Rationality Quotes May 2014

elharo

Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

If you want to use your selfishness to help others, then you're not selfish.

Do we really need to go into the question what “selfishness” actually means? In ordinary situations I'd say that “the actual altruist [is] whichever one actually holds open doors for little old ladies”; maybe in certain situations we need different words to specify whether they do so because it's in their own utility function or because of religious/game-theoretical/superrational/acausal/whatever-they-call-it-these-days reasons, but...

0timujin12y

Of course you're not. But human nature is supposedly selfish, and if your true goals are altruistic, you will have to find a way to turn it around.

0Neo12y

Selfishness seems to be referred to as primarily a a mindset or attitude. Helping others as an outcome. I think they can co-exist at the same time, for example Adam Smith's invisible hand in capitalism.

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Rationality Quotes May 2014

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