say, a sportsman), will makes you do things that influence your kids to pursue a similar path

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 January 2013 03:15:24PM 1 point [-]

I didn't said that they aren't doing anything. I said that identifying specific behaviors doesn't make a good predictor. Characteristics like high emotional intelligence are better predictors.

Working on increased emotional intelligence and higher self esteem would be work that changes "who you are".

Taking steps to raise their own emotional intelligence might have a much higher effect that taking children to the museum to teach them about

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 January 2013 03:18:53PM 5 points [-]

If a parent has a low self esteem their child is also likely to have low self esteem. The low self esteem parent might a lot to prove try to do for his child to prove to himself that he's worthy.

There a drastic difference between a child observing: "Mommy hugs me because she read in a book that good mothers hug their children and she wants to prove to herself that she's a good mother and Mommy hugs me because she loves me".

On paper the women who spents a lot of energy into doing the stuff that good mothers are supposed to do is doing more for their child then a mother who's not investing that much energy because she's more secure in herself. Being secure in herself increase the chance that she will do the right things at the right time signal her self confidence to the child. A child who sees that her mother is self confident than has also a reason to believe that everything is alright.

As far as studies go, unfortunately I don't keep good records on what information I read from what sources :( (I would add that hugging is an example I use here to illustrate the point instead of refering to specific study about hugging)

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 02 January 2013 06:50:18PM 4 points [-]

If a parent has a low self esteem their child is also likely to have low self esteem.

Yes... and studies show that this is largely due to genetic similarity, much less so to parenting style.

Being secure in herself increase the chance that she will do the right things at the right time signal her self confidence to the child.

Which still means that it boils down to what the mother does.

The thing is, no one can see what you "are" except by what you do. Your argument seems to be "doing things for the right reason will lead to doing the actual right thing, instead of implementing some standard recommendation of what the right thing is". Granted. But the thing that matters is still the doing, not the being. "Being" is relevant only to the extent that it makes you do.

Oh, and as for this:

There a drastic difference between a child observing: "Mommy hugs me because she read in a book that good mothers hug their children and she wants to prove to herself that she's a good mother and Mommy hugs me because she loves me".

There's a third possibility: "Mommy doesn't hug me, but I know she loves me anyway". Sometimes that's worse than either of the other two.

Comment author: MugaSofer 02 January 2013 07:54:16PM *  0 points [-]

"Being" is relevant only to the extent that it makes you do.

If there is no other method, then advising people to ignore changing what they are in favor of what they do is bad advice.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 02 January 2013 09:44:26PM 1 point [-]

I am having trouble parsing your comment. Could you elaborate? "no other method" of what?

Also, who is advising people to ignore changing what they are...? And why is advising people to change what they do bad advice?

Please do clarify, as at this point I am not sure whether, and on what, we are disagreeing.

Comment author: MugaSofer 03 January 2013 11:16:40AM -1 points [-]

If "what you are" is the only/most effective way to change "what you do" (eg unconscious signalling) then the advice of the original article to focus on "what you do" is poor advice, even if it is technically correct that only what you do matters.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 03 January 2013 03:50:52PM 2 points [-]

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." — Aristotle

It goes both ways. And it's meaningless to speak of changing "what you are" if you do not, as a result, do anything different.

I don't think the Cracked article, or I, ever said that the only way to change your actions is by changing some mysterious essence of your being. That's actually a rather silly notion, when it's stated explicitly, because it's self-defeating unless you ignore the observable evidence. That is, we can see that changing your actions by choosing to change your actions IS possible; people do it all the time. The conclusion, then, is that by choosing to change your actions, you have thereby changed this ineffable essence of "what you are", which then proceeds to affect what you do. If that's how it works, then worrying about whether you're changing what you are or only changing what you do is pointless; the two cannot be decoupled.

And that's the point of the article, as I understand it. "What you are" may be a useful notion in your own internal narrative — it's "how the algorithm feels from the inside" (the algorithm in this case being your decisions to do what you do). But outside of your head, it's meaningless. Out in the world, there is no "what you are" beyond what you do.

Comment author: MugaSofer 03 January 2013 05:11:35PM 0 points [-]

As was pointed out elsewhere in these comments, there are situations where changing "what you are" - for example, increasing your confidence levels - is more effective then trying to change your actions directly.

Comment author: ChristianKl 03 January 2013 04:24:22PM 1 point [-]

But the thing that matters is still the doing, not the being.

What do you exactly mean with "matter"?

If you want to define whether A matters for B, than it's central to look whether changes in A that you can classify cause changes in B.

But the thing that matters is still the doing, not the being. "Being" is relevant only to the extent that it makes you do.

When one speaks about doing one frequently doesn't think about actions like raising one heart rate by 5 bpm to signal that something created an emotional impact on yourself. If an attractive woman walks through the street and a guy sees her and gets attracted, you can say that the woman is doing something because she's reflecting light in exactly the correct way to get the guy attracted.

If you define "doing" that broadly it's not a useful word anymore. The cracked article from which I quoted doesn't seem to define "doing" that broadly. On the other hand it's no problem to define "being" broadly enough to cover all "doing" as well.

Comment author: Multiheaded 02 January 2013 04:21:17AM *  21 points [-]

This article greatly annoyed me because of how it tells people to do the correct practical things (Develop skills! Be persistent and grind! Help people!) yet gives atrocious and shallow reasons for it - and then Wong says how if people criticize him they haven't heard the message. No, David, you can give people correct directions and still be a huge jerk promoting an awful worldview!

He basically shows NO understanding of what makes one attractive to people (especially romantically) and what gives you a feeling of self-worth and self-respect. What you "are" does in fact matter - both to yourself and to others! - outside of your actions; they just reveal and signal your qualities. If you don't do anything good, it's a sign of something being broken about you, but just mechanically bartering some product of your labour for friendship, affection and status cannot work - if your life is in a rut, it's because of some deeper issues and you've got to resolve those first and foremost.

This masochistic imperative to "Work harder and quit whining" might sound all serious and mature, but does not in fact has the power to make you a "better person"; rather, you'll know you've changed for the better when you can achieve more stuff and don't feel miserable.

I wanted to write a short comment illustrating how this article might be the mirror opposite of some unfortunate ideas in the "Seduction community" - it's "forget all else and GIVE to people, to obtain affection and self-worth" versus "forget all else and TAKE from people, to obtain affection and self-worth" - and how, for a self-actualized person, needs, one's own and others', should dictate the taking and giving, not some primitive framework of barter or conquest - but I predictably got too lazy to extend it :)

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 02 January 2013 06:40:18AM *  9 points [-]

I've taken a crack at what's wrong with that article.

The problem is, there's so much wrong with it from so many different angles that it's rather a large topic.

Comment author: Multiheaded 02 January 2013 08:15:54AM 0 points [-]

Yep :). I was doing a more charitable reading than the article really deserves, to be honest. It carried over from the method of political debate I am attempting these days - accept the opponent's premises (e.g. far-right ideas that they proudly call "thoughtcrime"), then show how either a modus-tollens inference from them is instrumentally/ethically preferrable, or how they just have nothing to do with the opponent being an insufferable jerk.

The basic theme of the article is that you're only well-treated for what you bring to other people's lives. You're worthless otherwise.

This is a half-truth. What you bring to other people's lives matters. However, the reason I'm posting about this is that I believe framing the message that way is actively dangerous for depressed people. The thing is, if you don't believe you're worth something no matter what, you won't do the work of making your life better.

100% true. I often shudder when I think how miserable I could've got if I hadn't watched this at a low point in my life.

Comment author: Omegaile 02 January 2013 03:02:49PM 5 points [-]

I think the only problem with the article is that it tries to otheroptimize. It seems to address a problem that the author had, as some people do. He seems to overestimate the usefulness of his advices though (he writes for anyone except if "your career is going great, you're thrilled with your life and you're happy with your relationships"). As mentioned by NancyLebovitz, the article is not for the clinical depressed, in fact it is only for a small (?) set of people who sits around all day whining, who thinks they deserve better for who they are, without actually trying to improve the situation.

That said, this over generalization is a problem that permeates most self help, and the article is not more guilty than the average.

Comment author: Multiheaded 02 January 2013 04:39:28PM *  5 points [-]

I think I'll just quote the entirety of an angry comment on Nancy's blog. I basically can't help agreeing with the below. Although I don't think the article is entirely bad and worthless - there are a few commonplace yet forcefully asserted life instructions there, if that's your cup of tea - its downsides do outweigh its utility.

What especially pisses me off is how Wong hijacks the ostensibly altruistic intent of it as an excuse to throw a load of aggression and condescending superiority in the intended audience's face, then offers an explanation of how feeling repulsed/hurt by that tone further confirms the reader's lower status. This is, like, a textbook example of self-gratification and cruel status play.

6: not all of the world is made up of selfish bastards. Or for some people 'what they can get from you' equals 'hanging out, having a good time doing nothing much' so maybe it's right - but not in the materialistic, selfish way the article implies.

5: I don't quite get what he wants that's different from his #6 'the world expects you to do stuff'. Also, I don't care how right someone is (he's not), if you have to be an asshole about it and if you don't care about hurting people, not only are you doing it wrong, there's a good chance that your message is manipulative rather than insightful. He's trying to make you believe that all that counts is how he wants to see the world.

4 is the same message again, in a different form - the world (here 'women') expects you to deliver. Don't be nice, get results. (If your goal is being a well-rounded individual with good mental health, maybe that's not the best way forward. Just sayin.)

3 has kind of a point if you don't do anything at all (and if you don't do anything, you're probably severely depressed and need far more help than an internet article) - but what people think 'doing' means differs wildly. And the first half of the article seems to discard a lot of stuff that 'people do' (for instance, caring for family members)- you don't have tangible results, but by gods, have you put work into it. As you point out, there can be a severe dissonance between what a depressed you thinks you do (nothing) and what a non-depressed you or a friend might think of it.
And for some people 'go and do something productive' might be good advice, and for others it's even more pressure - and the kind of person who feels guilty eating more than a salad? Needs help, not to be elevated to a role model.

2 Everything bad you've done was because of a bad impulse? Please. Nobody carries black and white around like that, and plenty of things are done out of habit and out of an impulse to do something good (people might think they are helping you not to go to hell by preventing you from being with someone you love) ...

1 just seems to be a self-congratulatory bit that says 'if you don't accept me as a Great Thinker who Knows Better, something is wrong with you.

Conclusion: a truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. And when you mix in some outright lies...

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 January 2013 03:04:02PM 0 points [-]

One of the comments at dreamwidth is by a therapist who said that being extremely vulnerable to shame is a distinct problem-- not everyone who's depressed has it, and not everyone who's shame-prone is depressed.

Also, I didn't say clinically depressed. I'm in the mild-to-moderate category, and that sort of talk is bad for me.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 January 2013 03:01:11PM 0 points [-]

Actually the article says enough different and somewhat contradictory things that it supports multiple readings, or to put it less charitably, it's contradictory in a way that leads people to pick the bits which are most emotionally salient to them and then get angry at each other for misreading the article.

The title is "6 Harsh Truths That Will Improve Your Life"-- by implication, anyone's life. Then Wong says, "this will improve your life unless it's awesome in all respects". Then he pulls back to "this is directed at people with a particular false view of the universe".

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 09:55:29PM 3 points [-]

Yep.

As with most self-help advice, it is like an eyeglass prescription - only good for one specific pathology. It may correct one person's vision, while making another's massively worse.

Also, I remember what it was like to be (mildly!) depressed, and my oh my would that article not have helped.

Comment author: brazil84 02 January 2013 01:23:05PM 8 points [-]

My complaint about the article is that it has the same problem as most self-help advice. When you read it, it sounds intelligent, you nod your head, it makes sense. You might even think to yourself "Yeah, I'm going to really change now!"

But as everyone whose tried to improve himself knows, it's difficult to change your behavior (and thoughts) on a basis consistent enough to really make a long-lasting difference.

Comment author: James_Miller 01 January 2013 05:58:51PM 31 points [-]

The women of this country learned long ago, those without swords can still die upon them.

Éowyn explaining to Aragorn why she was skilled with a blade. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the 2002 movie.

Comment author: fburnaby 02 January 2013 02:07:53AM 0 points [-]

It's funny. I've seen that movie five times or so. But I watched it again a few days ago, and that line struck me, too. Never stood out before.

Comment author: James_Miller 02 January 2013 02:53:06AM 11 points [-]

If you are an American perhaps it stood out this time because of all the recent discussion of gun control.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 January 2013 06:19:58PM 27 points [-]

The first rule of human club is you don't explicitly discuss the rules of human club.

Silas Dogood

Comment author: David_Gerard 02 January 2013 12:54:26AM 9 points [-]

I'd have thought from observation that quite a lot of human club is just about discussing the rules of human club, excess meta and all. Philosophy in daily practice being best considered a cultural activity, something humans do to impress other humans.

Comment author: Emile 02 January 2013 10:59:53AM 6 points [-]

I dunno; "philosophy", at least, doesn't seem to be about discussing the rules of the human club, or maybe it's discussing a very specific part of the rules (but then, so is Maths!). Family gossip and stand-up comedy seem much closer to "discussing the rules of the human club".

Comment author: David_Gerard 02 January 2013 11:07:13AM *  2 points [-]

Going meta is the quick win (in the social competition) for cultural discourse, though, c.f. postmodernism.

Comment author: dspeyer 02 January 2013 02:17:37AM 1 point [-]

Do you know what he means by this? We spend a lot of time here discussing the rules of human club, and so far seem glad we have.

Comment author: TimS 02 January 2013 02:26:48AM 22 points [-]

Imagine the average high school clique. They would be very uncomfortable explicitly discussing the rules of the group - even as they enforced them ruthlessly. Further, the teachers, parents, and other adults who knew the students would be just as uncomfortable describing the rules of the clique.

In short, we are socially weird for being willing to discuss the social rules - that our discussion is an improvement doesn't mean it is statistically ordinary.

Comment author: dspeyer 02 January 2013 02:36:44AM 11 points [-]

Ah, I see.

Human club has many rules. Some can be bent. Others can be broken.

Comment author: someonewrongonthenet 03 January 2013 03:07:07AM *  4 points [-]

we are socially weird for being willing to discuss the social rules

Well...only insofar as we discuss the social rules on Lesswrong itself. No one, not even the high school clique, is uncomfortable with discussing social rules as generalities. I've seen school age kids discuss these things as generalities quite enthusiastically when a teacher instigates the discussion.

It's only when specific names and people are mentioned that the discussion can become dangerous for the speakers. But this is no more true for social rules than it is for other conversations of similar type - for instance, when pointing out flaws of people sitting around you. I don't think LW is immune to this (for example, the use of the word "phyg" is particularly salient, if usually tongue-in-cheek, example) although the anonymity and fact that very few of us know each other personally does provide some level of protection.

Comment author: TimS 03 January 2013 03:42:55AM 2 points [-]

I've seen school age kids discuss these things as generalities quite enthusiastically when a teacher instigates the discussion.

I suspect this population was not randomly selected. Otherwise, someone might have explained to me why nerds are unpopular at a time in my life that it might have been actually helpful.

Comment author: someonewrongonthenet 03 January 2013 04:27:21AM *  7 points [-]

I think the author is needlessly overcomplicating things.

1) People instinctively form tight nit groups of friends with people they like. People they like usually means help them survive and raise offspring. This usually means socially adept, athletic, and attractive.

2) Having friends brings diminishing returns. The more friends a person have, the less they feel the need to make new friends. That's why the first day of school is vital.

3) Ill feelings develop between sally and bob. Sally talks to Susanne, and now they both bear ill feelings towards Bob. Thus, Bob has descended a rung in the dominance hierarchy.

4) Bob's vulnerability is a function of how many people Sally can find who will agree with her about him. As a extension of this principle, those with the fewest friends will get the most picked on. The bullies can be both from the popular and unpopular crowd.

5) Factors leading to few friends - lack of social or athletic ability, conspicuous non-conformity via eccentric behavior, dress, or speech, low attractiveness, or misguided use of physical or verbal aggression.

By the power law, approximately 20% of the kids will be friends with 80% of the network. These are the popular kids. As a result of their privileged position, they do not even notice popularity hierarchies...it's sort of like being white, male, upper middle class, etc. These kids will claim that there is no such thing as "popularity".

Any random person is likely to find themselves in the bottom 80%. They will find themselves excluded from the main network because the people in the main network already have enough friends. They will fined themselves picked on because they are vulnerable like Bob.

When we call someone a nerd, we refer to a constellation of traits which include intelligence, obscure interests (non-conformity), lack of social skills, lack of fashion sense, lack of athletic ability, and glasses-wearing. Obviously such folks are less likely to be in the top 20%...not because of the intelligence but because of all that other stuff.

But they aren't the only ones who find themselves unpopular. In fact, a vast segment of the population finds themselves in this position.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 11:05:05AM *  0 points [-]

Something like this?

Comment author: [deleted] 01 January 2013 06:21:03PM 16 points [-]

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.* *Not a controlled experiment

lanyard

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 02 January 2013 12:01:52AM 7 points [-]

Wasn't that poem sarcastic anyway? Until the last stanza, the poem says how the roads were really identical in all particulars -- and in the last stanza the narrator admits that he will be describing this choice falsely in the future.

Comment author: gjm 02 January 2013 12:46:01AM 1 point [-]

That's not how I read it. There's no particular difference between the two roads, so far as Frost can tell at the point of divergence, but they're still different roads and lead by different routes to different places, and he expects that years from now he'll look back and see (or guess?) that it did indeed make a big difference which one he took.

Comment author: RobinZ 02 January 2013 02:12:09AM 6 points [-]

He expects that years from now he'll look back and claim it made a big difference. He says he will also claim it was the road less traveled by, for all that the passing there had worn them the same and so forth. It may well make a big difference, but of what nature no-one knows.

Comment author: gjm 02 January 2013 10:33:37PM 2 points [-]

Yes, I understand that what the poem says is that he'll say it made a big difference, rather than that it did. But there's a difference between not saying it's a real difference and saying it's not a real difference; it seems to me that the former is what Frost does and the latter is what ArisKatsaris says he does.

(My reading of the to-ing and fro-ing about whether the road is "less traveled by" is that the speaker's initial impression is that one path is somewhat untrodden, and he picks it on those grounds; on reflection he's not sure it's actually any less trodden than the other, but his intention was to take the less-travelled road; and later on he expects to adopt the shorthand of saying that he picked the less-travelled one. I don't see that any actual dishonesty is intended, though perhaps a certain lack of precision.)

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 January 2013 09:12:57PM 15 points [-]

"Two roads diverged in a wood. I took the one less traveled by, and had to eat bugs until the park rangers rescued me."

Comment author: MixedNuts 02 January 2013 09:14:56PM 11 points [-]

Two roads diverged in a wood. I took the one less traveled by, and I got to eat bugs until the park rangers kicked me out.

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 03 January 2013 11:51:01AM 2 points [-]
Comment author: Stabilizer 01 January 2013 06:29:14PM 23 points [-]

“To succeed in a domain that violates your intuitions, you need to be able to turn them off the way a pilot does when flying through clouds. Without visual cues (e.g. the horizon) you can't distinguish between gravity and acceleration. Which means if you're flying through clouds you can't tell what the attitude of the aircraft is. You could feel like you're flying straight and level while in fact you're descending in a spiral. The solution is to ignore what your body is telling you and listen only to your instruments. But it turns out to be very hard to ignore what your body is telling you. Every pilot knows about this problem and yet it is still a leading cause of accidents. You need to do what you know intellectually to be right, even though it feels wrong.”

-Paul Graham

Comment author: [deleted] 01 January 2013 08:28:30PM 8 points [-]
Comment author: Will_Newsome 01 January 2013 08:00:39PM *  30 points [-]

For the Greek philosophers, Greek was the language of reason. Aristotle's list of categories is squarely based on the categories of Greek grammar. This did not explicitly entail a claim that the Greek language was primary: it was simply a case of the identification of thought with its natural vehicle. Logos was thought, and Logos was speech. About the speech of barbarians little was known; hence, little was known about what it would be like to think in the language of barbarians. Although the Greeks were willing to admit that the Egyptians, for example, possessed a rich and venerable store of wisdom, they only knew this because someone had explained it to them in Greek.

— Umberto Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language

Comment author: [deleted] 01 January 2013 08:20:35PM 11 points [-]

If you'd have told a 14th-century peasant that there'd be a huge merchant class in the future who would sit in huge metal cylinders eating meals and drinking wine while the cylinders hurtled through the air faster than a speeding arrow across oceans and continents to bring them to far-flung business opportunities, the peasant would have classified you as insane. And he'd have been wrong to the tune of a few gazillion frequent-flyer miles.

-- someone on Usenet replying to someone deriding Kurzweil

Comment author: David_Gerard 02 January 2013 12:52:06AM 18 points [-]

In general, though, that argument is the Galileo gambit and not a very good argument.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 02 January 2013 09:50:35AM 8 points [-]

There's a more charitable reading of this comment, which is just "the absurdity heuristic is not all that reliable in some domains."

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 January 2013 10:17:06AM 14 points [-]

What makes this the Galileo Gambit is that the absurdity factor is being turned into alleged support (by affective association with the positive benefits of air travel and frequent flier miles) rather than just being neutralized. Contrast to http://lesswrong.com/lw/j1/stranger_than_history/ where absurdity is being pointed out as a fallible heuristic but not being associated with positives.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 11:57:25PM *  1 point [-]

That's the way I interpreted it. (How comes I tend to read pretty much anything¹ charitably?)


  1. Well, not really anything. I don't think I would have been capable of this.
Comment author: AspiringRationalist 01 January 2013 09:16:14PM 17 points [-]

The ideas of the Hasids are scientifically and morally wrong; the fashion, food and lifestyle are way stupid; but the community and family make me envious.

-- Penn Jilette

Comment author: MixedNuts 01 January 2013 10:29:54PM 8 points [-]

Disagree about the fashion.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 01 January 2013 09:25:47PM 40 points [-]

"Ten thousand years' worth of sophistry doesn't vanish overnight," Margit observed dryly. "Every human culture had expended vast amounts of intellectual effort on the problem of coming to terms with death. Most religions had constructed elaborate lies about it, making it out to be something other than it was—though a few were dishonest about life, instead. But even most secular philosophies were warped by the need to pretend that death was for the best."

"It was the naturalistic fallacy at its most extreme—and its most transparent, but that didn't stop anyone. Since any child could tell you that death was meaningless, contingent, unjust, and abhorrent beyond words, it was a hallmark of sophistication to believe otherwise. Writers had consoled themselves for centuries with smug puritanical fables about immortals who'd long for death—who'd beg for death. It would have been too much to expect all those who were suddenly faced with the reality of its banishment to confess that they'd been whistling in the dark. And would-be moral philosophers—mostly those who'd experienced no greater inconvenience in their lives than a late train or a surly waiter—began wailing about the destruction of the human spirit by this hideous blight. We needed death and suffering, to put steel into our souls! Not horrible, horrible freedom and safety!"

-- Greg Egan, "Border Guards".

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 01 January 2013 10:45:50PM 14 points [-]

If you ever decide that your life is not too high a price to pay for saving the universe, let me know. We'll be ready.

-- Kyubey (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 January 2013 09:11:53PM 6 points [-]

For you, I'll walk this endless maze...

Comment author: Sengachi 04 January 2013 08:08:48AM 1 point [-]

The only ones to love a martyr's actions are those who did not love them.

Comment author: wedrifid 04 January 2013 02:29:53PM 4 points [-]

The only ones to love a martyr's actions are those who did not love them.

That isn't true. If I love someone and they martyr themselves (literally or figuratively) in a way that is the unambiguously and overwhelmingly optimal way to fulfill both their volition and my own then I will love the martyr's actions. If you say I do not love the martyr or do not love their actions due to some generalization then you are just wrong.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 January 2013 02:50:54PM 2 points [-]

Agreed... but also, this gets complicated because of the role of external constraints.

I can love someone, "love" what they do in the context of the environment in which they did it (I put love here in scare quotes because I'm not sure I mean the same thing by it when applied to an action, but it's close enough for casual conversation), and hate the fact that they were in such an environment to begin with, and if so my feelings about it can easily get confused.

Comment author: AspiringRationalist 01 January 2013 10:54:04PM -2 points [-]

If god (however you perceive him/her/it) told you to kill your child -- would you do it?

If your answer is no, i my booklet you're an atheist. There is doubt in your mind. Love and morality are more important than your faith.

If your answer is yes, please reconsider.

-- Penn Jilette.

Comment author: MixedNuts 01 January 2013 11:01:23PM 12 points [-]

It's hardly fair to describe this tiny modicum of doubt as atheism, even in the umbrella sense that covers agnosticism.

Comment author: sketerpot 06 January 2013 04:35:47AM 8 points [-]

It is entirely possible for someone to believe in an evil god, and (quite reasonably) decline to do that god's alleged bidding.

Comment author: pleeppleep 02 January 2013 02:28:38AM 14 points [-]

I intend to live forever or die trying

-- Groucho Marx

Comment author: DanielLC 02 January 2013 08:51:38PM 7 points [-]

I'm not sure that's great advice. It will result in you trying to try to live forever. The only way to live forever or die trying is to intend to live forever.

Comment author: sketerpot 06 January 2013 04:27:44AM *  1 point [-]

How to apply that, though? I could try not to try to try to live forever, but that sounds equivalent to trying to merely try to live forever. And now "try" has stopped sounding like a real word, which makes my misfortune even more trying.

Comment author: DanielLC 06 January 2013 05:40:10AM 2 points [-]

Live forever. Details are in the linked post.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 January 2013 03:24:52AM 8 points [-]

[Physics] has come to see that thinking is merely a form of human activity…with no assurance whatever that an intellectual process has validity outside the range in which its validity has already been checked by experience.

-- P. W. Bridgman, ‘‘The Struggle for Intellectual Integrity’’

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 January 2013 03:26:49AM 10 points [-]

The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

-- Larry Wall

Comment author: RomeoStevens 02 January 2013 06:48:12PM 2 points [-]

See the Mouse Universe.

Comment author: HalMorris 02 January 2013 09:58:44AM 17 points [-]

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

  • Mark Twain - Life on the Mississippi

(If you wonder where "two hundred and forty-two miles" shortening of the river came from, it was the straightening of its original meandering path to improve navigation)

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 11:54:39PM 4 points [-]
Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 02 January 2013 10:06:26AM 18 points [-]

It is not an epistemological principle that one might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb.

-Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image

Comment author: DanielLC 02 January 2013 08:17:21PM 7 points [-]

What does that mean?

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 08:59:46PM 16 points [-]

Lambs are young sheep; they have less meat & less wool.

The punishment for livestock rustling being identical no matter what animal is stolen, you should prefer to steal a sheep rather than a lamb.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 January 2013 09:07:07PM 24 points [-]

Believing large lies is worse than small lies; basically, it's arguing against the What-The-Hell Effect as applied to rationality. Or so I presume, did not read original.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 11:51:16PM 3 points [-]

the What-The-Hell Effect

I had noticed that effect myself, but I didn't know it had a name.

Comment author: PDH 03 January 2013 03:41:27PM 10 points [-]

I had noticed it and mistakenly attributed it to the sunk cost fallacy but on reflection it's quite different from sunk costs. However, it was discovering and (as it turns out, incorrectly) generalising the sunk cost fallacy that alerted me to the effect and that genuinely helped me improve myself, so it's a happy mistake.

One thing that helped me was learning to fear the words 'might as well,' as in, 'I've already wasted most of the day so I might as well waste the rest of it,' or 'she'll never go out with me so I might as well not bother asking her,' and countless other examples. My way of dealing it is to mock my own thought processes ('Yeah, things are really bad so let's make them even worse. Nice plan, genius') and switch to a more utilitarian way of thinking ('A small chance of success is better than none,' 'Let's try and squeeze as much utility out of this as possible' etc.).

I hadn't fully grasped the extent to which I was sabotaging my own life with that one, pernicious little error.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 02 January 2013 10:24:31AM 7 points [-]

He that believes without having any Reason for believing, may be in love with his own Fancies; but neither seeks Truth as he ought, nor pays the Obedience due to his Maker, who would have him use those discerning Faculties he has given him, to keep him out of Mistake and Errour.

John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 02 January 2013 11:16:50AM 1 point [-]

...since the 1930s, self-driving cars have been just 20 years away.

-Bryant Walker Smith

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 02 January 2013 04:39:56PM 13 points [-]

But we've had self-driving cars for multiple years now...

Comment author: IlyaShpitser 05 January 2013 09:17:48AM *  1 point [-]

By principle of charity (everyone knows about google cars by now), I took the grandparent to mean "past performance is not a guarantee of future returns."

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 06 January 2013 05:27:14AM *  1 point [-]

Obviously, Smith knows this, since he has published papers on the legality of self-driving cars as late as 2012. The purpose of the quote (for me) is to draw an analogy between Strong AI and self-driving cars, both of which have had people saying "it is just 20 years away" for many decades now (and one of which is now here, making the people that made such a prediction 20 year ago correct).

Comment author: MugaSofer 02 January 2013 04:56:36PM *  0 points [-]

Considering there are working prototypes of such cars driving around right now ...

EDIT: Damn, ninja'd by Luke.

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 02 January 2013 02:21:31PM 25 points [-]

I don't blame them; nor am I saying I wouldn't similarly manipulate the truth if I thought it would save lives, but I don't lie to myself. You keep two books, not no books. [Emphasis mine]

The Last Psychiatrist (http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/10/how_not_to_prevent_military_su.html)

Comment author: taelor 02 January 2013 03:41:07PM 10 points [-]

It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sutained by innnumerable unbeliefs: the fanatical Japanese in Brazil refused to believe for years the evidence of Japan's defeat; the fanatical Communist refuses to believe any unfavorable reports or evidence about Russia, nor will he be disillusioned by seeing with his own eyes the cruel misery inside the Soviet promised land.

It is the true believer's ability to "shut his eyes and stop his ears" to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He can not be frightened by danger, nor disheartened by obstacles nor baffled by contradictions because he denies their existence. Strength of faith, as Bergson pointed out, manifests itself not in moving mountains, but in not seeing mountains to move.

-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 10:27:29PM 3 points [-]

A decent quote, except I am minded to nitpick that there is no such thing as unbelief as a separate category from belief. We just have credences.

Many futile conversations have I seen among the muggles, wherein disputants tried to make some Fully General point about unbelief vs belief, or doubt vs certainty.

Comment author: TsviBT 02 January 2013 04:57:38PM 6 points [-]

There are four types among those who study with the Sages: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer, the sifter. The sponge absorbs everything; the funnel - in one end and out the other; the strainer passes the wine and retains the dregs; the sifter removes the chaff and retains the edible wheat.

-Pirkei Avot (5:15)

Comment author: MugaSofer 02 January 2013 05:30:24PM *  16 points [-]

Deep wisdom indeed. Some people believe the wrong things, and some believe the right things, some people believe both, some people believe neither.

Comment author: TsviBT 02 January 2013 08:26:50PM 7 points [-]

To me, it expresses the need to pay attention to what you are learning, and decide which things to retain and which to discard. E.g. one student takes a course in Scala and memorizes the code for generics, while the other writes the code but focuses on understanding the notion of polymorphism and what it is good for.

Comment author: MugaSofer 03 January 2013 11:25:38AM 1 point [-]

I genuinely don't understand this comment.

Comment author: TsviBT 03 January 2013 09:36:52PM 5 points [-]

Sorry. Attempt #2:

If I had infinite storage space and computing power, I would store every single piece of information I encountered. I don't, so instead I have to efficiently process and store things that I learn. This generally requires that I throw information out the window. For example, if I take a walk, I barely even process most of the detail in my visual input, and I remember very little of it. I only want to keep track of a very few things, like where I am in relation to my house, where the sidewalk is, and any nearby hazards. When the walk is over, I discard even that information. On the other hand, I often have to take derivatives. Although understanding what a derivative means is very important, it would be silly of me to rederive e.g. the chain rule each time I wanted to use it. That would waste a lot of time, and it does not take a lot of space to store the procedure for applying the chain rule. So I store that logically superfluous information because it is important.

In other words, I have to be picky about what I remember. Some information is particularly useful or deep, some information isn’t. Just because this is incredibly obvious, doesn’t mean we don’t need to remind ourselves to consciously decide what to pay attention to.

I thought the quote expressed this idea nicely and compactly. Whoever wrote the quote probably did not mean it in quite the same way I understand it, but I still like it.

Comment author: MugaSofer 04 January 2013 11:08:24AM 0 points [-]

While this comment is true - you can't remember everything - I'm not sure how you could get that from the categorization in the quote. Still, if that's what you got out of it, I can see why you posted it here.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 11:49:36PM 5 points [-]

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

-- Henri Poincaré

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2013 07:57:26PM 24 points [-]

Just because someone isn't into finding out The Secrets Of The Universe like me doesn't necessarily mean I can't be friends with them.

-Buttercup Dew (@NationalistPony)

Comment author: NoisyEmpire 02 January 2013 08:01:12PM 36 points [-]

What does puzzle people – at least it used to puzzle me – is the fact that Christians regard faith… as a virtue. I used to ask how on Earth it can be a virtue – what is there moral or immoral about believing or not believing a set of statements? Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad. If he were mistaken about the goodness or badness of the evidence, that would not mean he was a bad man, but only that he was not very clever. And if he thought the evidence bad but tried to force himself to believe in spite of it, that would be merely stupid…

What I did not see then – and a good many people do not see still – was this. I was assuming that if the human mind once accepts a thing as true it will automatically go on regarding it as true, until some real reason for reconsidering it turns up. In fact, I was assuming that the human mind is completely ruled by reason. But that is not so. For example, my reason is perfectly convinced by good evidence that anesthetics do not smother me and that properly trained surgeons do not start operating until I am unconscious. But that does not alter the fact that when they have me down on the table and clap their horrible mask over my face, a mere childish panic begins inside me. I start thinking I am going to choke, and I am afraid they will start cutting me up before I am properly under. In other words, I lose my faith in anesthetics. It is not reason that is taking away my faith; on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other…

Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding onto things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable; but when I was an atheist, I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable... Unless you teach your moods "where they get off" you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of faith.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Caveat: this is not at all how the majority of the religious people that I know would use the word "faith". In fact, this passage turned out to be one of the earliest helps in bringing me to think critically about and ultimately discard my religious worldview.

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 09:44:48PM 11 points [-]

Now that I am a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable; but when I was an atheist, I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable...

Dear LWers: do you have these moods (let us gloss them as "extreme temporary loss of confidence in foundational beliefs"):

Submitting...

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 02 January 2013 11:00:43PM 5 points [-]

I am fascinated by all of the answers that are not "never," as this has never happened to me. If any of the answerers were atheists, could any of you briefly describe these experiences and what might have caused them? (I am expecting "psychedelic drugs," so I will be most surprised by experiences that are caused by anything else.)

Comment author: jooyous 02 January 2013 11:07:44PM *  2 points [-]

Sometimes, I am extremely unconvinced in the utility of "knowing stuff" or "understanding stuff" when confronted with the inability to explain it to suffering people who seem like they want to stop suffering but refuse to consider the stuff that has potential to help them stop suffering. =/

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 02 January 2013 11:41:11PM 2 points [-]

Interesting. My confidence in my beliefs has never been tied to my ability to explain them to anyone, but then again I'm a mathematician-(in-training), so...

Comment author: jooyous 03 January 2013 12:22:44AM *  2 points [-]

Well, it's not that I'm not confident that they're useful to me. They are! They help me make choices that make me happy. I'm just not confident in how useful pursuing them is in comparison to various utilitarian considerations of helping other people be not miserable.

For example, suppose I could learn some more rationality tricks and start saving an extra $100 each month by some means, while in the meantime someone I know is depressed and miserable and seemingly asking for help. Instead of going to learn those rationality tricks to make an extra $100, I am tempted to sit with them and tell them all the ways I learned to manage my thoughts in order to not make myself miserable and depressed. And when this fails spectacularly, eating my time and energy, I am left inclined to do neither because that person is miserable and depressed and I'm powerless to help them so how useful is $100 really? Blah! So, to answer the question, this is the mood in which I question my belief in the usefulness of knowing and doing useful things.

I am also a computer science/math person! high five

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 03 January 2013 12:47:46AM *  2 points [-]

So, to answer the question, this is the mood in which I question the usefulness of doing useful things.

Aren't useful things kind of useful to do kind of by definition? (I know this argument is often used to sneak in connotations, but I can't imagine that "is useful" is a sneaky connotation of "useful thing.")

What you describe sounds to me like a failure to model your friend correctly. Most people cannot fix themselves given only instructions on how to do so, and what worked for you may not work for your friend. Even if it might, it is hard to motivate yourself to do things when you are miserable and depressed, and when you are miserable and depressed, hearing someone else say "here are all the ways you currently suck, and you should stop sucking in those ways" is not necessarily encouraging.

In other words, "useful" is a two- or even three-place predicate.

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 11:10:07PM 5 points [-]

could any of you briefly describe these experiences and what might have caused them?

Hasn't happened to me in years. Typically involved desperation about how some aspect of my life (only peripherally related to the beliefs in question, natch) was going very badly. Temptation to pray was involved. These urges really went away when I discovered that they were mainly caused by garden variety frustration + low blood sugar.

I think that in my folly-filled youth, my brain discovered that "conversion" experiences (religious/political) are fun and very energizing. When I am really dejected, a small part of me says "Let's convert to something! Clearly your current beliefs are not inspiring you enough!"

Comment author: NoisyEmpire 03 January 2013 01:34:02AM 4 points [-]

My own response was “rarely”; had I answered when I was a Christian ten years ago, I would probably have said “sometimes”; had I answered as a Christian five years ago I might have said “often” or “very often” (eventually I allowed some of these moments of extreme uncertainty to become actual crises of faith and I changed my mind, though it happened in a very sloppy and roundabout way and had I had LessWrong at the time things could’ve been a lot easier.)

And still, I can think of maybe two times in the past year when I suddenly got a terrifying sinking feeling that I have got everything horribly, totally wrong. Both instances were triggered whilst around family and friends who remain religious, and both had to do with being reminded of old arguments I used to use in defense of the Bible which I couldn’t remember, in the moment, having explicitly refuted.

Neither of these moods was very important and both were combated in a matter of minutes. In retrospect, I’d guess that my brain was conflating fear of rejection-from-the-tribe-for-what-I-believe with fear of actually-being-wrong.

Not psychedelic drugs, but apparently an adequate trigger nonetheless.

Comment author: someonewrongonthenet 03 January 2013 01:57:40AM *  12 points [-]

Erm...when I was a lot younger, when I considered doing something wrong or told a lie I had the vague feeling that someone was keeping tabs. Basically, when weighing utilities I greatly upped the probability that someone would somehow come to know of my wrongdoings, even when it was totally implausible. That "someone" was certainly not God or a dead ancestor or anything supernatural...it wasn't even necessarily an authority figure.

Basically, the superstition was that someone who knew me well would eventually come to find out about my wrongdoing, and one day they would confront me about it. And they'd be greatly disappointed or angry.

I'm ashamed to say that in the past I might have actually done actions which I myself felt were immoral, if it were not for that superstitious feeling that my actions would be discovered by another individual. It's hard to say in retrospect whether the superstitious feeling was the factor that pushed me back over that edge.

Note that I never believed the superstition...it was more of a gut feeling.

I'm older now and am proud to say that I haven't given serious consideration to doing anything which I personally feel is immoral for a very, very long time. So I do not know whether I still carry this superstition. It's not really something I can test empirically.

I think part of it is that as I grew older my mind conceptually merged "selfish desire" and "morality" neatly into one single "what is the sum total of my goals" utility function construct (though I wasn't familiar with the term "utility function" at the time).

This shift occurred sometime in high school, and it happened around the same time that I overcame mind-body dualism at a gut level. Though I've always had generally atheist beliefs, it wasn't until this shift that I really understood the implications of a logical universe.

Once these dichotomies broke down, I no longer felt the temptation to "give in" to selfish desire, nor was I warded off by "guilt" or the superstitious fear. I follow morals because I want to follow them, since they are a huge part of my utility function. Once my brain understood at a gut level that going against my morality was intrinsically against my interests, I stopped feeling any temptation to do immoral actions for selfish reasons. On the flip side, the shift also allows be to be selfish without feeling guilty. It's not that I'm a "better person" thanks to the shift in gut instinct...it's more that my opposing instincts don't fight with each other by using temptation, fear, and guilt anymore.

I think there is something about that "shift" experience I described (anecdote indicates that a lot of smart people go through this at some point in life, but most describe it in less than articulate spiritual terms) which permanently alters your gut feelings about reality, morality, and similar topics in philosophy.

I'm guessing those who answered "never" either did not carry the illusions in question to begin with and therefore did not require a shift in thought, or they did not factor in how they felt pre-shift into their introspection.

Comment author: Toddling 04 January 2013 05:41:50AM 4 points [-]

I answered Sometimes. For me the 'foundational belief' in question is usually along the lines: "Goal (x) is worth the effort of subgoal/process (y)." These moods usually last less than 6 months, and I have a hunch that they're hormonal in nature. I've yet to systematically gather data on the factors that seem most likely to be causing them, mostly because it doesn't seem worth the effort right now. Hah. Seriously, though, I have in fact been convinced that I need to work out a consistent utility function, but when I think about the work involved, I just... blah.

Comment author: GDC3 06 January 2013 06:20:36AM 6 points [-]

I put sometimes.

I believe all kinds of crazy stuff and question everything when I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep, most commonly that death will be an active and specific nothing that I will exist to experience and be bored frightened and upset by forever. Something deep in my brain believes a very specific horrible cosmology as wacky and specific as any religion but not nearly as cheerful. When my faculties are weakened it feels as if I directly know it to be true and any attempt to rehearse my reasons for materialism feels like rationalizing.

I'm neither very mentally healthy nor very neurotypical, which may be part of why this happens.

Comment author: Desrtopa 03 January 2013 02:57:38AM *  9 points [-]

I have had "extreme temporary loss of foundational beliefs," where I briefly lost confidence in beliefs such as the nonexistence of fundamentally mental entities (I would describe this experience as "innate but long dormant animist intutions suddenly start shouting,") but I've never had a mood where Christianity or any other religion looked probable, because even when I had such an experience, I was never enticed to privilege the hypothesis of any particular religion or superstition.

Comment author: Oligopsony 03 January 2013 04:41:37AM 8 points [-]

I answered "sometimes" thinking of this as just Christianity, but I would have answered "very often" if I had read your gloss more carefully.

I'm not quite sure how to explicate this, as it's something I've never really though much about and had generalized from one example to be universal. But my intuitions about what is probably true are extremely mood and even fancy-dependent, although my evaluation of particular arguments and such seems to be comparatively stable. I can see positive and negative aspects to this.

Comment author: MaoShan 03 January 2013 06:09:19PM 2 points [-]

I thought the most truthful answer for me would be "Rarely", given all possible interpretations of the question. I think that it should have been qualified "within the past year", to eliminate the follies of truth-seeking in one's youth. Someone who answers "Never" cannot be considering when they were a five-year-old. I have believed or wanted to believe a lot of crazy things. Even right now, thinking as an atheist, I rarely have those moods, and only rarely due to my recognized (and combated) tendency toward magical thinking. However, right now, thinking as a Christian, I would have doubts constantly, because no matter how much I would like to believe, it is plain to see that most of what I am expected to have faith in as a Christian is complete crap. I am capable of adopting either mode of thinking, as is anyone else here. We're just better at one mode than others.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 02 January 2013 09:50:34PM 3 points [-]

Sounds like Lewis's confusion would have been substatially cleared up by distinguishing between belief and alief, and then he would not have had to perpetrate such abuses on commonly used words.

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 11:00:14PM 9 points [-]

To be fair, the philosopher Tamar Gendler only coined the term in 2008.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 02 January 2013 08:12:31PM 6 points [-]

It is more incumbent on me to declare my opinion on this question, because they have, on further reflection, undergone a considerable change; and although I am not aware that I have ever published any thing respecting machinery which it is necessary for me to retract, yet I have in other ways given my support to doctrines which I now think erroneous; it, therefore, becomes a duty in me to submit my present views to examination, with my reasons for entertaining them.

-- Ricardo, publicly saying "oops" in his restrained Victorian fashion, in his essay "On Machinery".

Comment author: gwern 02 January 2013 08:37:35PM *  1 point [-]

I was actually just reading that yesterday because of Cowen linking it in http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/01/the-ricardo-effect-in-europe-germany-fact-of-the-day.html

I'm not entirely sure I understand Ricardo's chapter (Victorian economists being hard to read both because of the style and distance), or why, if it's as clear as Ricardo seems to think, no-one ever seems to mention the point in discussions of technological unemployment (and instead, constantly harping on comparative advantage etc). What did you make of it?

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 02 January 2013 08:57:22PM 2 points [-]

because of Cowen linking it

That's how I found it, too. But I need the LessWrong karma and you don't. :D

What did you make of it?

If I followed the discussion of circulating versus fixed capital, and gross versus net increase, Ricardo is showing that (in modern jargon as opposed to Victorian jargon) if you set the elasticities correctly, you can make a new machine decrease total wages in spite of substitution effects. He seems to think about this in terms of the "carrying capacity" of the economy, ie the total population size, presumably because Victorian economists worked much closer to true Malthusian conditions than ours do. In other words it's a bit of a model, not necessarily related to any particular economic change that has ever actually happened. Possibly you could get the same result re-published today if you put it in modern jargon with some nice equations, but it would be one of those papers that basically say "If we set variable X to extreme value Y, what happens?" So it's probably not that important when discussing actual machinery, as Ricardo acknowledges; he's exploring the edges of the parameter space.

Comment author: roystgnr 02 January 2013 09:24:29PM *  29 points [-]

I think, actually, scientists should kinda look into that whole 'death' thing. Because, they seem to have focused on diseases... and I don't give a #*=& about them. The guys go, "Hey, we fixed your arthritis!" "Am I still gonna die?" "Yeah."

So that, I think, is the biggest problem. That's why I can't get behind politicians! They're always like, "Our biggest problem today is unemployment!" and I'm like "What about getting old and sick and dying?"

  • Norm MacDonald, Me Doing Stand Up

(a few verbal tics were removed by me; the censorship was already present in the version I heard)

Comment author: Bugmaster 02 January 2013 09:26:16PM 10 points [-]

I'd vote this up, but I can't shake the feeling that the author is setting up a false dichotomy. Living forever would be great, but living forever without arthritis would be even better. There's no reason why we shouldn't solve the easier problem first.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 02 January 2013 10:33:09PM 8 points [-]

Sure there is. If you have two problems, one of which is substantially easier than the other, then you still might solve the harder problem first if 1) solving the easier problem won't help you solve the harder problem and 2) the harder problem is substantially more pressing. In other words, you need to take into account the opportunity cost of diverting some of your resources to solving the easier problem.

Comment author: Bugmaster 02 January 2013 10:45:07PM 3 points [-]

In general this is true, but I believe that in this particular case the reasoning doesn't apply. Solving problems like arthritis and cancer is essential for prolonging productive biological life.

Granted, such solutions would cease to be useful once mind uploading is implemented. However, IMO mind uploading is so difficult -- and, therefore, so far in the future -- that, if we did chose to focus exclusively on it, we'd lose too many utilons to biological ailments. For the same reason, prolonging productive biological life now is still quite useful, because it would allow researchers to live longer, thus speeding up the pace of research that will eventually lead to uploading.

Comment author: simplicio 02 January 2013 09:40:20PM 8 points [-]

Sympathetic, but ultimately, we die OF diseases. And the years we do have are more or less valuable depending on their quality.

Physicians should maximize QALYs, and extending lifespan is only one way to do it.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 January 2013 05:30:05AM 3 points [-]

Using punctuation that is normally intended to match ({[]}), confused me. Use the !%#$ing other punctuation for that.

Comment author: shminux 02 January 2013 10:00:02PM *  7 points [-]
Comment author: Document 03 January 2013 04:38:42AM *  4 points [-]

The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in [the] logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent. A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is beginning to sink; and it is often observable, that the older a man gets, the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing conception of his own death.

--George Eliot

Apologies to Jayson_Virissimo.

Comment author: Particleman 03 January 2013 05:35:04AM *  11 points [-]

"How is it possible! How is it possible to produce such a thing!" he repeated, increasing the pressure on my skull, until it grew painful, but I didn't dare object. "These knobs, holes...cauliflowers -" with an iron finger he poked my nose and ears - "and this is supposed to be an intelligent creature? For shame! For shame, I say!! What use is a Nature that after four billion years comes up with THIS?!"

Here he gave my head a shove, so that it wobbled and I saw stars.

"Give me one, just one billion years, and you'll see what I create!"

  • Stanislaw Lem, "The Sanatorium of Dr. Vliperdius" (trans. Michael Kandel)
Comment author: Will_Newsome 03 January 2013 07:07:41AM 14 points [-]

[O]ne may also focus on a single problem, which can appear in different guises in various disciplines, and vary the methods. An advantage of viewing the same problem through the lens of different models is that we can often begin to identify which features of the problem are enduring and which are artifacts of our particular methods or background assumptions. Because abstraction is a license for us to ignore information, looking at several approaches to modeling a problem can give you insight into what is important to keep and what is noise to ignore. Moreover, discovering robust features of a problem, when it happens, can reshape your intuitions.

— Gregory Wheeler, "Formal Epistemology"

Comment author: RobinZ 03 January 2013 09:38:44PM 7 points [-]

Is there a concrete example of a problem approached thus?

Comment author: Sengachi 04 January 2013 07:44:41AM 4 points [-]

Viewing the interactions of photons as both a wave and a billiard ball. Both are wrong, but by seeing which traits remain constant in all models, we can project what traits the true model is likely to have.

Comment author: RobinZ 05 January 2013 04:58:19AM 2 points [-]

Does that work? I don't know enough physics to tell if that makes sense.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 03 January 2013 08:49:14AM *  34 points [-]

In Japan, it is widely believed that you don't have direct knowledge of what other people are really thinking (and it's very presumptuous to assume otherwise), and so it is uncommon to describe other people's thoughts directly, such as "He likes ice cream" or "She's angry". Instead, it's far more common to see things like "I heard that he likes ice cream" or "It seems like/It appears to be the case that she is angry" or "She is showing signs of wanting to go to the park."

-- TVTropes

Edit (1/7): I have no particular reason to believe that this is literally true, but either way I think it holds an interesting rationality lesson. Feel free to substitute 'Zorblaxia' for 'Japan' above.

Comment author: simplicio 03 January 2013 03:44:34PM 13 points [-]

Interesting; is this true?

Comment author: beoShaffer 04 January 2013 05:59:36AM *  13 points [-]

Yes, my Japanese teacher was very insistent about it, and IIRC would even take points off for talking about someones mental state with out the proper qualifiers.

Comment author: Toddling 04 January 2013 06:06:42AM 2 points [-]

This is good to know, and makes me wonder whether there's a way to encourage this kind of thinking in other populations. My only thought so far has been "get yourself involved with the production of the most widely-used primary school language textbooks in your area."

Thoughts?

Comment author: Vaniver 05 January 2013 08:13:00PM 2 points [-]

Yes, my Japanese was very insistent about it

I think you're missing a word here :P

Comment author: beoShaffer 05 January 2013 08:23:57PM 1 point [-]

Fixed.

Comment author: roryokane 05 January 2013 01:26:52AM 4 points [-]
Comment author: woodside 03 January 2013 11:01:46AM *  6 points [-]

It's not easy to find rap lyrics that are appropriate to be posted here. Here's an attempt.

Son, remember when you fight to be free

To see things how they are and not how you like em to be

Cause even when the world is falling on top of me

Pessimism is an emotion, not a philosophy

Knowing what's wrong doesn't imply that you right

And its another, when you suffer to apply it in life

But I'm no rookie

And I'm never gonna make the same mistake twice pussy

  • Immortal Technique "Mistakes"
Comment author: Endovior 03 January 2013 06:07:47PM *  15 points [-]

If your ends don’t justify the means, you’re working on the wrong project.

-Jobe Wilkins (Whateley Academy)

Comment author: JQuinton 03 January 2013 10:13:37PM *  5 points [-]

the decision to base your life on beliefs which not only can you not prove, but which, on the balance of the evidence, seem unlikely to be true, seems incredibly irresponsible. If religious believing had implications only for the individual believer, then it could be easily dismissed as a harmless idiosyncrasy, but since almost all religious beliefs have incredibly serious implications for many people, religious belief cannot be regarded as harmless. Indeed, a glance at the behavior of religious believers worldwide day by day makes it very clear that religion is something to be feared and justly criticized. “Houses built of emotion” is one thing, but beliefs that can lead to mass beheading for mixed-sex dancing, or the marginalization and victimization of gay and lesbian people, and the second-listing of women, is quite another, and it is for the latter that religious belief is justly held to require more justification

Even though this quote is focusing on religion, I think it applies to any beliefs people have that they think are "harmless" but greatly influence how they treat others. In short, since no person is an island, we have a duty to critically examine the beliefs we have that influence how we treat others.

Comment author: taelor 04 January 2013 05:06:18AM *  5 points [-]

Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. It pulls and whirls the individual away from his own self, makes him oblivious to his weal and future, frees him of jelousies and self-seeking. He becomes an anonymous partical quivering with a craving to fuse and coalesce with his like into one flaming mass. [...] Mass movements can rise and spread without a belief in God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil. When Hitler was asked whether he thought that the Jew must be destroyed, he answered: "No... we should then have to invent him. It is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely an abstract one." F. A. Voigt tells of a Japanese mission that arrived in Berlin in 1932 to study the National Socialist movement. Voigt asked a member what he thought of the movement. He replied: "It is magnificent. I wish we could have something like it in Japan, only we can't, because we haven't got any Jews."

-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

Comment author: taelor 04 January 2013 05:24:07AM *  4 points [-]

When we renouce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renoucne personal advantage, but are also rid of personal responsiblity. There is no telling what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go to when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgement. When we loose our individual independence into the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom -- freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame or remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness of mass movements. We find the "right to dishonor", which according to Dostoyevsky has an irrisistible fascination. Hitler had a contemptuous opinion of the brutality of an autonomous indivisual: "Any violence which does not spring from a firm spiritual base will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook."

Thus, hatred is not only a means of unification, but also its product. Renan says that we have never, since the world began, heard of a merciful nation. Nor have we heard of a merciful church or a merciful revolutionary party. The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared to the venom and ruthlessness that is born of selflessness.

When we see bloodshed, terror and destruction born from such generous enthusiasms as the love of God, love of Christ, love of nation, compassion for the oppressed and so on, we usually blame this shameful perversion on a cynical, power-hungry leadership. Actually, it is the unification set in motion by these enthusiasms, rather than the manipulation of scheming leaders that transmutes noble impulses into a reality of hatred and violence.

-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

Comment author: [deleted] 04 January 2013 05:11:03AM 0 points [-]

If someone tells you they solved the mystery of Amelia Earhart's fate, you might be skeptical at first, but if they have a well documented, thoroughly pondered explanation, you would probably hear them out and who knows, you might even be convinced. But what if, in the next breath, they tell you that they actually have a second explanation as well. You listen patiently and discover and are surprised to find the alternate explanation to be as well documented and thought through as the first. And after finishing the second explanation you are presented with a third, a fourth, and even a fifth explanation--each one different from the others and yet equally convincing. No doubt, by the end of the experience you would feel no closer to Amelia Earhart's true fate than you did at the outset. In the arena of fundamental explanations, more is definitely less.

--Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe

Comment author: Mark_Eichenlaub 05 January 2013 04:48:13AM *  5 points [-]

Cartman: I can try to catch it, but I'm going to need all the resources you've got. If this thing isn't contained, your Easter Egg hunt is going to be a bloodbath.

Mr. Billings: What do you think, Peters? What are the chances that this 'Jewpacabra' is real?

Peters: I'm estimating somewhere around .000000001%.

Mr. Billings: We can't afford to take that chance. Get this kid whatever he needs.

South Park, Se 16 ep 4, "Jewpacabra"

note: edited for concision. script

Comment author: taelor 05 January 2013 06:52:53AM *  0 points [-]

It is easy to see how the faultfinding man of words, by persistent ridicule and denunciation, shakes prevailing beliefs and loyalties, and familiarizes the masses with the idea of change. What is not so obvious is the process by which the discrediting of existing beliefs and institutions makes possible the rise of a fanatical new faith. For it is a remarkable fact that the millitant man of words who "sounds the established order to its source to mark its want of authority and justice" often prepares the way not for a society of freethinking individuals but for a coprorate society that cherishes utmost unity and blind faith. A wide diffusion of doubt and irreverence thus leads to unexpected results. The irreverence of the Renaissance was a prelude to the new fanaticism of Reformation and Counter Reformation. The Frenchmen of the enlightenment who debunked the church and crown and preached reason and tolerance released a burst of revolutionary and nationalist fanticism which has not yet abated. Marx and his followers discredited religion, nationalism and the passionate pursuit of business, and brought into being the new fanaticism of socialism, communism, Stalinist nationalism and the passion for world dominion.

When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudicem we do not strike at the root of fanaticism. We merely prevent its leaking out at a certain point, with the likely result that it will leak out at some other point. Thus, by denigrating prevailing beliefs and loyalties, the militant man of words unwittingly creates in the disillusioned masses a hunger for faith. [...] These fanatical and faith-hungry masses are likely to invest such speculations with the certitude of holy writ, and make them the fountainhead of a new faith. Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.

--Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

Comment author: Zubon 06 January 2013 12:47:42AM *  7 points [-]

Obviously, it was his own view that had been in error. That was quite a realization, that he had been wrong. He wondered if he had ever been wrong about anything important.

-- Sterren with a literal realization that the territory did not match his mental map in The Unwilling Warlord by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Comment author: elspood 06 January 2013 09:29:08AM *  1 point [-]

BART: It's weird, Lis: I miss him as a friend, but I miss him even more as an enemy.
LISA: I think you need Skinner, Bart. Everybody needs a nemesis. Sherlock Holmes had his Dr. Moriarty, Mountain Dew has its Mellow Yellow, even Maggie has that baby with the one eyebrow.

Everyone may need a nemesis, but while Holmes had a distinct character all his own and thus used Dr. Moriarty simply to test formidable skills, Bart actually seems to create or define himself precisely in opposition to authority, as the other to authority, and not as some identifiable character in his own right.

- Mark T. Conrad, "Thus Spake Bart: On Nietzche and the Virtues of Being Bad", The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'Oh of Homer