lessdazed comments on The curse of identity - LessWrong

121 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 17 November 2011 07:28PM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 21 November 2011 03:44:14PM 4 points [-]

Of course, this very easily backfires - either you dislike feeling evil, so feeling evil takes up energy and doesn't leave you any to spare for altruistic acts. Alternatively, it might twist your self-image so that you think you actually are evil and start to commit evil acts and become less interested in good ones... or you think that you aren't doing things that are making you feel bad enough yet, so you start doing things that are actually evil.

I expect that getting this to work would require quite an intricate web of self-deception, and most who tried this would simply fail, one way or another.

Comment author: lessdazed 21 November 2011 04:04:15PM 2 points [-]

I expect that getting this to work would require quite an intricate web of self-deception

I have a chintzy WWLVD bracelet, it seems to work OK. Lieutenant Verrall

It's important not to try and emulate someone actually important like Stalin, as that would entail mostly signing paperwork and sleeping at your desk in your boots amid lapses of mania.