I notice I am confused, because this seems like a solid point… but don’t most things seem obviously the right thing when you state them simply? Like… the field of ethics is about being a good person, and nobody is for being a bad person, so surely everyone is in the field and we don’t need it as specific subset of academia? You could probably define the goal of any field such that people aren’t exactly against it, but nonetheless specialists in it are useful.
Added: I think that another framing can be taken from Paul Graham’s “General and Surprising”. Yes, everyone is on board with ‘believing true things and making good choices’, but few people can make a surprising improvement in how we do that very generally. Yet we here can give high level lessons in improving S1-S2 interactions, and give broad models that improve your ability to do this in many domains.
Yes, everyone is on board with ‘believing true things and making good choices’
Respectfully disagree. Part of the package of self-deception involves deceiving yourself into believing you haven’t deceived yourself; everyone has to claim to be on board with believing true things regardless of how many layers of self-deception they’re in fact engaging in, and so most people are incapable of giving an honest answer to the question “are you on board with believing true things?”
It was old rationalist cannon—if you can say the opposite and it doesn’t mean anything, did you say anything in the first place? I thought it was applause lights or near there but I can’t find it now.
Both “believing true things and making good choices” and “believing false things and making bad choices” constrain anticipation. For example, someone doing the former more often is more likely to do well on a math test than someone doing the latter more often. They are both meaningful. The thing that they aren’t is controversial. One feels like an obviously good idea and the other feels like an obviously bad idea. (note: I said “feels like an obviously good idea” instead of “obviously is a good idea” because of the whole sacrifice element Qiaochu_Yuan brought up.)
I notice I am confused, because this seems like a solid point… but don’t most things seem obviously the right thing when you state them simply? Like… the field of ethics is about being a good person, and nobody is for being a bad person, so surely everyone is in the field and we don’t need it as specific subset of academia? You could probably define the goal of any field such that people aren’t exactly against it, but nonetheless specialists in it are useful.
Added: I think that another framing can be taken from Paul Graham’s “General and Surprising”. Yes, everyone is on board with ‘believing true things and making good choices’, but few people can make a surprising improvement in how we do that very generally. Yet we here can give high level lessons in improving S1-S2 interactions, and give broad models that improve your ability to do this in many domains.
Respectfully disagree. Part of the package of self-deception involves deceiving yourself into believing you haven’t deceived yourself; everyone has to claim to be on board with believing true things regardless of how many layers of self-deception they’re in fact engaging in, and so most people are incapable of giving an honest answer to the question “are you on board with believing true things?”
It was old rationalist cannon—if you can say the opposite and it doesn’t mean anything, did you say anything in the first place? I thought it was applause lights or near there but I can’t find it now.
Both “believing true things and making good choices” and “believing false things and making bad choices” constrain anticipation. For example, someone doing the former more often is more likely to do well on a math test than someone doing the latter more often. They are both meaningful. The thing that they aren’t is controversial. One feels like an obviously good idea and the other feels like an obviously bad idea. (note: I said “feels like an obviously good idea” instead of “obviously is a good idea” because of the whole sacrifice element Qiaochu_Yuan brought up.)
Yes. We are saying similar things. He was clearer.