Open thread, Nov. 10 - Nov. 16, 2014

MrMind

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Dudeism? What in the world are they blathering about?

It turns out Dudeism is a thing. Wikipedia summarizes it best:

The Dudeist belief system is essentially a modernized form of Taoism purged of all of its metaphysical and medical doctrines. Dudeism advocates and encourages the practice of "going with the flow", "being cool headed", and "taking it easy" in the face of life's difficulties, believing that this is the only way to live in harmony with our inner nature and the challenges of interacting with other people. It also aims to assuage feelings of inadequacy that arise in societies which place a heavy emphasis on achievement and personal fortune. Consequently, simple everyday pleasures like bathing, bowling, and hanging out with friends are seen as far preferable to the accumulation of wealth and the spending of money as a means to achieve happiness and spiritual fulfillment.

I thought it'd be worth bringing to attention here, because if there's one adjective that would not apply to the online LW community, it's "laid back". Note that many of us are lazy, but we struggle with laziness, we keep looking for self-help and trying to figure out our motivation systems and trying so hard to achieve. Other urges and "sufferings" we struggle with are the need to fit in, the need to make sense of the world, the need to be perfectly clear in thought and expression (and the need to demand that of others), and so on and so forth.

How much could we benefit from being more laid-back, from openly and deliberately saying "fuck it"? From doing what we actually want to do without regard for what's expected of us?

The thoughts on this post aren't very well-articulated, and perhaps I'm misjudging LW completely, but, um, you know, that's just, like, uh, my opinion, man. Obviously, it's open for debate; that's what we're here for, yes?

How much could we benefit from being more laid-back, from openly and deliberately saying "fuck it"? From doing what we actually want to do without regard for what's expected of us?

I would say substantially. LW largely seems to advocate for preference utilitarianism, whereas EA and animal rights subsets of the group often come suspiciously close to deontological "whatever you do care about, here is what you should care about". As a matter of fact, the whole advocacy for consistency in ethics (e.g. "shut up and multiply") can... (read more)

3Risto_Saarelma12y

Raymond Smullyan's The Tao is Silent is possibly relevant.

11Vaniver12y

Hmm. I have pretty strong Daoist / Stoic tendencies, and a large part of that deals with rejection of "should-ness;" that is, things are as they are, and carrying around a view of how the world "should" be that disagrees with the actual world is, on net, harmful. I've gotten some pushback from LWers on that view, as they use the delta between their should-world and their is-world to motivate themselves to act. As far as I can tell, that isn't necessary; one can be motivated by the is-world directly, and if one reasons in the is-world one is more likely to make successful plans than if one reasons in the should-world (which is where one will reason, since diffs between the should-world and is-world are defects!). But I think that LW is useful at dissolving that pushback; the practice of cashing out beliefs as predictions about the world rather than tribal identifications or moral claims is basically the practice of living in the is-world instead of the should-world.