The ideal attitude for humans with our peculiar mental architecture probably is one of "everything is amazing, also lets make it better" just because of how happiness ties into productivity. But that would be the correct attitude regardless of the actual state of the world. There is no such thing as an "awesome" world state, just a "more awesome" relation between two such states. Our current state is beyond the wildest dreams of some humans, and hell incarnate in comparison to what humanity could achieve. It is a type error to say "this state is awesome;" you have to say "more awesome" or "less awesome" compared to something else.

Also, such behavior is not compatible with the quote. The quote advocates ignoring real suboptimal sections of the world and instead basking how much better the world is than it used to be. How are you supposed to make the drinks better if you're not even allowed to admit they're not perfect? I could, with minor caveats, get behind "things are great lets make them better" but that's not what the quote said. The quote advocates pretending that we've already achieved perfection.

Sure, I agree with that. But you see, that's not what the quote said. It actually not even related to what the quote said, except in very tenuous manners. The quote condemned people complaining about drinks on an airplane; that was the whole point of mentioning the technology at all. I take issue with the quote as stated, not with every somewhat similar-sounding idea.

That honestly seems like some kind of fallacy, although I can't name it. I mean, sure, take joy in the merely real, that's a good outlook to have; but it's highly analogous to saying something like "Average quality of life has gone up dramatically over the past few centuries, especially for people in major first world countries. You get 50-90 years of extremely good life - eat generally what you want, think and say anything you want, public education; life is incredibly great. But talk to some people, I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who, in the face of all that incredible achievement, will be willing to complain about [starving kid in Africa|environmental pollution|dying peacefully of old age|generally any way in which the world is suboptimal]."

That kind of outlook not only doesn't support any kind of progress, or even just utility maximization, it actively paints the very idea of making things even better as presumptuous and evil. It does not serve for something to be merely awe-inspiring; I want more. I want to not just watch a space shuttle launch (which is pretty cool on its own), but also have a drink that tastes better than any other in the world, with all of my best friends around me, while engaged in a thrilling intellectual conversation about strategy or tactics in the best game ever created. While a wizard turns us all into whales for a day. On a spaceship. A really cool spaceship. I don't just want good; I want the best. And I resent the implication that I'm just ungrateful for what I have. Hell, what would all those people that invested the blood, sweat, and tears to make modern flight possible say if they heard someone suggesting that we should just stick to the status quo because "it's already pretty good, why try to make it better?" I can guarantee they wouldn't agree.

If, after realizing an old mistake, you find a way to say "but I was at least sort of right, under my new set of beliefs," then you are selecting your beliefs badly. Don't identify as a person who iwas right, or as one who is right; identify as a person who will be right. Discovering a mistake has to be a victory, not a setback. Until you get to this point, there is no point in trying to engage in normal rational debate; instead, engage them on their own grounds until they reach that basic level of rationality.

For people having an otherwise rational debate, they need to at this point drop the Green and Blue labels (any rationalist should be happy to do so, since they're just a shorthand for the full belief system) and start specifying their actual beliefs. The fact that one identifies as a Green or a Blue is a red flag of glaring irrationality, confirmed if they refuse to drop the label to talk about individual beliefs, in which case do the above. Sticking with the labels is a way to make your beliefs feel stronger, via something like a halo effect where every good thing about Green or Greens gets attributed to every one of your beliefs.

Answered "moderate programmer, incorrect". I got the correct final answer but had 2 boxes incorrect. Haven't checked where I went wrong, although I was very surprised I had as back in grade school I got these things correct with near perfection. I learned programming very easily and have traditionally rapidly outpaced my peers, but I'm only just starting professionally and don't feel like an "experienced" programmer. As for the test, I suspect it will show some distinction but with very many false positives and negatives. There are too many uncovered aspects of what seems to make up a natural programmer. Also, it is tedious as hell, and I suspect that boredom will lead to recklessness will lead to false negatives, which aren't terrible but are still not good. May also lead to some selection effect.

Right, I didn't quite work all the math out precisely, but at least the conclusion was correct. This model is, as you say, exclusively for fatal logic errors; the sorts where the law of non-contradiction doesn't hold, or something equally unthinkable, such that everything you thought you knew is invalidated. It does not apply in the case of normal math errors for less obvious conclusions (well, it does, but your expected utility given no errors of this class still has to account for errors of other classes, where you can still make other predictions).

That's not how decision theory works. The bounds on my probabilities don't actually apply quite like that. When I'm making a decision, I can usefully talk about the expected utility of taking the bet, under the assumption that I have not made an error, and then multiply that by the odds of me not making an error, adding the final result to the expected utility of taking the bet given that I have made an error. This will give me the correct expected utility for taking the bet, and will not result in me taking stupid bets just because of the chance I've made a logic error; after all, given that my entire reasoning is wrong, I shouldn't expect taking the bet to be any better or worse than not taking it. In shorter terms: EU(action) = EU(action & ¬error) + EU(action & error); also EU(action & error) = EU(anyOtherAction & error), meaning that when I compare any 2 actions I get EU(action) - EU(otherAction) = EU(action & ¬error) - EU(otherAction & ¬error). Even though my probability estimates are affected by the presence of an error factor, my decisions are not. On the surface this seems like an argument that the distinction is somehow trivial or pointless; however, the critical difference comes in the fact that while I cannot predict the nature of such an error ahead of time, I can potentially recover from it iff I assign >0 probability to it occurring. Otherwise I will never ever assign it anything other than 0, no matter how much evidence I see. In the incredibly improbable event that I am wrong, given extraordinary amounts of evidence I can be convinced of that fact. And that will cause all of my other probabilities to update, which will cause my decisions to change.

Neat. Consider my objection retracted. Although I suspect someone with more knowledge of the material could give a better explanation.

This comment fails to address the post in any way whatsoever. No claim is made of the "right" thing to do; a hypothetical is offered, and the question asked is "what do you do?" It is not even the case that the hypothetical rests on an idea of an intrinsic "right thing" to do, instead asking us to measure how much we value knowing the truth vs happiness/lifespan, and how much we value the same for others. It's not an especially interesting or original question, but it does not make any claims which are relevant to your comment.

EDIT: That does make more sense, although I'd never seen that particular example used as "fighting the hypothetical", more just that "the right thing" is insufficiently defined for that sort of thing. Downvote revoked, but it's still not exactly on point to me. I also don't agree that you need to fight the hypothetical this time, other than to get rid of the particular example.