I think that's a separate discussion, and I don't think spinning it off will be productive. Feel free to replace "we" with "I" if that's clearer. If it's still not clear what I mean, I'm content to let it drop there.
I think it is a key issue. This is about ethical objectivism. If Good is a fact about what we value collectively, in your view, then your theory is along the lines of utilitariansim, which is near enough to objectivism AFAIC. Yet you seem to disagree with me about something.
What explains the difference [between areas where I endorse updating false opinions and those where I don't] ?
Whether concerning myself with the truth-values of the propositions expressed by opinions reliably provides observable and differential benefits.
If you concern yourself with the truth values of your own beliefs about what you believe to be good and bad, and revise your beliefs accordingly and act on them, you will end up doing the right thing.
What's more beneficial than doing the right thing?
If the things you think are beneficial are in fact not beneficial, then you are not getting benefits; you just mistakenly think you are.
To actually get benefits, you have to know what is actually beneficial.
If the sole function of moral beliefs is to guide action without reference to expected observable benefits, I don't see why I should prefer "true" moral beliefs (whatever that means) to "false" ones (whatever that means).
Morality is all about what is truly beneficial. Those truths aren't observable: neither are the truths of mathematics.
I bring it up as another example of an area where some people assert there are objective truths and falsehoods, but where I see no reason to posit any such thing...positing the existence of individual aesthetic values seems quite adequate to explain my observations.
Are you a passive observer who never acts?
Yet you seem to disagree with me about something.
It is not clear to me what we disagree about, precisely, if anything.
What's more beneficial than doing the right thing?
I don't know. It is not clear to me what the referent of "the right thing" is when you say it, or indeed if it even has a referent, so it's hard to be sure one way or another. (Yes, I do understand that you meant that as a rhetorical question whose correct answer was "Nothing.")
...If the things you think are beneficial are in fact not beneficial, then you are not g
There seems to be a widespread impression that the metaethics sequence was not very successful as an explanation of Eliezer Yudkowsky's views. It even says so on the wiki. And frankly, I'm puzzled by this... hence the "apparently" in this post's title. When I read the metaethics sequence, it seemed to make perfect sense to me. I can think of a couple things that may have made me different from the average OB/LW reader in this regard: