I benefit from believing people are nicer than they actually are.
I empathize with her here. I believe that it is in my advantage to act towards people the way I would act if they were nicer than they actually are. I’ll try to parse that out. Let’s say Alice is talking to Bob. Cindy, at a different time, also talks to Bob. Bob is a jerk; we assume he is not nice.
Alice honestly expects that Bob is nicer than he actually is, and accordingly she is nice to Bob.
Cindy honestly expects that Bob is exactly as nice as he actually is, and accordingly she is dismissive of Bob.
I expect that Bob will be nicer towards Alice than towards Cindy. (Warning: This is starting to feel like a belief, suggesting that it is actually a belief in belief.) My theory is that I should act like Alice. Of course, there are alternatives, like simply being to nice to people.
I hope this comment made sense to you. I know I’m pretty confused about it myself now.
I think when you parse this out you realize that there are a lot of other factors at play here, it’s not just a “belief in belief” thing.
Treating someone nicely has an influence on how they subsequently treat you and others. So it’s not so much that you’re believing someone is nice when they’re not, it’s that you’re believing that they do not have a fixed property state of “niceness”, that it is variable dependent on conditions, which you can then manipulate to promote niceness, for the benefit of yourself and others.
None of this is belief in belief. When you look closer you see that you are comparing two different things: how nice Bob has been in the past and how nice Bob will be in the present/future, dependent on what type of environment he is in, and you are thus modifying your behavior on the assumption that your contribution to the environment can make it such that Bob will be nice, or at least nicer. And there is evidence to support this assumption, so it’s not irrational to expect Bob to be(come) nice when treat him nicely accordingly.
It’s just misleading to phrase it as “I benefit from believing perople are nicer than they are,” because what you mean by the first “are” (will be) is not the same as what you mean by the second “are” (have been).
I don’t think that would mislead most people, since most people can handle context and don’t expect ordinary English phraseology to conform to logical rigour.
My point was that it’s misleading to those trying to interpet it directly into a logical statement, which is what Eliezer seemed to be trying to do. I’m sure there are lots of people who could read that sentiment and understand the meaning behind it (or at least a meaning; some people interpret it differently than others). It’s certainly possible to comprehend (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to explain it), but the meaning is nevertheless in an ambiguous form, and it did confuse at least some people.
I empathize with her here. I believe that it is in my advantage to act towards people the way I would act if they were nicer than they actually are. I’ll try to parse that out. Let’s say Alice is talking to Bob. Cindy, at a different time, also talks to Bob. Bob is a jerk; we assume he is not nice.
Alice honestly expects that Bob is nicer than he actually is, and accordingly she is nice to Bob.
Cindy honestly expects that Bob is exactly as nice as he actually is, and accordingly she is dismissive of Bob.
I expect that Bob will be nicer towards Alice than towards Cindy. (Warning: This is starting to feel like a belief, suggesting that it is actually a belief in belief.) My theory is that I should act like Alice. Of course, there are alternatives, like simply being to nice to people.
I hope this comment made sense to you. I know I’m pretty confused about it myself now.
I think when you parse this out you realize that there are a lot of other factors at play here, it’s not just a “belief in belief” thing.
Treating someone nicely has an influence on how they subsequently treat you and others. So it’s not so much that you’re believing someone is nice when they’re not, it’s that you’re believing that they do not have a fixed property state of “niceness”, that it is variable dependent on conditions, which you can then manipulate to promote niceness, for the benefit of yourself and others.
None of this is belief in belief. When you look closer you see that you are comparing two different things: how nice Bob has been in the past and how nice Bob will be in the present/future, dependent on what type of environment he is in, and you are thus modifying your behavior on the assumption that your contribution to the environment can make it such that Bob will be nice, or at least nicer. And there is evidence to support this assumption, so it’s not irrational to expect Bob to be(come) nice when treat him nicely accordingly.
It’s just misleading to phrase it as “I benefit from believing perople are nicer than they are,” because what you mean by the first “are” (will be) is not the same as what you mean by the second “are” (have been).
I don’t think that would mislead most people, since most people can handle context and don’t expect ordinary English phraseology to conform to logical rigour.
My point was that it’s misleading to those trying to interpet it directly into a logical statement, which is what Eliezer seemed to be trying to do. I’m sure there are lots of people who could read that sentiment and understand the meaning behind it (or at least a meaning; some people interpret it differently than others). It’s certainly possible to comprehend (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to explain it), but the meaning is nevertheless in an ambiguous form, and it did confuse at least some people.