Someone mentioned “mass hysteria” above. I think there are cases where, surrounded by a certain culture or context, people feel positive-tribal-emotions about going insane. If that’s true, it seems perhaps quite helpful—to some particular people, in some particular context—for a Big Tribal Leader (or a friend!) to say, “I strongly recommend not going insane! To the extent that this seems interpretable as a choice, I strongly recommend choosing the other thing!”
Interesting, are there examples of people feeling positive-tribal-emotions to “go insane” in the abstract?
I suspect in practice it looks more like social pressure to be sleep-deprived, social pressure to repeat what the Glorious Leader says without question, pressure to ignore widely held taboos, pressure to sacrifice the self, etc.
(Long-delayed response, because I’m not good at staying on top of my notifications, sorry.)
I think by “go insane”, what I meant is things like:
believe things that are harmful, counterproductive, or nonsensical, which people around you also believe / support you in believing;
do things which are harmful, counterproductive, or nonsensical, which people around you also do / support you in doing.
So, yeah, specific things and not insanity in the abstract, although not quite the same sort of specific things I think you were pointing at. In the context of Eliezer’s speech, he did give a slightly more specific interpretation:
I will not write internal scripts which say that I am supposed to / pseudo-predict that I will, do any particular stupid or dramatic thing in response to the end of the world approaching visibly nearer in any particular way.
In other words, if people around you are freaking out unproductively about the end of the world, don’t take that as social license (or mandate!) to freak out unproductively about the end of the world. I (Eliezer) here provide you with social license to instead not do that.
Someone mentioned “mass hysteria” above. I think there are cases where, surrounded by a certain culture or context, people feel positive-tribal-emotions about going insane. If that’s true, it seems perhaps quite helpful—to some particular people, in some particular context—for a Big Tribal Leader (or a friend!) to say, “I strongly recommend not going insane! To the extent that this seems interpretable as a choice, I strongly recommend choosing the other thing!”
Interesting, are there examples of people feeling positive-tribal-emotions to “go insane” in the abstract?
I suspect in practice it looks more like social pressure to be sleep-deprived, social pressure to repeat what the Glorious Leader says without question, pressure to ignore widely held taboos, pressure to sacrifice the self, etc.
(Long-delayed response, because I’m not good at staying on top of my notifications, sorry.)
I think by “go insane”, what I meant is things like:
believe things that are harmful, counterproductive, or nonsensical, which people around you also believe / support you in believing;
do things which are harmful, counterproductive, or nonsensical, which people around you also do / support you in doing.
So, yeah, specific things and not insanity in the abstract, although not quite the same sort of specific things I think you were pointing at. In the context of Eliezer’s speech, he did give a slightly more specific interpretation:
In other words, if people around you are freaking out unproductively about the end of the world, don’t take that as social license (or mandate!) to freak out unproductively about the end of the world. I (Eliezer) here provide you with social license to instead not do that.