The Greek myth of Cassandra (“A common version of her story is that, in an effort to seduce her, Apollo gave her the power of prophecy—but when she refused him, he spat into her mouth to inflict a curse that nobody would ever believe her prophecies.”) shows that the ancient Greeks probably thought that people who knew the truth often had difficulty being believed, and this imposed great costs on communities. (The Greek myths can be thought of as guides as to how you are supposed to live.)
This reminds me of how I met Nate Soares. He came to a few LessWrong meetups (his first ones), and I dismissed him because he was talking about a bunch of technical things that didn’t seem very interesting to me. (I’ve was much more interested in finding flaws in my own emotional thinking then in discussing things like many worlds quantum mechanics or decision theory.)
I wrote him off as not-a-very-interesting person. Some of it was his interests, I was also a little offput by his intensity and took it as a sign of bad social skills. These days I read and re-read his blog and have gotten enormous gains from doing so, and he’s off doing wonderful things.
Very interesting myth! Fortunately Apollo only spat in her mouth and not everyone’s (ew!), so that Cassandra will believe someone who arrives at the contents of her prophecies independently. (That’s really the sort of thing I’m getting at.)
The Greek myth of Cassandra (“A common version of her story is that, in an effort to seduce her, Apollo gave her the power of prophecy—but when she refused him, he spat into her mouth to inflict a curse that nobody would ever believe her prophecies.”) shows that the ancient Greeks probably thought that people who knew the truth often had difficulty being believed, and this imposed great costs on communities. (The Greek myths can be thought of as guides as to how you are supposed to live.)
This reminds me of how I met Nate Soares. He came to a few LessWrong meetups (his first ones), and I dismissed him because he was talking about a bunch of technical things that didn’t seem very interesting to me. (I’ve was much more interested in finding flaws in my own emotional thinking then in discussing things like many worlds quantum mechanics or decision theory.)
I wrote him off as not-a-very-interesting person. Some of it was his interests, I was also a little offput by his intensity and took it as a sign of bad social skills. These days I read and re-read his blog and have gotten enormous gains from doing so, and he’s off doing wonderful things.
Very interesting myth! Fortunately Apollo only spat in her mouth and not everyone’s (ew!), so that Cassandra will believe someone who arrives at the contents of her prophecies independently. (That’s really the sort of thing I’m getting at.)