It's not like we're all forced to interact with exactly one social circle.

Why the bizarre absolute? People don't have perfect freedom choosing whom to interact with, and to the extent that they don't, Roko's thesis holds.

I wish the concept of "tithing" included spending a tenth of one's free time trying to optimize.

Not to mention the confusion between "a life barely worth living" and "a life that has some typical number of bad experiences in it and barely any good experiences".

I worry that this kind of analysis tends to overestimate how many things have explanations in general human psychology. The main explanation for cryonics being unpopular could just be that it's associated with ideas, people, and cultural groups that for contingent historical reasons happen to be unhip. That's certainly the impression I get when I read stuff like this.

On OB you mentioned you think cognitive reflection is largely inherited; how closely does high cognitive reflection correspond to being mostly in far mode?

I don't think it's ambiguous: the post suggests rationality means maximizing utility, utility is happiness, therefore rationality means maximizing happiness.

The question then arises: is the amount of focus that Americans place on acquiring material resources (instrumentally) irrational? Three possibilities occur to me:

(A) The very activity of acquiring material resources is a terminal value for most people. People would be less happy if they focused less on acquiring material resources, not because they find having the material resources fulfilling but because they find the practice of acquiring the material resources fulfilling.

This post goes wrong in assuming maximizing utility means maximizing happiness. A terminal value isn't something that causes you happiness directly; it's something you value whether or not it causes you happiness.

A lot more readers will care about clarity than will care about geek points.

It's from p642 of the pdf you linked.