Mr Yudkowski—stop being so bloody soft hearted! :)
[This is somewhat of a follow-up to my comment on “Whining-Based Communities, in which you discuss Ayn Rand, and I justified her use of the terms Moochers and Looters. I now wish I’d read these two articles in chronological order but, you know, circumstance]
This is precisely why Rand was so vitriolic to the ‘Moochers and Looters,’ the Excuse Makers. When you start to worry about their extenuating circumstances, when you feel guilty and cover up for their deficiencies, all that’s happening is that you’re enabling them as they try and steal some of your mental energy. Sure, the self-proclaimed Objectivists might have delusions about how they’re special, and society is trying to tear them down, but that doesn’t change the fact that along with success comes a gaggle of people who’ll attack you indirectly by listing all the reasons that they’ll never be as successful as you, and that you ought to feel bad for being better than them.
If it’s okay for you to Win, then it’s not your fault if they Lose. Pity isn’t a noble emotion in and of itself; any more than contempt is inherently ignoble. Both can be either, it all depends on where they’re used.
Everybody here shares the goal of building an improved reality, with less fickleness and more justice, but for the time being we’re living in a cold and indifferent Universe. Pretending otherwise, making excuses, just exacerbates the problem.
Like Aesop said, “Pity is wasted on the evil,” (because the evil are not game theorists).
Mr Yudkowski—stop being so bloody soft hearted! :)
[This is somewhat of a follow-up to my comment on “Whining-Based Communities, in which you discuss Ayn Rand, and I justified her use of the terms Moochers and Looters. I now wish I’d read these two articles in chronological order but, you know, circumstance]
This is precisely why Rand was so vitriolic to the ‘Moochers and Looters,’ the Excuse Makers. When you start to worry about their extenuating circumstances, when you feel guilty and cover up for their deficiencies, all that’s happening is that you’re enabling them as they try and steal some of your mental energy. Sure, the self-proclaimed Objectivists might have delusions about how they’re special, and society is trying to tear them down, but that doesn’t change the fact that along with success comes a gaggle of people who’ll attack you indirectly by listing all the reasons that they’ll never be as successful as you, and that you ought to feel bad for being better than them.
If it’s okay for you to Win, then it’s not your fault if they Lose. Pity isn’t a noble emotion in and of itself; any more than contempt is inherently ignoble. Both can be either, it all depends on where they’re used.
Everybody here shares the goal of building an improved reality, with less fickleness and more justice, but for the time being we’re living in a cold and indifferent Universe. Pretending otherwise, making excuses, just exacerbates the problem.
Like Aesop said, “Pity is wasted on the evil,” (because the evil are not game theorists).