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Lumifer comments on Belief as Attire - Less Wrong
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We're discussing people's emotional reactions to these types of statements and why they feel those emotions.
I pointed out that those reactions are typically strong and negative (and not just in Alabama), and that holding them is instrumentally rational.
Since this isn't preventing me from updating on any evidence presented (I absorbed the "everyone is the hero of their life story" moral years and years ago), I don't see that I'm particularly mind-dead in this scenario.
I saw mind killing in the particular phrase:
I also have doubts about that instrumental rationality.
My reasoning is... well it's hard to explain without going 100% RL politics, which is as rude as it is counterproductive. Basically there's different schools of thought on the strategy involved in asymmetrical warfare and I tend to come down on a particularly unpopular and effective side of the debate. That's all I'm willing to say in public.
In terms of instrumental rationality, it's pretty simple; being part of the winning team is generally useful, cheering and wearing the colors shows people you're on the team, and you cheer a lot more enthusiastically when you actually believe it. Cognitive dissonance gets a bad rap, but it really is a lot easier to compartmentalize than to maintain a lie long-term.
True. However cheering for your team while dehumanizing your opponents is often a poor way to make your team stronger in the long run. Labeling someone a terrorist diminishes your desire to understand their motivations and eventually mitigate further terrorism. Instead one ends up supporting Iraq war-style mission creep resulting in the needless deaths of those on your team.
“One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.”