moridinamael dons his Professor Quirrell’s Turban of +10 Cynicism.
There is value to be found in experiencing total, brutal betrayal by a supposed loved one.
Once you have passed through all the stages of grief, plus a few years of buffer time, you’re able to look back on the self upon whom that disaster befell and wonder at how you could have ever been so trusting.
But you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, because you—anybody, me, you, most people you know, whatever—are raised on Disney movies and romcoms, so you implicitly, by default, view people a certain way. Let’s call this view the “fragile angel” view, wherein humans are Basically Good but can become broken and insane by accident or birth.
For a long time you think “your problem” was that you should have spotted this particular “broken angel” coming and protected yourself preemptively. That you should have seen the signs—all so obvious in retrospect, right?
Wrong, usually. The deeper, lonelier truth is that the “fragile angel” view doesn’t actually pay rent, and you do much better modeling other people as vicious reptilian warminds with transiently self-aware neocortices stapled on as an afterthought.
[“Of course, you should probably compartmentalize this part of yourself in order to remain sane,” said the part of moridinamael not wearing the turban, “But it is fundamentally difficult to unlearn this lesson once you feel it in your bones once. Perhaps one requires therapy in order to do so.”]
It is a strange place for a wannabe-rational agent to be. One would never wish a disaster upon oneself which wipes out all of one’s utility/happiness, but the perspective that is gained in exchange is difficult to obtain any other way. In modern life, where you (usually) don’t actually die when your loved ones betray you in this specific way, you might actually come out ahead in the long run! Seriously! You won’t make that mistake again, and there will be p-l-enty of opportunities to make it!
“Wrong, usually. The deeper, lonelier truth is that the “fragile angel” view doesn’t actually pay rent, and you do much better modeling other people as vicious reptilian warminds with transiently self-aware neocortices stapled on as an afterthought.”
This sort of mental exercise helped me. I read The Selfish Gene and changed my models of people. The replicators are just being themselves, and it drives behavior all the way up. In this sense, even the most personal rejection isn’t really that personal. Nothing is “wrong” with anybody. We are all just moving and living and being.
It is hard for a diehard romantic to accept this. But total betrayal by a loved one is brutal indeed. It’ll make you read books you never wanted to for fear it would spoil your romantic, fragile angel worldview.
The deeper, lonelier truth is that the “fragile angel” view doesn’t actually pay rent, and you do much better modeling other people as vicious reptilian warminds with transiently self-aware neocortices stapled on as an afterthought.
This doesn’t actually seem to be true, at least economically.
Edit: The cynical Hansonian/Wattsian view is that the neocortex is there to confabulate a rationalization for what the lizard brain decided to do. We cooperate for game theoretic reasons. Then we explain them as being angelic, altruistically driven impulses. Which framing is “true?” Does it matter?
We cooperate for game theoretic reasons. Then we explain them as being angelic, altruistically driven impulses. Which framing is “true?” Does it matter?
Both? I’ve thought for a while that people are rarely wrong about their motivations, but often think of them as more general than they really are. If someone’s going to claim altruistic reasons for doing something cooperative, it’s both simpler (from the outside) and less dissonant (from the inside) if their claims correspond to an actual altruistic impulse—yet those impulses rarely extend to outgroup members.
I agree, one can hold both the conflicting views that “we’re all selfish replicators” versus “we’re all flawed altruists” like the vase-versus-face interpretation of the Rubin vase or alternate spatial interpretations of a Necker cube. They’re both metaphors, basically. Like you say, the danger of overinterpreting the altruistic interpretation is to expect too much altruistic behavior, and the danger of overinterpreting the cynical interpretation is to fail to account for actual love and kindness when you see it.
Incidentally I think HPMOR!Harry and HPMOR!Quirrell do a good job at exemplifying the contrasting arguments for either side …
Once you have passed through all the stages of grief, plus a few years of buffer time, you’re able to look back on the self upon whom that disaster befell and wonder at how you could have ever been so trusting.
How could I have been so trusting? Easy: I was young. I was idealistic. I was raised humanistically. I though I could solve any problem. And then I fell in love.
And you know what? It was right. We both profited from it. Who can say who profited more. And because we disentangled this sucessfully so far it is no overall loss. Only a comparatively small crevice at the end of a long basically upward ridge.
And indeed I learn a lot from it.
Indeed I think that the aversion I felt as a youth about this confusing love business is gone. I think our bonding circuits can be put to good use if engaged with care.
But you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, because you—anybody, me, you, most people you know, whatever—are raised on Disney movies and romcoms, so you implicitly, by default, view people a certain way. Let’s call this view the “fragile angel” view, wherein humans are Basically Good but can become broken and insane by accident or birth.
Why single out Disney movies? Lots of them have people being betrayed by someone they thought trustworthy. Generally it’s obvious to the audience who the villain is, but Disney has been playing around with their formula quite a bit recently—for example, have you seen Frozen?
moridinamael dons his Professor Quirrell’s Turban of +10 Cynicism.
There is value to be found in experiencing total, brutal betrayal by a supposed loved one.
Once you have passed through all the stages of grief, plus a few years of buffer time, you’re able to look back on the self upon whom that disaster befell and wonder at how you could have ever been so trusting.
But you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, because you—anybody, me, you, most people you know, whatever—are raised on Disney movies and romcoms, so you implicitly, by default, view people a certain way. Let’s call this view the “fragile angel” view, wherein humans are Basically Good but can become broken and insane by accident or birth.
For a long time you think “your problem” was that you should have spotted this particular “broken angel” coming and protected yourself preemptively. That you should have seen the signs—all so obvious in retrospect, right?
Wrong, usually. The deeper, lonelier truth is that the “fragile angel” view doesn’t actually pay rent, and you do much better modeling other people as vicious reptilian warminds with transiently self-aware neocortices stapled on as an afterthought.
[“Of course, you should probably compartmentalize this part of yourself in order to remain sane,” said the part of moridinamael not wearing the turban, “But it is fundamentally difficult to unlearn this lesson once you feel it in your bones once. Perhaps one requires therapy in order to do so.”]
It is a strange place for a wannabe-rational agent to be. One would never wish a disaster upon oneself which wipes out all of one’s utility/happiness, but the perspective that is gained in exchange is difficult to obtain any other way. In modern life, where you (usually) don’t actually die when your loved ones betray you in this specific way, you might actually come out ahead in the long run! Seriously! You won’t make that mistake again, and there will be p-l-enty of opportunities to make it!
This sort of mental exercise helped me. I read The Selfish Gene and changed my models of people. The replicators are just being themselves, and it drives behavior all the way up. In this sense, even the most personal rejection isn’t really that personal. Nothing is “wrong” with anybody. We are all just moving and living and being.
It is hard for a diehard romantic to accept this. But total betrayal by a loved one is brutal indeed. It’ll make you read books you never wanted to for fear it would spoil your romantic, fragile angel worldview.
This doesn’t actually seem to be true, at least economically.
Poetic license.
Edit: The cynical Hansonian/Wattsian view is that the neocortex is there to confabulate a rationalization for what the lizard brain decided to do. We cooperate for game theoretic reasons. Then we explain them as being angelic, altruistically driven impulses. Which framing is “true?” Does it matter?
Both? I’ve thought for a while that people are rarely wrong about their motivations, but often think of them as more general than they really are. If someone’s going to claim altruistic reasons for doing something cooperative, it’s both simpler (from the outside) and less dissonant (from the inside) if their claims correspond to an actual altruistic impulse—yet those impulses rarely extend to outgroup members.
I agree, one can hold both the conflicting views that “we’re all selfish replicators” versus “we’re all flawed altruists” like the vase-versus-face interpretation of the Rubin vase or alternate spatial interpretations of a Necker cube. They’re both metaphors, basically. Like you say, the danger of overinterpreting the altruistic interpretation is to expect too much altruistic behavior, and the danger of overinterpreting the cynical interpretation is to fail to account for actual love and kindness when you see it.
Incidentally I think HPMOR!Harry and HPMOR!Quirrell do a good job at exemplifying the contrasting arguments for either side …
How could I have been so trusting? Easy: I was young. I was idealistic. I was raised humanistically. I though I could solve any problem. And then I fell in love.
And you know what? It was right. We both profited from it. Who can say who profited more. And because we disentangled this sucessfully so far it is no overall loss. Only a comparatively small crevice at the end of a long basically upward ridge.
And indeed I learn a lot from it.
Indeed I think that the aversion I felt as a youth about this confusing love business is gone. I think our bonding circuits can be put to good use if engaged with care.
HPMOR!Quirrell does not wear a turban. He has a tie?
Does his head fall off if it’s removed?
Why single out Disney movies? Lots of them have people being betrayed by someone they thought trustworthy. Generally it’s obvious to the audience who the villain is, but Disney has been playing around with their formula quite a bit recently—for example, have you seen Frozen?