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There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is impossible.
— Jack Vance, The Languages of Pao
In response to
Rationality Quotes September 2013
In response to
Rationality Quotes July 2013
Asked to make a 30-second case for On Constitutional Disobedience — his 2013 book that advocates abolishing the U.S. Constitution — Louis Michael Seidman, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, says:
"There's no good reason why we should be bound by decisions made hundreds of years ago by people who are long dead, knew nothing about modern America, and had moral and political views that no sensible person would hold today."
The constitution can be amended therefore Americans are not bound by decisions made hundreds of years ago. There were 12 amendments passed in the 20th century, the last of which was an amendment that was proposed in 1789 and ratified in 1992.
It's true that people sometimes behave instrumentally-irrationally in the sense that they don't take the correct steps to reach their goal of happiness. But that fact, alone, is relatively weak evidence: people are a little irrational, not completely wrong about what makes them happy.
Your reply can be read very generally ("behavior is not always rational, therefore it's not positively correlated with desired results"). Please specify what you meant more precisely.
I'm saying that the argument that most people are doing something is not proof that what they are doing is better. In other words, the fact that most rich people choose not to give away all of their fortune is not proof that being rich is better than being poor. Why they choose not to give it all away cannot be inferred from their actions.
Personally I would state that this is a false dichotomy and that Rich is better than Poor because it is not-Poor. It isn't necessarily the best state of not-Poor.
That people prefer to be rich does not make it better.
It's enough for a strong presumption of it being better, pending evidence to the contrary.
Taboo "better": there are preferences as belief, and preferences as revealed in actions. Actions are clearly in favour of being rich.
On the side of beliefs, there are certainly religions and ethical theories that say being poor is better. Personally, I strongly disagree with both this and many other beliefs of all such theories that I know about, not to mention religions.
There are of course ethical systems that say that while being rich may be good, giving away your wealth to charity is better still. Even plain self-interested consequentialism may tell you that you should give your money, perhaps to fight existential risk or to help develop FAI. I certainly agree that there is a tradeoff to be made; I'm only pointing out that in itself, rich is better than poor.
As for the Stoics, I too am not deeply familiar with their philosophy. But it seems to me that any concrete problems generated by wealth, can be rather easily solved in practice by using some of that wealth.
It's enough for a strong presumption of it being better, pending evidence to the contrary.
There is plenty of evidence that behaviour is not always rational which in my mind shifts the burden of proof.
It's very easy for a rich person to become poor: just give all you have away. It's very hard for a poor person to become rich: almost all of them try, and very few succeed.
If people found, on reflection, that being poor was better than being rich, then they would give their wealth away. We don't observe this.
Therefore I believe being rich is better, even without the benefit of personal experience.
My superficial knowledge of Seneca and the stoics doesn't allow me to debate the premise fully. It does tell me that the argument that it is better can be debated. That people prefer to be rich does not make it better.
An aside: A rich man that gives away his wealth is not equal to a person that is poor from the start or has lost his riches. The person that gives it away, keeps his connections, earns respect and, generally, is in a position re-earn a fortune.
In response to
Rationality Quotes July 2013
It is terrible to see how a single unclear idea, a single formula without meaning, lurking in a young man’s head, will sometimes act like an obstruction.
— Charles Sanders Peirce
Only with very low probability.
and the human mind loves to find patterns even when the probabilities of the pattern being a rule are low. Coincidences are correlation.
In response to
Rationality Quotes February 2013
Coincidences … are the worst enemies of the truth. (Les coïncidences … sont les pires ennemies de la vérité.)
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