See if there’s anyone who successfully implemented a rigorously prioritized system for reading and then deliberately quit because it wasn’t as much fun.
I can tell you with near certainty without doing any (more) experiments that learning new things is one of my main sources of pleasure, and I can say with less certainty but with high confidence (given Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards and other arguments) that spending too much time treating (or even considering) my learning as a means to some other end will significantly reduce my ability to take pleasure in learning and consequently will be counterproductive.
If Patri or anyone else can become more efficient in his learning without significantly reducing his enjoyment of learning, that of course is good and fine. This article however is evidence that Patri wants to go or has gone beyond that. Or so it starts to seem to me.
I am starting to believe that Patri is motivated by status and worldly accomplishment much more than by learning or curiosity, and if Patri is indeed (as this article suggests) forgoing opportunities to take pleasure in learning for the sake of optimizing his increases in status or accomplishment, well, then even though Patri certainly is a fine and commendable young man, that is a mistake (more likely than not, IMHO) since there are some troublesome aspects to the natural human capacity to take pleasure in increases in status (aspects not shared by human curiosity), and making curiosity subservient to the former will tend to strengthen the former at the expense of the latter.
If there is interest, I will expand on these troublesome aspects.
I am starting to believe that Patri is motivated by status and worldly accomplishment much more than by learning or curiosity, and if Patri is indeed (as this article suggests) forgoing opportunities to take pleasure in learning for the sake of optimizing his increases in status or accomplishment, well, then even though Patri certainly is a fine and commendable young man, that is a mistake
Yes, I am indeed attempting to choose my reading based on how it supports my consciously chosen goals, rather than simply the vague non-goal of “learning” or short-term hedonic utility (“pleasure”). There is a name for this—it’s called “instrumental rationality”, and I’m rather surprised to find an LW commenter calling it a mistake! I thought I could count on it as a shared assumption.
Now, the question of what I’m motivated by & whether that’s good is totally separate. I frankly admit that one of my goals is to climb the status ladder, and I can understand why some people might not see that as desirable. On the other hand, I’m again surprised to find “worldly accomplishment” characterized negatively—isn’t accomplishing things in the world the point of...everything?
Curiosity is fun for kids, but the world ain’t gonna save itself.
I think his point is that a lot of delusions are high status these days (and probably in any generation, though the high status delusions change from generation to generation), so prioritizing the pursuit of status over knowledge puts you at risk of becoming deluded.
I’m interpreting this:
there are some troublesome aspects to the natural human capacity to take pleasure in increases in status (aspects not shared by human curiosity), and making curiosity subservient to the former will tend to strengthen the former at the expense of the latter.
Since he’s reading Less Wrong, he probably is familiar with Robin Hanson, and Robin Hanson frequently writes about high status delusions.
See if there’s anyone who successfully implemented a rigorously prioritized system for reading and then deliberately quit because it wasn’t as much fun.
I can tell you with near certainty without doing any (more) experiments that learning new things is one of my main sources of pleasure, and I can say with less certainty but with high confidence (given Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards and other arguments) that spending too much time treating (or even considering) my learning as a means to some other end will significantly reduce my ability to take pleasure in learning and consequently will be counterproductive.
If Patri or anyone else can become more efficient in his learning without significantly reducing his enjoyment of learning, that of course is good and fine. This article however is evidence that Patri wants to go or has gone beyond that. Or so it starts to seem to me.
I am starting to believe that Patri is motivated by status and worldly accomplishment much more than by learning or curiosity, and if Patri is indeed (as this article suggests) forgoing opportunities to take pleasure in learning for the sake of optimizing his increases in status or accomplishment, well, then even though Patri certainly is a fine and commendable young man, that is a mistake (more likely than not, IMHO) since there are some troublesome aspects to the natural human capacity to take pleasure in increases in status (aspects not shared by human curiosity), and making curiosity subservient to the former will tend to strengthen the former at the expense of the latter.
If there is interest, I will expand on these troublesome aspects.
Yes, I am indeed attempting to choose my reading based on how it supports my consciously chosen goals, rather than simply the vague non-goal of “learning” or short-term hedonic utility (“pleasure”). There is a name for this—it’s called “instrumental rationality”, and I’m rather surprised to find an LW commenter calling it a mistake! I thought I could count on it as a shared assumption.
Now, the question of what I’m motivated by & whether that’s good is totally separate. I frankly admit that one of my goals is to climb the status ladder, and I can understand why some people might not see that as desirable. On the other hand, I’m again surprised to find “worldly accomplishment” characterized negatively—isn’t accomplishing things in the world the point of...everything?
Curiosity is fun for kids, but the world ain’t gonna save itself.
I think his point is that a lot of delusions are high status these days (and probably in any generation, though the high status delusions change from generation to generation), so prioritizing the pursuit of status over knowledge puts you at risk of becoming deluded.
I’m interpreting this:
Since he’s reading Less Wrong, he probably is familiar with Robin Hanson, and Robin Hanson frequently writes about high status delusions.