jimmy comments on Open Thread: June 2009 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Cyan 01 June 2009 06:46PM

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Comment author: QuestionTime 02 June 2009 10:26:51PM 1 point [-]

Thank you, this sounds like very good advice for how to lead someone down the path.

But given that she is reluctant to go down the path, do I want to lead her down it? She already believes that I can defend my views better than she can her's. She probably even believes that my views are closer to the truth.

My guess is that she is reluctant to discuss and evaluate the fundamental facts of existence and our values, precisely because she cherishes certain aspects of her current worldview that she correctly believes she is likely to lose. I think its plausible that she'll end up less happy, and maybe less productive, after hearing about the preference utilitarianism and the opportunity cost of spending $80 to have flowers delivered to a friend (note: I'd never try to stop her from doing it, I'd just like to explain why I'm not going to) or after explaining why the idea that people have souls is incoherent (note: I would never say something that strongly. As you suggest I'd want to build up to it slowly, by asking questions and letting the conclusions fall out of the discussion.)

Religious people report being happier. By many measures they also do more "good works." I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true of deontologists vs. consequentialists.

Do I really have reason to believe she'll benefit from serious detailed discussion of our respective worldviews?

Comment author: jimmy 04 June 2009 07:22:32PM *  2 points [-]

In my case, it was worth it. There may be a stubborn reluctance to "give in" or other lower level things that get in the way of believing the truth, but if at the top level she would really rather believe the truth, you're probably fine. If you can't get her to say in full honesty "I would rather believe the truth than made up 'feel good' stories", you're probably hosed.

My girlfriend started out as a creationist christian and is now pretty much atheist. Overall, she is much more reasonable and can make the right decision on the types of things she previously did not. She seems to be about as happy as before, and when she's not she can recognize the cause so it's not nearly as damaging. I'd call that a success so far.

In general, I have a pretty strict policy of calling each other on any BS. I attempt to get the point across in a nice way, but will persist until she understands even if it does make her upset in the short term. The one exception was when I found out that she believed in creationism. That was too big of a bite, so we left it as "agree to disagree", though I made it obvious that I did not respect her belief. I never made an attempt to deconvert her, but it did happen on its own.

There's probably a better way to do it that can make the same progress without ever upsetting the person, but in my experience it ended up being worth it to push through anyway.