I wonder what he would have thought was the downside of worshiping a longer list of things...
For the things mentioned, it feels like he thinks “if you worship X then the absence of X will be constantly salient to you in most moments of your life”.
It seems like he claims that worshiping some version of Goodness won’t eat you alive, but in my experiments with that, I’ve found that generic Goodness Entities are usually hungry for martyrs, and almost literally try to get would-be saints to “give their all” (in some sense “eating” them). As near as I can tell, it is an unkindness to exhort the rare sort of person who is actually self-editing and scrupulous enough to even understand or apply the injunction in that direction without combining it with an injunction that success in this direction will lead to altruistic self harm unless you make the demands of Goodness “compact” in some way.
Zvi mentions ethics explicitly so I’m pretty sure readings of this sort are “intended”. So consider (IF you’ve decided to try to worship an ethical entity) that one should eventually get ready to follow Zvi’s advice in “Out To Get You” for formalized/externalized ethics itself so you can enforce some boundaries on whatever angel you summon (and remember, demons usually claim to be angels (and in the current zeitgeist it is SO WEIRD that so many “scientific rationalists” believe in demons without believing in angels as well)).
Anyway. Compactification (which is possibly the same thing as “converting dangerous utility functions into safe formulas for satisficing”):
Get Compact when you find a rule you can follow that makes it Worth It to Get Got.
The rule must create an acceptable max loss. A well-chosen rule transforms Out to Get You for a lot into Out to Get You for a price you find Worth It. You then Get Got.
This works best using a natural point beyond which lies clear diminishing returns. If no such point exists, be suspicious.
A simple way is a budget. Spend at most $25,000 on this car, or $5,000 on this vacation package. This creates an obvious max dollar loss.
Many budgets should be $0. Example: free to play games. Either it’s worth playing for free or it isn’t. It isn’t.
The downside of budgets is often spending exactly your maximum, especially if others figure out what it is. Do your best to avoid this. Known bug.
An alternative is restriction on type. Go to a restaurant and avoid alcohol, desert and appetizers. Pay in-game only for full game unlocks and storage space.
Budgets can be set for each purchase. Hybrid approaches are good.
Many cap their charitable giving at 10%. Even those giving more reserve some amount for themselves. Same principle.
For other activities, max loss is about time. Again, you can use a (time) budget or limit your actions in a way that restricts (time) spent, or combine both.
Time limits are crude but effective. Limiting yourself to an hour of television or social media per day maxes loss at an hour. This risks making you value the activity more. Often time budgets get exactly spent same as dollar budgets. Try to let unspent time roll over into future periods, to avoid fear or ‘losing’ unspent time.
When time is the limiting factor, it is better where possible to engineer your environment and options to make the activity compact. You’ll get more out of the time you do spend and avoid feeling like you’re arbitrarily cutting yourself off.
Decide what’s worth watching. Watch that.
For Facebook, classify a handful of people See First. See their posts. No others. Look at social media only on computers. Don’t comment. Or post.
A buffet creates overeating. Filling up one plate (or one early to explore, then one to exploit) ends better.
Unlimited often requires limitation.
Outside demands follow the pattern. To make explanation and justification easier, choose good enough rules that sound natural, simple and reasonable.
Experiments need a chance, but also a known point where you can know to call it quits. Ask whether you can get a definitive negative result in reasonable time. Will I worry I did it wrong? Will others claim or assume I did it wrong or didn’t give it a fair chance?
For myself, I have so far found it much easier to worship wisdom than pure benevolence.
Noticing ways that I am a fool is kinda funny. There are a lot of them! So many that patching each such gap would be an endless exercise! The wise thing, of course, would be to prioritize which foolishnesses are most prudent to patch, at which times. A nice thing here is that wisdom basically assimilates all valid criticism as helpful, and often leads to teaching unskilled critics to criticize better, and this seems to make “living in the water” more pleasant (at least in my experience so far).
I wonder what he would have thought was the downside of worshiping a longer list of things...
For the things mentioned, it feels like he thinks “if you worship X then the absence of X will be constantly salient to you in most moments of your life”.
It seems like he claims that worshiping some version of Goodness won’t eat you alive, but in my experiments with that, I’ve found that generic Goodness Entities are usually hungry for martyrs, and almost literally try to get would-be saints to “give their all” (in some sense “eating” them). As near as I can tell, it is an unkindness to exhort the rare sort of person who is actually self-editing and scrupulous enough to even understand or apply the injunction in that direction without combining it with an injunction that success in this direction will lead to altruistic self harm unless you make the demands of Goodness “compact” in some way.
Zvi mentions ethics explicitly so I’m pretty sure readings of this sort are “intended”. So consider (IF you’ve decided to try to worship an ethical entity) that one should eventually get ready to follow Zvi’s advice in “Out To Get You” for formalized/externalized ethics itself so you can enforce some boundaries on whatever angel you summon (and remember, demons usually claim to be angels (and in the current zeitgeist it is SO WEIRD that so many “scientific rationalists” believe in demons without believing in angels as well)).
Anyway. Compactification (which is possibly the same thing as “converting dangerous utility functions into safe formulas for satisficing”):
For myself, I have so far found it much easier to worship wisdom than pure benevolence.
Noticing ways that I am a fool is kinda funny. There are a lot of them! So many that patching each such gap would be an endless exercise! The wise thing, of course, would be to prioritize which foolishnesses are most prudent to patch, at which times. A nice thing here is that wisdom basically assimilates all valid criticism as helpful, and often leads to teaching unskilled critics to criticize better, and this seems to make “living in the water” more pleasant (at least in my experience so far).