What prediction about the world can you make from these beliefs? What would be less - or more - surprising to you than to those with typical beliefs here?

I'm afraid you are making a very strong statement with hardly any evidence to support it. You merely claim that people who pursue gratitude-free goals are often religious people (source?) and that such goals are a myth and absurd. (Why?) I for one, don't understand why such a goal would be necessarily absurd..

Also, I can imagine that even if I was the only person in the world, I would still pursue some goals.

I made my example extreme to make it easy for you to confirm or refute. But given your refutation, I honestly have no idea what you mean when you suggest that the only proper definition of truth is what convinces the most people in the long run. It sure sounds like you're saying that the truth about a system is a function of people's beliefs about that system rather than a function of the system itself.

I would even argue that the only proper definition of truth is: what convinces most people in the long run.

Just to clarify: consider two competing theories T1 and T2 about what will happen to the Earth's surface after all people have died. You would argue that if T1 is extremely popular prior among living people prior to that time, and T2 is unpopular, then that's all we need to know to conclude that T1 is more true than T2. Further, if all other competing theories are even less popular than T2, then you would argue further that T1 is true and all other competing theories false. What actually happens to the Earth's surface is completely irrelevant to the truth of T1.

Have I understood you?

I think that defocussing a bit and taking the outside view for a second might be clarifying, so let's not talk about what it is exactly that people do.

Kaj Sotala says that he has identified something which constitutes a major problem source, with exemplary problems a) - f), all very real problems like failing charities and people being unable to work from home. Then you come, and say "there is no problem here," that everything boils down to us just using the wrong definition of motivation (or something). But what's with the charities that can't find anyone to do their mucky jobs? What's with the people who could offer great service and/or reduce their working hours by working from home, if only they could get themselves to do it? Where does your argument solve these problems?

The reason I reacted to your post was not that I saw the exact flaw in your argument. The reason I answered is that I saw that your argument doesn't solve the problem at hand; in fact, it fails to even recognize it in the first place.

I think that you are probably overvaluing criticism. If so, you can increase the usefulness of your thoughts significantly if you stop yourself from paying much attention to flaws and try to identify the heart of the material first, and only apply criticism afterwards, and even then only if it's worth it.

I deny that having a goal as a "strategic feature" is incompatible with being sincerly and deeply motivated. That's my point.

Then you don't talk about the same thing as Kaj Sotala. He talks about all the cases where it seems to you that you are deeply motivated, but the goal turns out to be, or gets turned into nothing beyond strategic self-deception. Your point may be valid, but it is about something else than what his post is about.

Therefore social gratitude is an essential component of any goal and thus it is not correlated with lack of sincere motivation

That doesn't follow. Degree of sincerity and degree of social gratitute may well be correlated. The fact that motivations are seldom pure doesn't change that. It just makes the relationship more grey.

I deny that having a goal as a "strategic feature" is incompatible with being sincerly and deeply motivated. That's my point.

Then you don't talk about the same thing as Kaj Sotala. He talks about all the cases where it seems to you that you are deeply motivated, but the goal turns out to be, or gets turned into nothing beyond strategic self-deception. Your point may be valid, but it is about something else than what his post is about.

This is either a very obvious rationalization, or you don't understand Kaj Sotalas point, or both.

The problem Kaj Sotala described is that people have lots of goals, and important ones too, simply as a strategic feature, and they are not deeply motivated to do something about them. This means that most of us who came together here because we think the world could really be better will with all likelihood not achieve much because we're not deeply motivated to do something about the big problems. Do you really think there's no problem at hand? Then that would mean you don't really care about the big problems.

This is either a very obvious rationalization, or you don't understand Kaj Sotalas point, or both.

The problem Kaj Sotala described is that people have lots of goals, and important ones too, simply as a strategic feature, and they are not deeply motivated to do something about them. This means that most of us who came together here because we think the world could really be better will with all likelihood not achieve much because we're not deeply motivated to do something about the big problems. Do you really think there's no problem at hand? Then that would mean you don't really care about the big problems.