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moridinamael comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong Discussion
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"Instead of creating utility, which is hard, we should all train ourselves to find utility in what we already have."
This is my fairly gross simplification of a lot of Eastern philosophy, and it is antithetical to the "Western memeplex" of achievement and progress.
However, relatively few practitioners of Eastern religions really seem to carry through the logical implications of a totally passive philosophy.
I admit the above imperative doesn't seem as horrifying as the ones listed in the OP, but if you really think through to what the consequences would be, I suspect it would be a future we would never choose.
Should? Should for what purpose? Generating utility? If so, utility by what function?
By a very confused utility function? By a utility function best described as Virtue Ethics with total passivity as the highest virtue?
I wasn't suggesting this was a good idea, I was just putting forward a meme which would be rejected by Less Wrong as "too dumb to talk about" which nonetheless would result in universal bliss if it were actually adopted.
It's also a strange way to talk about utility - as if utility itself is what we want, rather than a measure of how much of what we want we've got.
It seems to be the case that happiness is actually not caused by getting what you want, but rather by wanting what you get. It's been challenging for me to square this psychological fact with the notion of utility maximization.
Although, I think your point might have been that I could have phrased that sentence more clearly without referring to utility.
Well, sure that may be true to the extent that you value happiness. What I was pointing out was that if you were completely miserable, saying "I should modify myself to prefer being miserable to being happy because then I'll get some of that sweet, sweet utility" is just wacky.
Sure. I wasn't defending the idea, or suggesting that we should do it. It is "wacky." Regardless, it is a meme that other human beings actually try to implement.
Nor did I think we disagreed.
Why? That just means that happiness is overrated.
Eastern philosophy has a lot of emphasis on things that don't needlessly grind against other things. For example, Taoism shares many themes in common with mechanism design and institutional microeconomics generally. In some ways a frictionless mind frictionlessly engaging its environment might be described as "passive", but though the Buddha might've been "passive" in that sense he sure ended up doing a lot of stuff and arguing with a lot of people. Contrast with Nietzsche's mirror men.
Do you mean this? I see some connection, but the emphasis and background assumptions seem extremely different from Taoism.
Perhaps I should have said "contrast with Nietzsche's mirror men".
That makes more sense.
Sorry. It's the result of my junior year AP History class. The teacher said "'compare and contrast' is redundant, as comparing implies contrasting". Which while true in a sense doesn't change the fact that 'compare' is often taken to mean 'find similarities'.
My impression is that outside of the contexts where "compare and contrast" is said, the word "compare" always means "examine the differences of these two same-kind-of-thing things" — e.g. comparison shopping, or comparing values in programming — and the "find similarities" meaning is dead. Am I wrong/unobservant/in a niche?
Arguably, this isn't very far from Stoic doctrine. Needless to say, calling Stoic doctrine "antithetical to the Western memeplex" is a bit of a stretch. Also, similar ideas can be found within Christian teachings, which, as far as I can tell, is the most important Western religion.
Why not both?
Not very precise with “utility” in common to this place sense.
Most often it is implied that it is about pleasure (and lack of suffering), which is rather reasonable.
But to not go too far; on a more mundane level, this philosophy can be practically opposed to consumerism: instead of obtaining utility through money through hard work, obtain utility from what you have and minimal amount of things you really need.
Going further (deeper, wider, more abstract, more qualitative) would be contrarian not only to society in general but also to some of the lesswrong opinions.