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Emile comments on Open thread, Nov. 17 - Nov. 23, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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What's so great about impacting the status quo? That doesn't seem like something worth aiming for. I mean, yeah, sure, most ways of making the world a better place impact the status quo; but most ways of making the world a better place involve making noise at one point of the other, that doesn't mean that making noise is some great thing we should aim for.
Things that make the world (or lesswrong, or your family, etc.) a worse place are more likely to make people upset than things that make the world a better place. There are also more ways to make things worse than to make things better.
Depends on your value system, of course. But impacting the status quo is a synonym for "making a difference" and if you don't ever make a difference, well...
Please continue. If you don't ever make a difference, then what?
Then I'm not sure what your terminal values are beyond surviving.
I think there may be a communication failure here. While most desirable changes are themselves changes to the status quo, the phrase "changing the status quo" generally has the connotation of moving away from an undesirable state, instead of moving toward a desirable state.
For a concrete example, if I wanted to eradicate malaria, I would say "I want to eradicate malaria," not "I want to impact the status quo" or "I want to make a difference," even though both types of statements are true. The goal is to make a specific difference, not to make a difference.
Yes, looks like a communication problem. The phrase "changing the status quo" has no such connotation for me, at all. I would be happy to call eradicating malaria changing the status quo.