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RobbBB comments on The Up-Goer Five Game: Explaining hard ideas with simple words - Less Wrong Discussion
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Keep in mind that this "rationality" is just a word. Making up a word shouldn't, on its own, be enough to show that something is good or bad. If self-interest is more "rational" than helping others, then you should be able to give good reasons for that with other words that are more clear and simple.
People get very confused when they start thinking that what they actually want matters less than some piece of paper saying what they Should or Shouldn't want. Even if some made-up idea says you Shouldn't want to help others except to make yourself happy, why should that matter more to me than what I actually want, which is just to help people? This is a lot like Mr. Yudkowsky's "being sad about having to think and decide well".
I think the gist is that we all live inside our own bubbles of consciousness and can only observe indirectly what is inside other people's bubbles. Everything that motivates you or makes you do anything is inside that bubble. If you expand this kind of thinking, it's not really important what is inside those other bubbles, only how they affect you. But this is kinda contrived philosophy.
Btw, that link is really good and it made me think a bit differently. I've sometimes envied others for their choices and thought I'm supposed to behave in a certain way that is opposite to that... but actually what matters is what I want and how I can achieve my desires, not how I'm supposed to act.
Right! "I should..." is a means for actually making the world a better place. Don't let it hide away in its own world; make it face up to the concerns and wishes you really have.