So all the important issues like economic freedom and labor policy and maximizing utility and suchwhat get subordinated to whether you’re secreting more neurotransmitters in response to money loss or images of sad coal miners.
If people’s political opinions come partly from unchangeable anatomy, it makes the program of overcoming bias in politics a lot harder, and the possibility of coming up with arguments good enough to change someone else’s opinion even more remote.
But a good first step would be to follow Greene’s advice and change our moral language so that people don’t think they’re in possession of the objective moral truth on the matter, but rather realize that the source of their moral view is a chemistry reaction/crude AI hack that goes on in some squelchy part of their brain. Then they might moderate themselves a little…
That was my initial reaction as well. Sometimes the worst news is really the best news – at least we know exactly how horribly handicapped we are! [And if it turns out we were too hard on ourselves this time, that will be a pleasant surprise, too!]
But a good first step would be to follow Greene’s advice and change our moral language so that people don’t think they’re in possession of the objective moral truth on the matter, but rather realize that the source of their moral view is a chemistry reaction/crude AI hack that goes on in some squelchy part of their brain. Then they might moderate themselves a little…
That was my initial reaction as well. Sometimes the worst news is really the best news – at least we know exactly how horribly handicapped we are! [And if it turns out we were too hard on ourselves this time, that will be a pleasant surprise, too!]