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Manfred comments on On Leverage Research's plan for an optimal world - Less Wrong Discussion

25 Post author: Mitchell_Porter 10 January 2012 09:49AM

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Comment author: Manfred 10 January 2012 10:27:33PM 12 points [-]

Okay, finished. Wasn't as bad as I'd expected given the beginning.

Short summary: spend decades developing a particularly powerful way to understand people, and then use that to do as much good as possible, e.g. by working like a grant-awards agency that really understands who deserves the money, or like a think tank that really understands what messages people will remember, etc.

If you sort of squint your eyes, it makes sense. On the other hand, I won't hold my breath. For example, their plan only works if they beat everyone else to this understanding by greater than the time it takes to recruit all the donors and prestige they'll need (~5 years?). For another example, they're sort of hamstrung by "Connection Theory" already.

Comment author: Tellmemore 11 January 2012 12:05:33AM 1 point [-]

If you write a longer comment or discussion post explaining what you found, e.g. how "Connection Theory" hamstrings them, I will upvote it.

Comment author: Manfred 11 January 2012 01:36:50AM 1 point [-]

Well, I don't feel like it, but it might be fun to try and figure out why I'd say that from this summary.

Comment author: Tellmemore 11 January 2012 02:10:11AM 15 points [-]

Those linked basic claims look well falsified already.

People always believe that all of their intrinsic goods will be achieved...This is, according to Connection Theory, an inviolable law of the mind.

Wishful thinking is not THAT ubiquitous and unbeatable. Lots of people expect to die without an afterlife and wish it wasn't so.

According to Connection Theory, the sole source of a person’s irrationality is that person’s need to believe that all of his or her intrinsic goods will be fulfilled. This need is a constraint; given this constraint, everyone forms the most reasonable beliefs that they can on the basis of the evidence they encounter

Falsified all over the place, by most of the heuristics and biases literature for one, unless "that they can" is interpreted in a slippery fashion to describe whatever people in fact do.

According to Connection Theory, every action that every person takes is part of an implicit plan for achieving all of that person’s intrinsic goods. A person may pursue some intrinsic goods first and others later, but none can be permanently sacrificed

This looks like it denies that people ever make real tradeoffs, but they do.

Comment author: Manfred 11 January 2012 02:16:14AM 1 point [-]

Got it in one.

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