Curated. For at least the last year or two, I’ve noticed myself often assessing an idea to be “memetically fit”, I think typically to remind myself or others that its popularity is not necessarily good evidence for its correctness. Something feels important here, though I’m confused about how to go about this kind of thinking. I feel some heuristic of “engage with arguments at the object level”, but also, I don’t know.
The post talks about reducing dissonance within the predictive world model. It seems though dissonance is not between predictions, but between a prediction and a desire. “Being the hero of the story” and “on the right side of history” are things one wants to be true. Something something descriptive vs normative.
For myself, I wonder whether having very high p(doom) is the comfortable belief. It has a number of advantages (1) further updates towards bad outcomes don’t hurt that much because things are already really bad / overdetermined, (2) while it’s still good for me to try, in a sense I’m fighting for virtue/dignity and it’s not like my failure to be good enough is the difference between the cosmos succeed and failing, and that’s kind of a relief. I’m not sure.
I wonder how much of the value here is retained if cut the focus on memetics and just analyze through lens of motivated cognition. Not all of it, but seemingly some.
Curated. For at least the last year or two, I’ve noticed myself often assessing an idea to be “memetically fit”, I think typically to remind myself or others that its popularity is not necessarily good evidence for its correctness. Something feels important here, though I’m confused about how to go about this kind of thinking. I feel some heuristic of “engage with arguments at the object level”, but also, I don’t know.
The post talks about reducing dissonance within the predictive world model. It seems though dissonance is not between predictions, but between a prediction and a desire. “Being the hero of the story” and “on the right side of history” are things one wants to be true. Something something descriptive vs normative.
For myself, I wonder whether having very high p(doom) is the comfortable belief. It has a number of advantages (1) further updates towards bad outcomes don’t hurt that much because things are already really bad / overdetermined, (2) while it’s still good for me to try, in a sense I’m fighting for virtue/dignity and it’s not like my failure to be good enough is the difference between the cosmos succeed and failing, and that’s kind of a relief. I’m not sure.
I wonder how much of the value here is retained if cut the focus on memetics and just analyze through lens of motivated cognition. Not all of it, but seemingly some.