I can’t tell if it’s still necessary, but I wanted to try anyway. Here’s my ITT for your position. This story isn’t literally what I think you think, but I believe it’s an accurate analogy.
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You have recently done something new, like tried LSD, or gotten really addicted to the high of exercise, or just moved to a new place and been genuinley happy and excited every minute for a whole week.
And you learned something—you didn’t know life could feel this good. It’s a genuine insight and feels important to you, and does change how you will make life plans forevermore.
You talk to me. I talk about the importance of figuring out what really matters in life; I’ve just spent many weeks reading textbooks on the subject and philosophical treatise on experience. And now you’re stuck trying to communicate to me the realisation that life can be really good—you think it’s causing me to make mistakes regarding all sorts of things I discuss, from population ethics to the moral value of sleep.
You know that you don’t know everything there is to know about the good life, but you’re pretty sure that whatever other weird realisations are out there, I’m sure not gonna find them doing what I’m doing right now.
I’m basically happy with this analogy as far as it goes, although it doesn’t capture the part where part of the reason it’s hard for me to communicate the thing is cultural blindspots; the dystopia analogy captures this really well and that’s why I like it so much.
I can’t tell if it’s still necessary, but I wanted to try anyway. Here’s my ITT for your position. This story isn’t literally what I think you think, but I believe it’s an accurate analogy.
---
You have recently done something new, like tried LSD, or gotten really addicted to the high of exercise, or just moved to a new place and been genuinley happy and excited every minute for a whole week.
And you learned something—you didn’t know life could feel this good. It’s a genuine insight and feels important to you, and does change how you will make life plans forevermore.
You talk to me. I talk about the importance of figuring out what really matters in life; I’ve just spent many weeks reading textbooks on the subject and philosophical treatise on experience. And now you’re stuck trying to communicate to me the realisation that life can be really good—you think it’s causing me to make mistakes regarding all sorts of things I discuss, from population ethics to the moral value of sleep.
You know that you don’t know everything there is to know about the good life, but you’re pretty sure that whatever other weird realisations are out there, I’m sure not gonna find them doing what I’m doing right now.
I’m basically happy with this analogy as far as it goes, although it doesn’t capture the part where part of the reason it’s hard for me to communicate the thing is cultural blindspots; the dystopia analogy captures this really well and that’s why I like it so much.