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Jay_Schweikert comments on Rationality Quotes April 2013 - Less Wrong
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--Pirates of the Caribbean
The pirate-specific stuff is a bit extraneous, but I've always thought this scene neatly captured the virtue of cold, calculating practicality. Not that "fairness" is never important to worry about, but when you're faced with a problem, do you care more about solving it, or arguing that your situation isn't fair? What can you do, and what can't you do? Reminds me of What do I want? What do I have? How can I best use the latter to get the former?
That said, if I recognize that I'm in a group that values "fairness" as an abstract virtue, then arguing that my situation isn't fair is often a useful way of solving my problem by recruiting alliances.
If you're in a group where "that's not fair" is frequently a winning argument, you may already be in trouble.
I am in many groups where, when choosing between two strategies A and B, fairness is one of the things we take into account. I'm not sure that's a problem.
If it's a frequently-occurring observation within the group then yes, there seems to be something wrong. Possibly because things are regularly proposed and acted on without considering fairness until someone has to point it out.
If it hardly ever has to be said, but when pointed out, it is often persuasive, you're probably OK.
Even more generally it can be taken as a paraphraasing of the Litany of Gendlin
Frankly this is precisely the kind of ruthless pragmatism that gives utilitarians such a horrible reputation.
Well, it certainly didn't stop Jack Sparrow from being a beloved character.
You can be ruthless and popular, if you're sufficiently charismatic about it.
It also helps to be fictional, or at least sufficiently removed from the target audience that they perceive you in far mode.
I'd say that it's possible to be ruthless and popular even among people who're familiar with you, as long as you keep your ruthlessness in far mode for the people you're attempting to cultivate popularity amongst. Business executives come to mind, and the more cutthroat strains of social maneuverers.
Dunno mate, I could name a few US Presidents and non-US leaders.
Mmm, that's a good point.
Potentially - If people know you're going to play according to a higher rule or purpose, rather than following feelings, then how much are they going to trust that you're really going to exercise that rule on their behalf?
It'd be like the old argument that people should be allowed to kidnap people off the streets and take their organs - because when you average it out any individual is more likely to need an organ than be the one kidnapped so it's the better gamble for everyone to make. But we don't really imagine it that way, we all see ourselves being the ones dragged off the street and cut up, or that people with unpopular political opinions would be the ones... You can't trust someone who'd come up with that sort of system not to be playing a different game because they've already shown you can't trust their compassionate feelings to work as bounds on their actions. Maybe any friendship they express means as little to them as the poor guy they just butchered.
I wonder how much of it is a trust problem though, and how you'd resolve that. It seems to me that if you knew someone really well, or they didn't seem to be grasping power, they could get away with being ruthless. People seem almost to gloat about how ruthless specops folks and the like are.
My impression is that whistle-blowers tend not to be trusted. It's not as though other businesses line up to hire them.
I think the problem is having moral systems which impose high local costs.