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The question "what part of your identity is of value to you?" sounds like it can rescue the original philosophical meaning of the question, I think.
In response to
Understanding Who You Really Are
It's nice that you've figured it out, but I feel that most people here aren't particularly worried or confused about the question, so the tone of the post seems somewhat baffling. The tools you apply are standard. One is formulating the meaning of a question more accurately than its initial phrasing, in order to know what the question means in terms of something you are more familiar with. Another is noting that formulation depends on context, in particular on the goal of asking the question or the use intended for an answer. Depending on the context, the useful formulation of the same question will differ.
I realize that Less Wrong people are the least likely to be confused about it, but I got the impression it still made the most sense to be posted here. I thought of it not as much as being posted 'to' Less Wrong, but 'from' it. You're right it's more for outside readers.
The tools are pretty standard. If I felt like I came up with really novel ones I would have made them into its own post.
That said, here are a few quick reasons why I thought it would be useful.
- If a reader knew of the tools but hadn't explicitly connected them to this phrase, it seemed like a very quick fix.
- It could be useful to link to for people who really do consider these phrases.
- It was very short to write and short to read, the the cost is quite low.
- My previous post on a very similar topic did much better than I expected.
- I bet that not everyone on this site is entirely familiar with these tools or understanding of the phrase.
I realize that the writing may have sounded a bit condescending. I didn't mean it this way, I just tried writing without as many 'reluctancy' words as normal.
In response to
Why "Changing the World" is a Horrible Phrase
Basically, I am in total agreement, although w.r.t.
Problem 2: ‘Changing the World’ Creates Black and White Thinking
Actually, I think human beings can't help being drawn to black and white thinking of one kind or another. Even while thinking this, an insidious something in my mind is trying to turn it into some kind of black and white thinking: There are two kinds of people in the world: people who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and people who don't.
So I suggest you have the causation backwards, and rather, the reason so many heated arguments fall into some dichotomy between two Schelling points (like "Change the World" <--> "Stop the catastrophe caused by the maniacs trying to change the world") is a tendency so central to our being that we can't ever expect to extinguish it -- we can only learn to be vigilant about it, laugh at ourselves (and others).
At bottom, I think it is something like an instinct for orienting oneself, like "my people" vs "those I'd better beware of", which to me seems right for hunter-gatherers, who are very likely to only know of two groups (or they can easily view it this way): the people I live my life with, cooperate with, who are mostly likely to defend me in some way, vs those other people who don't think, talk, or decorate their bodies in the proper way, who have neutral at best, and frequently hostile intentions towards me and my people.
Ask yourself (ozziegooen) whether it's happened to you to some extent. Was there, in the feelings that motivated you to post, an element of anticipation of the agreement of people you'd like to get to know better, and simultaneous head-shaking over all those silly people to whom "Change the world" seems meaningful? There certainly was for me while reading it.
That's a really good point.
Black-and-white thinking is something that people seem gravitated to in all regards. It's very simple.
However, I think we can understand that it is often wrong. Our tendency to put things into simple categories instead of gradients is to me one of the most important themes behind common human rationality.
I think it's still useful to point out when its done, and that was what I was trying to do here with that point. Just because it's an endemic everywhere doesn't mean it shouldn't be understood and is not a problem towards this one mentality.
Black-and-white thinking is more dangerous the more important the area of thinking is. This area (one's perceived 'purpose' in life) is quite important, so I believed that this was dangerous enough to point out and think about.
For what it may be worth, I've historically been pretty cranky about badmouthing religion, and I don't remember anything triggering my "harumph" reaction. (Edit: I went to Solstice in NY.)
This said, my current model of reality is that the atheist community in the US is marginalized to some degree, and it isn't the responsibility of a marginalized community to abide by the expectations of its marginalizers.
I think we agree a lot here, but that last sentence sounds to me like, "If someone is marginalized at all, they should feel free to act like a jerk".
I don't think any of us think that we need to completely abide by their expectations. But I think that having respect for another group and being careful to be respectful to them shouldn't be an unreasonable ask.
In response to
Why "Changing the World" is a Horrible Phrase
In all likelihood, you will not make the next billion-dollar nonprofit. You will not make the next billion-dollar business. You will not become the next congressperson in your district. This does not mean that you have not done a good job. It should not demoralize you in any way once you fail hardly to do these things.
At what point have you done a good job? On the other hand, at what point should you be demoralized? Yes, the answer depends on your personal philosophy, but how should someone who doesn't have a solid understanding of their personal philosophy think about such questions?
The purpose of this blog post was to demonstrate that the phrase change the world did not do a great job with these things. The question of what would be a good replacement or extension of it is a much more philosophical and complicated question that I wanted to leave outside of this for simplicity.
In response to
Why "Changing the World" is a Horrible Phrase
Steve Jobs is a bad example because the guy did actually change the world, repeatedly. He meant what he said, and he accomplished what he intended. (Personally, I don't use any of the Apple stuff, but what I do use is still Apple-inspired, whether it runs Windows or Android.)
Recognizing that you are no Steve Jobs is a part of assessing the limits of your own skills and abilities for most people, with the subsequent switch from "changing the world" to "making a difference", if you are so inclined.
Just curious, what are your thresholds for what qualifies as 'changing the world' and 'making a difference'. Where do these come from, and how specific do you think they are?
I know that lots of people seem to believe that the thresholds exist, but I've always found them perplexing.
Other than human immortality, do you remember specific cringeworthy quirks?
For one, I don't think that much anti-religion talk is needed at an atheist celebration. It could be about the things we are passionate in instead (like science, the representation of which I liked), but I feel uncomfortable 'dissing' religion.
I have a lot of friends who believe in religions and know of many, many smart people who were religious. Therefore I find a lot of anti-religious writing to easily edge on the offensive, especially when said in the context of a celebration. (Much of it to me sounds a lot like "Obviously smart people shouldn't be religious, anyone who is is stupid", which I feel is incorrect and arrogant). It's a sensitive topic, and hard to do well, so I would recommend just in general avoiding it.
But also, I just find it repetitive. I'm already an atheist (agnostic), I was a long time ago. That's like a really, really basic thing in my philosophical understanding. Hearing someone provide an argument for atheism is like hearing them explain addition. By this point it's kind of uninteresting. I realize that some people here apparently had really important experiences discovering atheism, but I didn't.
In response to
Why "Changing the World" is a Horrible Phrase
I've long considered the phrase to be feel-good noise; is that so atypical? It presumably has some effect, or people wouldn't use it so much, but I would be amused (and disinterested), and possibly a little concerned, if anybody tried to sell me on something because of that phrase alone.
Of course, a lot of it comes down to context. If somebody tried to sell me on a job by telling me I'd help to "change the world by producing computers than anybody can use and everyday families can afford", then that would definitely be more persuasive than either "come work for us, and change the world!" or "come work for us, making hardware and software is fun!". Even though there still isn't a real milestone defined, there's a discernible goal and it's a goal that I see value in. The fact that it's described as a "change the world" goal doesn't make it invalid, although you have to figure out for yourself how much of a change it would really be when deciding how important the goal is.
I agree the phrase isn't used in complete isolation, but A) I feel like even then we should come up with more specific phrases B) there's very rarely an analysis or philosophical understanding after it. C) It's often used with a lot of other vague terminology.
"producing computers than anybody can use and everyday families can afford" is a good example actually. That's about as specific as I hear companies talk. What I'm looking for is something more like, "We're aiming to maximize this axiomatic value system, which we believe we can do by producing computers. We believe we can get these machines to be less than $50 per person, which is expected to sell approximately 30-100 million machines for people making between 10k and 30k in the United States. The computers are expected to provide a benefit of increased income of 10-20% for people in this bracket. Given that we will use less than 50 people to do this, this comes to an expected benefit of $25 million saved per person, which is a better benefit than other competing ideas we considered"
If one is claiming they are doing good, I would like for them to have an idea of how and why they are doing it. I realize that this is difficult, but it definitely seems like a good direction to me.
In response to
Why "Changing the World" is a Horrible Phrase
80,000 Hours (your employer?) has the following as its web page title:
“How to make a difference with your career”
and writes on the front page
“If you want to make the world a better place…”
To me, those are synonyms to “changing the world,” for the purpose of career description.
My previous employer. I still have a lot of respect for them, but do not directly agree with everything they do. Also, I realize that while I would prefer that these things were understood, in a world in which they are not understood, the terminology has some marketing privileges.
80,000 Hours does go far beyond the phrase, as I mentioned in the end. They use it as marketing terminology and follow it up with a pretty specific philosophy. Most groups that use this phrase don't do that.
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I totally agree it's dangerous and worth pointing out. And humankind is is serious danger. I have no idea what the odds are; it's one of my points of agreement with N. N. Taleb that another addiction of human race is thinking we know -- thinking we can calculate the odds.
Have I made you feel defensive? If so, not at all what I intended. I've had enough of those games. If you took my post as saying "Your post is lame and pointless so I'm 1-upping you", I sincerely urge you to question that, and wonder if that was some sort of automatic reaction and if so, where it might have come from.
I was glad to see your post; it's one of the more interesting things to come up here lately -- it just reminded me of my point of view, which is related but somewhat different.
You have not made me feel particularly defensive; I just wanted to reply to that last comment. That said, I really appreciate that you considered that. I find that lots of people on this site (and others) are used to '1-upping' the rest of a long list of commenting sins, so am happy you pointed that out.