Realistically, most people don’t construct their life stories with themselves as the villains. Everyone is the hero of their own story. The Enemy’s story, as seen by the Enemy, is not going to make the Enemy look bad. If you try to construe motivations that would make the Enemy look bad, you’ll end up flat wrong about what actually goes on in the Enemy’s mind.
Well only at the uppermost level. i.e. most evil people are unaware that they are evil. They misconstrue their own motivations. So if you construe motivations which make the Enemy look bad, there’s actually a good chance that you are correct. Of course there is also a good chance you are a hypocrite, i.e. you are misconstruing your own motivations too.
Nah, some of us are entirely well aware of the fact that we’re just plain evil. It’s just that, at a certain point, you look at the things that the vast supermajority of the human race consider Good and Virtuous, like noble kings who pull swords from stones, hard labor on farms, and their local army. Then you look at the things the vast supermajority of the human race consider Evil and Scummy, like democratically-elected officials, premarital sex, video games, and peace activists.
And then, you realize that judging by the set of things you found appealing, you must be Evil, and you might as well embrace it.
If you write some very reasonable liberal enlightened essay about how maybe there’s some reason to believe some women are such-and-such but we must not jump to conclusions, people will call you a sexist, you’ll have to argue that you’re not a sexist, and your opponents have spent their entire lives accusing people of sexism and are better at this argument than you are and will win (or at least reduce your entire output to defending yourself). If you’re Heartiste, and people call you sexist, you can just raise an eyebrow, say “Well, yeah”, and watch people whose only master-level argumentative gambit is accusing people of sexism have no idea what to do.
While this is indeed exactly what happens when people call me a “communist” or “socialist”, I’m not really sure what the relation is. I was mostly just expressing my near-total cynicism regarding people’s ability to recognize that they don’t live in storybooks.
EDIT: As well as expressing the observation that despite my expressed moral alignment agreeing, if somewhat roughly, with what is commonly found on LessWrong, we are a tiny clique among billions. The expected-value human, chosen at random from throughout the world, thinks and feels in a way that we would deem bizarrely and almost inexplicably hostile. Whatever anyone thinks of my politics aside, much/most of the planet still operates mostly on “survive ethics”, in which thinking is expensive and aesthetics suicidal, and would be both shocked and appalled to find out about how we live as people well-off enough to implement even a little “thrive ethics”.
Hell, just yesterday I had to suffer through a “debate” with a man who believes that by persecuting gay people and marrying exclusively within our religion, we can cause God to send the Messiah, who will proceed to… harshly enforce religious law, including death penalties, which are then multiplied as spiritual punishments in the afterlife. This is what many/most people actually believe.
The expected-value human, chosen at random from throughout the world, thinks and feels in a way that we would deem bizarrely and almost inexplicably hostile.
I don’t think so. I’ve been to many places in the world, observed people there and talked to some of them. They did not strike me as “bizarrely and almost inexplicably hostile”.
thinking is expensive and aesthetics suicidal
Nope. I don’ think this is true at all.
This is what many/most people actually believe.
Didn’t you mean to say “This is what many/most Orthodox (and, generally, non-Reform) Jews actually believe”? There is a wee bit of a difference here… :-)
I don’t think so. I’ve been to many places in the world, observed people there and talked to some of them. They did not strike me as “bizarrely and almost inexplicably hostile”.
I will admit to a certain cynicism in my worldview. I do, however, wish to note that half the species lives in either China, India, or Africa. Of these, China is generally considered fairly safe and orderly. India and Africa are getting more safe and orderly over time. South America is a step up from India and Africa in some countries and a step down in some few remaining regions. North America and Europe are generally some of the safest, most orderly places on Earth. Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, as I understand them, are often orderly but sometimes unsafe.
The Middle East, where I live, is generally considered the planet’s dumping ground for pointless, vicious hatred.
Anyway...
Didn’t you mean to say “This is what many/most Orthodox (and, generally, non-Reform) Jews actually believe”? There is a wee bit of a difference here… :-)
Not even. I’ve met ultra-Orthodox Jews who use their mysticism and woo to justify a very warm and outgoing outlook on the world, and to whom punishment fantasies are regarded as poison for authentic religion. There’s a very religious Muslim who works in the same building as me, actually, and we always say hi in the hall. To him, Allah (whom I usually regard as an utter totalitarian) gives the imperative to treat life seriously, consider things, and be ethical. In general, this guy acts like a kinder, more mature person than many of the secular people I see every day.
This isn’t to say I agree with either of these two religious views either, just that what we’re dealing with is a general psychological outlook rather than a uniform ideology confined to a single specific clade. “Religious/ideological people are violent and nasty, but most people aren’t like that” is an easy way for atheists, agnostics, and moderates of all stripes to congratulate themselves, but I don’t think it’s actually true.
Now that I come to reevaluating my expressed view, I no longer think my original cynicism is even mostly correct, either. However, it took a relatively large step of new, original thinking for me to come up with a theory as to why, and it also required a major evaluation of my sampling set (ie: the set of people I’ve met as opposed to the set of people who exist).
So anyway, I should probably go exercise, maybe refrain from writing down my Deep Insight so I never get ridiculed for taking so long to figure out what other people just knew the whole time. You get an upvote for challenging my narrow-minded cynicism and making me reevaluate.
Basically, yes. I am what the supermajority of the world considers Evil: a damn dirty democratic socialist who wants people to stop obsessing over stupid bullshit and have fun together.
The mere fact that this sounds pretty ok when I say it outright just means I have creepy mind-control powers.
Well only at the uppermost level. i.e. most evil people are unaware that they are evil. They misconstrue their own motivations. So if you construe motivations which make the Enemy look bad, there’s actually a good chance that you are correct. Of course there is also a good chance you are a hypocrite, i.e. you are misconstruing your own motivations too.
Nah, some of us are entirely well aware of the fact that we’re just plain evil. It’s just that, at a certain point, you look at the things that the vast supermajority of the human race consider Good and Virtuous, like noble kings who pull swords from stones, hard labor on farms, and their local army. Then you look at the things the vast supermajority of the human race consider Evil and Scummy, like democratically-elected officials, premarital sex, video games, and peace activists.
And then, you realize that judging by the set of things you found appealing, you must be Evil, and you might as well embrace it.
LOL. Supporting evidence, quoting Yvain’s post:
While this is indeed exactly what happens when people call me a “communist” or “socialist”, I’m not really sure what the relation is. I was mostly just expressing my near-total cynicism regarding people’s ability to recognize that they don’t live in storybooks.
EDIT: As well as expressing the observation that despite my expressed moral alignment agreeing, if somewhat roughly, with what is commonly found on LessWrong, we are a tiny clique among billions. The expected-value human, chosen at random from throughout the world, thinks and feels in a way that we would deem bizarrely and almost inexplicably hostile. Whatever anyone thinks of my politics aside, much/most of the planet still operates mostly on “survive ethics”, in which thinking is expensive and aesthetics suicidal, and would be both shocked and appalled to find out about how we live as people well-off enough to implement even a little “thrive ethics”.
Hell, just yesterday I had to suffer through a “debate” with a man who believes that by persecuting gay people and marrying exclusively within our religion, we can cause God to send the Messiah, who will proceed to… harshly enforce religious law, including death penalties, which are then multiplied as spiritual punishments in the afterlife. This is what many/most people actually believe.
I don’t think so. I’ve been to many places in the world, observed people there and talked to some of them. They did not strike me as “bizarrely and almost inexplicably hostile”.
Nope. I don’ think this is true at all.
Didn’t you mean to say “This is what many/most Orthodox (and, generally, non-Reform) Jews actually believe”? There is a wee bit of a difference here… :-)
I will admit to a certain cynicism in my worldview. I do, however, wish to note that half the species lives in either China, India, or Africa. Of these, China is generally considered fairly safe and orderly. India and Africa are getting more safe and orderly over time. South America is a step up from India and Africa in some countries and a step down in some few remaining regions. North America and Europe are generally some of the safest, most orderly places on Earth. Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, as I understand them, are often orderly but sometimes unsafe.
The Middle East, where I live, is generally considered the planet’s dumping ground for pointless, vicious hatred.
Anyway...
Not even. I’ve met ultra-Orthodox Jews who use their mysticism and woo to justify a very warm and outgoing outlook on the world, and to whom punishment fantasies are regarded as poison for authentic religion. There’s a very religious Muslim who works in the same building as me, actually, and we always say hi in the hall. To him, Allah (whom I usually regard as an utter totalitarian) gives the imperative to treat life seriously, consider things, and be ethical. In general, this guy acts like a kinder, more mature person than many of the secular people I see every day.
This isn’t to say I agree with either of these two religious views either, just that what we’re dealing with is a general psychological outlook rather than a uniform ideology confined to a single specific clade. “Religious/ideological people are violent and nasty, but most people aren’t like that” is an easy way for atheists, agnostics, and moderates of all stripes to congratulate themselves, but I don’t think it’s actually true.
Now that I come to reevaluating my expressed view, I no longer think my original cynicism is even mostly correct, either. However, it took a relatively large step of new, original thinking for me to come up with a theory as to why, and it also required a major evaluation of my sampling set (ie: the set of people I’ve met as opposed to the set of people who exist).
So anyway, I should probably go exercise, maybe refrain from writing down my Deep Insight so I never get ridiculed for taking so long to figure out what other people just knew the whole time. You get an upvote for challenging my narrow-minded cynicism and making me reevaluate.
I’m confused. By “evil” do you mean “what the supermajority of the world considers Evil”?
Basically, yes. I am what the supermajority of the world considers Evil: a damn dirty democratic socialist who wants people to stop obsessing over stupid bullshit and have fun together.
The mere fact that this sounds pretty ok when I say it outright just means I have creepy mind-control powers.
But you don’t actually think you’re evil. You think you’re good, you just recognize that people think you’re evil.
No, I think the terminology is democratically determined.