Comment on Doublethink (Choosing to be Biased)

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 14:31:49 GMT

You talk about belief the way popular culture talks about love: as some kind of external influence that overcomes your resistance.

And belief can be like that, sure. But belief can also be the result of doing the necessary work.

I realize that's an uncomfortable idea. But it's also an important one.

Relatedly, my own thoughts on the value of truth: when the environment is very forgiving and even suboptimal choices mostly work out to my benefit, the cost of being incorrect a lot is mostly opportunity cost. That is, things go OK, and even get better sometimes. (Not as much better as they would have gotten had I optimized more, but still: better.)

I've spent most of my life in a forgiving environment, which makes it very easy to adopt the attitude that having accurate beliefs isn't particularly important. I can go through life giving up lots of opportunities, and if I just don't think too much about the improvements I'm giving up I'll still be relatively content. It's emotionally easy to discount possible future benefits.

Even if I do have transient moments of awareness of how much better it can be, I can suppress them by thinking about all the ways it can be worse and how much safer I am right where I am, as though refusing to climb somehow protected me from falling.

The thing is: when the environment is risky and most things cost me, the cost of being incorrect is loss. That is, things don't go OK, and they get worse. And I can't control the environment.

It's emotionally harder to discount possible future losses.

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