b) he should have realized that people have a strong bias against serial killers.
Yeah, this was irrational. He should have remembered his terminal value of creating change instead of focusing on his instrumental value of getting as many people as possible to read his manifesto. -gives self a little pat on back for using new terminology-
The reason I think his concerns are valid is because capitalism tries to optimize for wanting
Could you please elaborate on this idea a little? Anyway, thanks for the link (don't apologize for linking so much, I love the links and read through and try to digest about 80% of them...). The liking/wanting difference is intuitive, but actually putting it into words is really helpful. I'm interested in exactly how you tie it in with Kaczynski, and I also think it's relevant to my current dilemma.
Anyway, Scott's example about smoking makes it seem as if people want to smoke but don't like it. I think it's the opposite; they like smoking, but don't want to smoke. Do I really have these two words backwards? We need definitions. I think "liking" has more to do with your preferences, while "wanting" has to do with your goals. I recognize in myself, that if I like something, it's very hard for me not to want it, and personally I find matrix-type philosophy questions to actually be difficult. That's why I've never tried smoking; I was scared I might like it and start to want it. Without having tried it, it's easy to say that it's not what I want for myself. Is this only because I think it would bring me less happiness in the long run? I don't think so. Even if you told me with certainty that smoking (or drugs) feels so incredibly good and is so incredibly fun that it could bring me happiness that outweighs the unhappiness caused by the bad stuff, I still wouldn't want it! And I have no idea why. Which makes me wonder... what if I had never experienced how wonderful a fun-filled mostly-hedonic lifestyle is? Would I truly want it? Or am I just addicted?
You might say "oh well that's reasonable". But I could eat brown rice and frozen vegetables for very cheap and be like 70% as satisfied, and pay for x meals for people that are quite literally starving.
Funny that you mention this example; I wouldn't say it's reasonable. Let me share a little story. When I was way younger, maybe 10 years ago, I went through a brief phase where I tried to convince my friends and family that eating at restaurants was wrong, saying "What if there were children in pain from starvation right outside the restaurant, and you knew the money you would spend in the restaurant could buy them rice and beans for two weeks... you would feel guilty about eating at the restaurant instead of helping, right? ("yes") This is your conscience, right? ("yes") Your conscience is from God, right? ("yes") People in Africa are just as important as people in the US, right? ("yes") Therefore, isn't wrong to eat at a restaurant instead of donating the money to help starving kids in Africa? ("no") Why? ("it just isn't!")... at which point they would insist that if I truly believed this was wrong, I should act accordingly, and I just told them "No, I can't, I'm too selfish... and besides, saving eternal souls is more important than feeding starving children." Then I looked at all the smart, unselfish adults I knew who still ate at restaurants, told myself I must be wrong somehow, and avoided thinking about the issue until we read Singer's Famine, Affluence, and Morality in college (In my final semester, this was the class where it first occurred to me that there was nothing wrong with putting effort into school beyond what was necessary for perfect grades). I was really excited when we read it and was eagerly anticipating discussing it the next class to finally hear if someone could give a solid refutation of my old idea. My professor cancelled class that day, and we never went back to the topic. I cared, but unfortunately not quite enough to go talk to my professor outside of class. That was for nerds. So I went on believing it was "wrong" to eat in restaurants, but to protect my sanity, didn't think about it or do anything about it, even after de-converting from Christianity... until I came across Scott's post Nobody Is Perfect, Everything is Commensurable which seems incredibly obvious in hindsight, yet was exactly what I needed to hear at the time.
I don't think we'd be better off if the norm was to have, say equal preference ratios for everyone in the world.
I disagree. I think we would be better off if society could somehow advance to a stage where such unselfishness was the norm. Whether this is possible is another question entirely, but I keep trying to rid myself of the habit of thinking natural = better (personally, I see this habit as another effect of Christianity; I'm continually amazed to find just how much of my worldview it shaped).
I think that answering that exploring and answering [Why don't I want selfish preference ratios?] will be helpful.
I want to answer this question with "because emotion!" Is this allowed? Or is it akin to "explaining" something by calling it an emergent phenomenon?
1) Rationally, I can't trace this back any farther than calling it a feeling. Was I born with this feeling? Is it the result of society? I don't know. I don't honestly think unselfish preference ratios would lead to a personal increase in my overall happiness, that's for sure. Take effective altruism, for example. When I donate money, I don't feel warm and fuzzy. I get a very small amount of personal satisfaction, societal respect, and a tiny reduction in the (already very small) guilt I feel for having such a good life. But honestly I rarely think about it, and I'm 99.99% sure the overall impact on my happiness is much smaller than if I were to use the money to fly to Guatemala and take a few weeks' vacation to visit old friends. Yet, even as I acknowledge this, I still want to donate. I don't know why. So I think that based solely on my intuition here, I might disagree with you and find personal happiness and altruism to be two separate terminal goals, often harmonious but sometimes conflicting.
2) Analyze emotion?? Can you do that?! As an istp, just identifying emotion is difficult enough.
As for your points about Eliezer...
a) Yeah, I have considered this too. But I think most of his audience is rational enough that if he said something that wasn't rational, his credibility could take a hit. Whether this would stop him and how much of a consequentialist he really is, I have no idea.
b) Yeah, this is an interesting microcosm of the issue of whether we want to believe what is true vs. what is best for society. That said, I'm not saying Eliezer is wrong. My intuition does take his side now, but I usually don't trust my intuitions very much.
Anyway, I went back through the book and found the title of the post. It's Terminal Values and Instrumental Values. You can jump to "Consider the philosopher."
Harry had that helpless feeling again. Thou shalt not become a Dark Lord was such an obvious theorem in his moral system that it was hard to describe the actual proof steps. "Um, people would get hurt?"
"Surely you've wanted to hurt people," said Professor Quirrell. "You wanted to hurt those bullies today. Being a Dark Lord means that people you want to hurt get hurt."
Good quote! Right now, I interpret this as showing how personal happiness and "altruism/not becoming a Dark Lord" are both inexplicable, perhaps sometimes competing terminal values... how do you interpret it?
Could you please elaborate on this idea a little? ... I'm interested in exactly how you tie it in with Kaczynski, and I also think it's relevant to my current dilemma.
Sure!
In brief: Kaczynski seems to have realized that economies are driven by wanting, not liking, and that this will lead to unhappiness. I think that that conclusion is too strong though - I'd just say that it'll lead to inefficiency.
Longer explanation: ok, so the economy is pretty much driven by what people choose to buy, and where people choose to work. People aren't always so good at m...
This was originally a comment to VipulNaik's recent indagations about the academic lifestyle versus the job lifestyle. Instead of calling it lifestyle he called them career options, but I'm taking a different emphasis here on purpose.
Due to information hazards risks, I recommend that Effective Altruists who are still wavering back and forth do not read this. Spoiler EA alert.
I'd just like to provide a cultural difference information that I have consistently noted between Americans and Brazilians which seems relevant here.
To have a job and work in the US is taken as a *de facto* biological need. It is as abnormal for an American, in my experience, to consider not working, as it is to consider not breathing, or not eating. It just doesn't cross people's minds.
If anyone has insight above and beyond "Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism" let me know about it, I've been waiting for the "why?" for years.
So yeah, let me remind people that you can spend years and years not working. that not getting a job isn't going to kill you or make you less healthy, that ultravagabonding is possible and feasible and many do it for over six months a year, that I have a friend who lives as the boyfriend of his sponsor's wife in a triad and somehow never worked a day in his life (the husband of the triad pays it all, both men are straight). That I've hosted an Argentinian who left graduate economics for two years to randomly travel the world, ended up in Rome and passed by here in his way back, through couchsurfing. That Puneet Sahani has been well over two years travelling the world with no money and an Indian passport now. I've also hosted a lovely estonian gentleman who works on computers 4 months a year in London to earn pounds, and spends eight months a year getting to know countries while learning their culture etc... Brazil was his third country.
Oh, and never forget the Uruguay couple I just met at a dance festival who have been travelling as hippies around and around South America for 5 years now, and showed no sign of owning more than 500 dollars worth of stuff.
Also in case you'd like to live in a paradise valley taking Santo Daime (a religious ritual with DMT) about twice a week, you can do it with a salary of aproximatelly 500 dollars per month in Vale do Gamarra, where I just spent carnival, that is what the guy who drove us back did. Given Brazilian or Turkish returns on investment, that would cost you 50 000 bucks in case you refused to work within the land itself for the 500.
Oh, I forgot to mention that though it certainly makes you unable to do expensive stuff, thus removing the paradox of choice and part of your existential angst from you (uhuu less choices!), there is nearly no detraction in status from not having a job. In fact, during these years in which I was either being an EA and directing an NGO, or studying on my own, or doing a Masters (which, let's agree is not very time consuming) my status has increased steadily, and many opportunities would have been lost if I had a job that wouldn't let me move freely. Things like being invited as Visiting Scholar to Singularity Institute, like giving a TED talk, like directing IERFH, and like spending a month working at FHI with Bostrom, Sandberg, and the classic Lesswrong poster Stuart Armstrong.
So when thinking about what to do with you future my dear fellow Americans, please, at least consider not getting a job. At least admit what everyone knows from the bottom of their hearts, that jobs are abundant for high IQ people (specially you my programmer lurker readers.... I know you are there...and you native English speakers, I can see you there, unnecessarily worrying about your earning potential).
A job is truly an instrumental goal, and your terminal goals certainly do have chains of causation leading to them that do not contain a job for 330 days a year. Unless you are a workaholic who experiences flow in virtue of pursuing instrumental goals. Then please, work all day long, donate as much as you can, and may your life be awesome!