diegocaleiro comments on Lonely Dissent - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 28 December 2007 04:23AM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 09 December 2010 11:07:15PM 2 points [-]

(nods) I've seen, though I cannot currently cite, studies to this effect about Mormon missionaries... that is, that missionaries don't convert many outsiders, but that the experience of being a missionary increases many people's commitment to the faith.

More generally, acting on an idea makes it easier to believe that idea.

Comment author: diegocaleiro 10 December 2010 02:50:14AM 1 point [-]

Investing in X increases X's stakes......

Also, as Dennett would point out, you are more likely to defend something for which views are polarized, than something for which they are almost all the same. We do not spend much time discussing shoes wearing, but abortion......

Comment author: taryneast 12 December 2010 11:12:05AM 2 points [-]

Investing in X increases X's stake

Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" discusses this notion. His conclusion being that if you want to value something, start investing time in it. ie - you can bootstrap your own life-interests... which is kinda cool if you're the kind of person searching for "meaning" in life. It means you can do something about it by simply picking something and running with it.

We do not spend much time discussing shoes wearing

well, I'd argue that some people spend an awful lot of time discussing such things ;) but I agree. Mostly we talk about things that we disagree on.

I guess that for certain topics, we don't have anything left to discuss - so it's considered a done-deal. We only get heated up where there's something left to hammer out.