I was in a little lie-detection game in elementary school, at which I failed miserably. Among other tests, this made me think I can't detect lies. Turns out I'm wrong.
Part two is about intuition, planned for tomorrow. Don't forget I'm looking for disagreement experiment participants. Learn about ethics, learn about disagreement! Also, prove you care about ethics by spending actual effort on pinning them down.
Suggest trying it out yourself because this will spoil the data.
I welcome suggestions that I somehow didn't get it right, that I only thought I got it right, as long as you can go into details. Will return to this in part two.
I went three for three.
I was expecting to go zero.
Derren was clearly doing his subtle convincing trick, and getting them to focus on lying about the cylinders. I did two of them by actually reading the body language and such - I don't know if Brown was doing that too - and the third I'm not sure how I did it.
Number one. "Pretty much that it's an eight cylinder. [...] Fact number four, pretty much...all the types of controls...you can manoeuvre it from the steering wheel."
What's going through his head; "Oh crap, I said 'pretty much.' I do that when I lie." He then projects, and thinks Brown can certainly see that this is his tell. So he says it again, this time on purpose. It almost worked on me, certainly. It came down to whether his looking down and awkwardness was normal or not.
In hindsight I suspect his awkwardness on fact four was the result of his confidence being jarred by realizing he did a tell. Self-awareness is self-destructive for liars... He's distracted by working out how to lie better, and can't focus well on what he's saying.
For the second, as he was talking about the cylinders, I immediately started thinking, "The first lied about the cylinders -" and then Brown interrupted me with the answer. This one was probably a bit too subtle for me to have used it in a real situation, I was gearing up to overthink it. Hard to tell because of the interruption before I could decide on my answer. Very easy to fool myself into thinking I'd have gotten the right answer in cases like these, so impossible to conclude I would have even if I would in fact have.
My subconscious is thinking about lying, because it detected a lie, and so my consciousness gets directed toward thinking about lying through resonance, priming, whatever you want to call it. The detectable difference is that it was the only part of the paragraph which is associated with me thinking about lying. Now I just have to convince my subconscious to think louder, or learn to think quieter myself, so I stop drowning it out. Problem is that if I intentionally don't think at all, it shuts down all thinking, not just conscious, rational thinking. I have to think, just...quietly. (Hmm, putting that in words may have given me an idea...)
I wasn't even sure at the time about my memory of the first lying about cylinders. However, I remembered the first lying about cylinders just as the second lied about cylinders. Gee, why might I do that. Notably, I'm still not sure how my subconscious knew he was lying there - perhaps I was picking up Brown's nudges.
Come to think, the second also felt jarring. "Hey, I was thinking about #1, and Derren's talking, don't interrupt." That's probably reliable too, I'm eager to test it.
Number three, two separate ways. First, I started thinking about how I'd arrange my lies, and my first instinct was to make it the first lie, because the normal thing is to put it in the middle so it doesn't get too much attention. The justification is probably B.S., but it is also subconscious-speak and likely your subconscious speaks the same code.
Secondly, once he started thinking, on his first thought, he looked down, while on the second and third, he made eye contact. "I thought I was pretty stone faced." Amusing.
"I know everything about that car," is also a lie. He may or may not be aware it is a lie, but he could figure it out if he wanted to. Specifically, it is bravado.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Hypothesis: Agreement With Research Project: Ethics
I have a hypothesis about disagreement. To test it, I want to use the problem of objective ethics. Basically, if I can find out the reason we can't agree on an ethical framework, I may be able to fix it. By contrast, if I don't bother to look, I'm guaranteed to be unable to fix it.
My habit of thinking I'm done and later realizing I'm not will likely affect this post. In this case I plan to deal with it by updating without notice.
So, ethics. Who wants in?
Zeroth, note this is a test of how much you in fact care about ethics. How much patience do you have for attempts to solve the problem? Put up or shut up. I'm willing to keep this thread going until at least next year, with the exception of entertaining repetition.
First, procedure. Second whether it is in fact a solvable problem.
Next, the idea that it can't be solved.
We went to the moon. I can't go to the moon by myself. By contrast, solving a logical puzzle is just a matter of having enough time to invest. While unlikely, I'm not ruling out moral nihilism.
The major epistemic obstacle for the puzzle ties into a practical obstacle. To correct for random biases, it is best to do review by peers, and the practical matter is that to get more ethical behaviour, more have to follow the ethical codes which generally means agreeing to them.
As a complete tangent, has there been more ethics posts lately than usual? I'm even missing at least one, which I'll add if I remember it.
Foseti comments. Spandrell. Aretae links me to Hanson comments. A dude called Thinking Emotions.
My habit of thinking I'm done and later realizing I'm not will likely affect this post. In this case I plan to deal with it by updating without notice.
So, ethics. Who wants in?
Zeroth, note this is a test of how much you in fact care about ethics. How much patience do you have for attempts to solve the problem? Put up or shut up. I'm willing to keep this thread going until at least next year, with the exception of entertaining repetition.
First, procedure. Second whether it is in fact a solvable problem.
- Work out a spec for objective ethics
- Details:
- What are the necessary and sufficient conditions?
- Include inconsistency tests
- Purpose:
- Agree on what we're disagreeing about
- Determine the candidates for matching the spec
- Basically, lay out what you think
- Pin down the disagreements
- Including disagreements on what we should be disagreeing about
- Including disagreements on how the procedure should go, indeed this should probably come earlier, but the logical hierarchy is what it is...
- Try to fix the disagreements
- My usual habit is to examine the cause and then change the causal facts
- This is where examining assumptions comes in. As rational thought is hardly the only way to come by a belief, this is merely one example.
- Presumably, fail.
- But at least have a reasonable idea of why it failed.
- Maybe fix the fail, depending on what the causes are.
- At least, predict why it will fail and test it.
Next, the idea that it can't be solved.
We went to the moon. I can't go to the moon by myself. By contrast, solving a logical puzzle is just a matter of having enough time to invest. While unlikely, I'm not ruling out moral nihilism.
The major epistemic obstacle for the puzzle ties into a practical obstacle. To correct for random biases, it is best to do review by peers, and the practical matter is that to get more ethical behaviour, more have to follow the ethical codes which generally means agreeing to them.
As a complete tangent, has there been more ethics posts lately than usual? I'm even missing at least one, which I'll add if I remember it.
Foseti comments. Spandrell. Aretae links me to Hanson comments. A dude called Thinking Emotions.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
How Government Schools Commit Epistemic Murder in the First Degree
It says only schools are places of learning and then forces you to go, creating the association between coercion and learning. The zeroth lesson is that you'll only learn if someone forces you to. Being forced is so unpleasant than most victims of a government school will avoid learning for the rest of their lives, creating epistemically dead quote-citizens-unquote.
Necessarily, this is true of any coercive quote-learning-unquote institution.
You want a good example of a limiting belief? This is a meta-example, it is the belief that you can't fix your beliefs. It is self-enforcing and utterly defeatist.
Have you also noticed that the ad hominem/verecundiam is extremely common, and indeed it often the only thing that will work? Can I get some historical perspective on this habit?
Hey guys, I wonder where the idea to distrust scientists comes from. Does it really matter whether scientists are in fact trustworthy or not?
I'd also like to point out some reinforcing broken-window fallacy. Thestudents victims of these places see the teacher wrestling with below-average students. They don't see the teacher failing to prevent the learning of the above-average student, nor all the extracurricular learning that the more curious engage in.
Credit for this idea nexus goes to Fred, via. Mr. Reed argues that what the government is forcing children to learn isn't useful, and should be useful. I suggest that if that line of argument were worth the font it was typed with, government teachers would have long ago quit en-mass in despair, unable to weather the withering storm of criticism.
Fred almost gets to this hypothesis. "The public schools are worse than no schools for the quick. [...] To a remarkable extent, dumb-ass public schools are simply not necessary." Yes, but why?
Public schools are worse than no schools for everyone except the rulers of the victims. Who bankroll these schools. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
Necessarily, this is true of any coercive quote-learning-unquote institution.
You want a good example of a limiting belief? This is a meta-example, it is the belief that you can't fix your beliefs. It is self-enforcing and utterly defeatist.
Have you also noticed that the ad hominem/verecundiam is extremely common, and indeed it often the only thing that will work? Can I get some historical perspective on this habit?
Hey guys, I wonder where the idea to distrust scientists comes from. Does it really matter whether scientists are in fact trustworthy or not?
I'd also like to point out some reinforcing broken-window fallacy. The
Credit for this idea nexus goes to Fred, via. Mr. Reed argues that what the government is forcing children to learn isn't useful, and should be useful. I suggest that if that line of argument were worth the font it was typed with, government teachers would have long ago quit en-mass in despair, unable to weather the withering storm of criticism.
Fred almost gets to this hypothesis. "The public schools are worse than no schools for the quick. [...] To a remarkable extent, dumb-ass public schools are simply not necessary." Yes, but why?
Public schools are worse than no schools for everyone except the rulers of the victims. Who bankroll these schools. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
In Favour of Linguistic Torture, Against Conceptual Torture, Short Version
Mainly by example.
(Updates give a hint as to what longer version looks like.)
Trying a thesis statement, to see if it works better than the [b] tag. Works well with goal: balance. Fixing flow later, if pilot project works out.
Point: matching properties.
Defining philosophically, psychological egoism means that 'selfless' acts have all the properties of 'selfish' acts. They are essentially the same thing. Using different words for them is akin to using different words for your left hand as opposed to your right.
Counterpoint: lay usage and communication.
Point: clear thinking.
It's unfair and ineffective to expect the lay philosopher to use words according to their underlying concepts, and as a result if you want to call your left hand a 'harble' instead I'm happy to play along. It doesn't change the fact that a harble is essentially a hand. However, for the philosopher, calling it a harble only makes it harder to think clearly about it.
Counterpoint: selflessness may still be distinguishable from selfishness.
Point: implications of matching properties.
Selfless acts may have additional properties - I don't know, I'd have to check. Right hands additionally are 'usually dominant.' This is no way makes them not a hand. Almost anything I can demonstrate about hands automatically generalizes to harbles. (I use demonstrate very deliberately. The statement is true regardless of whether you think I can demonstrate anything.)
Point: conceptual torture itself twists language.
Calling similar things by different names is what leads to me torturing language. Calling a left hand a harble quite reasonably leads to the incorrect inference about whether harbles can be dominant. Which in turn means that if I want to discuss southpaws, I first have to deal with the impression that the definition, "Southpaws are harble-dominant," is somehow a contradiction.
I would love to simply say "politicians" but I have to use things like "Republibrats and Democan'ts" because I can't otherwise count on the automatic inference that they're basically the same, nor the reverse connection that anything I demonstrate about politicians automatically applies, without reservation, to Democan'ts and Republibrats.
Update: Relevant. (Via.)
Update 2:
Point Zero, put into words during thinking about the third point: Aretae is committing linguistic torture by attacking linguistic torture. The idea is for philosophers not to hot-swap a new concept into a layhuman's word. However, what he objects to in practice is taking the layhuman's concept and working out what it in fact implies. (On request, I can point to specific examples of me doing this, if the coercion example below isn't clear enough.)
A word cannot both imply and not-imply a thing. To follow Aretae's model, the layhuman's meaning has to be changed to mean something else.
'Linguistic torture' is self-contradictory.
Counterpoint: there is a sophist technique very close to what Aretae points to. There's an instantly fatal counter-technique, such as described as word taboo by Yudkowsky.
First point: from my perspective, everyone engages in linguistic torture. It is impossible for you not to. I'm capable of working out what you mean, I do it all the time; the only question is whether you're capable of working out what I mean.
In math, let "X" be whatever. In philosophy, the same variable-reading skill is necessary, because the same variable-setting is necessary.
Second point, wrapping back to first:
I could use a different word for Jim than coercion.
For the sake of the example, I'll use, "moral violence is physical violence (even mild) except that necessary to prevent
First problem; explaining the definition of the thing. First problem is assuming he would even listen. Second problem, he'd likely go, "Oh, you mean coercion," and then import the extensions I was specifically trying to exclude. Third problem, assuming I managed to fix 1 and 2, is understanding what the definitions implies, which I have literally never managed to successfully transmit. Fourth problem, the argument is likely to devolve into arguing about what the definition should be; in the past this has been because the various options import various extensions, and it becomes a proxy argument about the extensions; utterly exasperating and dumbfounding, as the parties agree on which extensions are which and thus must understand what the definitions imply.
Or, you can solve all this by noting that good philosophy does not import extensions. The harder the problem, the more important it is to put all the necessary extensions into the formal intension.
Third point:
E.g. Coercion in fact means what I want it to mean.
"In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime" By contrast, redressing that crime cannot be coercion; following the law can't be a crime. "Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim", no victim, no coercion. Don't make me /wiki 'victim' to show that locked up felons are not defined as victims. Finally, "Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner [...] or some other form of pressure or force.", and if you follow the logic through, the intension of 'coercion' covers literally all immoral acts, and does not cover any non-immoral act. Immorality and coercion are exact synonyms; Aretae would of course disagree, but that means he thinks Wikipedia's description is simply wrong. Which in turn means he's trying to linguistically torture coercion (for example) into something other than what most Wikipedia editors think it is.
Jim's using, "Coercion is any intentional act which causes an otherwise involuntary response in another." As above, I have no problems with him using harble, and I play along. My issue is that he gets to use harble but apparently I'm held to a higher standard. Hey kids, what does it imply about me to hold me to a higher standard? Which of these implications would be opposed by the people trying to hold me to these standards?
(Updates give a hint as to what longer version looks like.)
Trying a thesis statement, to see if it works better than the [b] tag. Works well with goal: balance. Fixing flow later, if pilot project works out.
Point: matching properties.
Defining philosophically, psychological egoism means that 'selfless' acts have all the properties of 'selfish' acts. They are essentially the same thing. Using different words for them is akin to using different words for your left hand as opposed to your right.
Counterpoint: lay usage and communication.
Point: clear thinking.
It's unfair and ineffective to expect the lay philosopher to use words according to their underlying concepts, and as a result if you want to call your left hand a 'harble' instead I'm happy to play along. It doesn't change the fact that a harble is essentially a hand. However, for the philosopher, calling it a harble only makes it harder to think clearly about it.
Counterpoint: selflessness may still be distinguishable from selfishness.
Point: implications of matching properties.
Selfless acts may have additional properties - I don't know, I'd have to check. Right hands additionally are 'usually dominant.' This is no way makes them not a hand. Almost anything I can demonstrate about hands automatically generalizes to harbles. (I use demonstrate very deliberately. The statement is true regardless of whether you think I can demonstrate anything.)
Point: conceptual torture itself twists language.
Calling similar things by different names is what leads to me torturing language. Calling a left hand a harble quite reasonably leads to the incorrect inference about whether harbles can be dominant. Which in turn means that if I want to discuss southpaws, I first have to deal with the impression that the definition, "Southpaws are harble-dominant," is somehow a contradiction.
I would love to simply say "politicians" but I have to use things like "Republibrats and Democan'ts" because I can't otherwise count on the automatic inference that they're basically the same, nor the reverse connection that anything I demonstrate about politicians automatically applies, without reservation, to Democan'ts and Republibrats.
Update: Relevant. (Via.)
Update 2:
Point Zero, put into words during thinking about the third point: Aretae is committing linguistic torture by attacking linguistic torture. The idea is for philosophers not to hot-swap a new concept into a layhuman's word. However, what he objects to in practice is taking the layhuman's concept and working out what it in fact implies. (On request, I can point to specific examples of me doing this, if the coercion example below isn't clear enough.)
A word cannot both imply and not-imply a thing. To follow Aretae's model, the layhuman's meaning has to be changed to mean something else.
'Linguistic torture' is self-contradictory.
Counterpoint: there is a sophist technique very close to what Aretae points to. There's an instantly fatal counter-technique, such as described as word taboo by Yudkowsky.
First point: from my perspective, everyone engages in linguistic torture. It is impossible for you not to. I'm capable of working out what you mean, I do it all the time; the only question is whether you're capable of working out what I mean.
In math, let "X" be whatever. In philosophy, the same variable-reading skill is necessary, because the same variable-setting is necessary.
Second point, wrapping back to first:
I could use a different word for Jim than coercion.
For the sake of the example, I'll use, "moral violence is physical violence (even mild) except that necessary to prevent
First problem; explaining the definition of the thing. First problem is assuming he would even listen. Second problem, he'd likely go, "Oh, you mean coercion," and then import the extensions I was specifically trying to exclude. Third problem, assuming I managed to fix 1 and 2, is understanding what the definitions implies, which I have literally never managed to successfully transmit. Fourth problem, the argument is likely to devolve into arguing about what the definition should be; in the past this has been because the various options import various extensions, and it becomes a proxy argument about the extensions; utterly exasperating and dumbfounding, as the parties agree on which extensions are which and thus must understand what the definitions imply.
Or, you can solve all this by noting that good philosophy does not import extensions. The harder the problem, the more important it is to put all the necessary extensions into the formal intension.
Third point:
E.g. Coercion in fact means what I want it to mean.
"In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime" By contrast, redressing that crime cannot be coercion; following the law can't be a crime. "Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim", no victim, no coercion. Don't make me /wiki 'victim' to show that locked up felons are not defined as victims. Finally, "Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner [...] or some other form of pressure or force.", and if you follow the logic through, the intension of 'coercion' covers literally all immoral acts, and does not cover any non-immoral act. Immorality and coercion are exact synonyms; Aretae would of course disagree, but that means he thinks Wikipedia's description is simply wrong. Which in turn means he's trying to linguistically torture coercion (for example) into something other than what most Wikipedia editors think it is.
Jim's using, "Coercion is any intentional act which causes an otherwise involuntary response in another." As above, I have no problems with him using harble, and I play along. My issue is that he gets to use harble but apparently I'm held to a higher standard. Hey kids, what does it imply about me to hold me to a higher standard? Which of these implications would be opposed by the people trying to hold me to these standards?
Notes on Libertarian Omnibus
Yar.
Path 1 isn't very convincing, because democrats already believe it. The fundamental human rights are about listing the things that aren't up for a vote. Using specifically your example, we see cries to stop executions regardless of the crime, because democrats think that you can't vote someone's right to life away. As far as I can tell, voting was originally for solving problems that don't have a clear solution. E.g. there's a right answer to how high the tax rate should be. It is zero, but there's no way for most to learn that, so they vote and hope to get close to the right answer, or at least closer.
Path 2:
Prospiracy. Pull the strings specifically in their own favour and damn the consequences to everyone else, often including their own descendents
Path 4:
Governments are absolutely fantastic at updating when it will increase their revenue. Also great at solving the problem of making the ruling elite comfortable, as above.
Path 5:
Schools do not fail at doing what they're actually being paid to do, which is support the rulers. Indeed, I have reason to believe they're getting better, as per path 4.
Path 7:
And we've kind of solved the germs thing.
IMO Acton got the causation backwards. The corrupt get power, and absolutely corrupt get absolute power.
The great is short for the great murderer.
Path 8:
As per my comments on #2, it doesn't look meaningfully different from #2.
If nothing else, actors always need staying power and at most sometimes need any other goal, even if they genuinely value it more.
Path 10:
No matter what you want, more freedom gives you the option to get more of it, by definition. If it isn't giving you more options, it isn't freedom. With the one exception of controlling other people. My presumption is that anyone who votes against freedom hungers to coerce for its own sake.
Path 11:
Seems the same as path 9.
Path 12:
Almost the same as #8 and #2. I should mention that I agree all these paths are independent lines, but they all lead to the same way-station, so...
Path 14:
Having found the good effects from government policies, I'm now actively looking for a program, any program, that is better than the one it replaced. (Except for the rulers.) It's really hard.
Path 15:
Should probably be put next to paths 2, 8, 12, as it is near the demarcation between same and different.
Path 16:
A different perspective on paths 3 and 11.
1: The drug was has in fact worked out great for the cops and prison unions. Massive crime is a side-effect or perhaps necessary precursor to their real goals.
2: That the drug war leads to more crime is not in fact the fault of cops. The real powers in this arena happen to benefit from having lots of people in jail, therefore... I'd very much like to know the names and addresses of those people, incidentally. I'm not entirely sure even the bureaucrats themselves know which ones are the important ones, though.
Edit: 3: Variation on 2. The real powers like having lots of crime - after all, it can't reach into their gated communities and creates a ton of feeling going as "There outta be a law." That lots are in jail is just the cops doing the best they can despite every handicap. That jails happen to be profitable is just a windfall.
Path 17:
Looks to me you made the same mistake. Society doesn't have a treasury. Government has a treasury because it has legitimized violence it can use to extort money.
Path 18:
You can tell trade is good because you're always allowed to trade freely with government's favoured industries. E.g, I haven't checked, but I'm betting what steel tariffs USG imposes depends on whether the automotive industry or the steel industry is currently rich enough to out-lobby the other. So when Ford was ascendant, the tariffs were low, and now they're rising. Even if I happen to be wrong on steel per se, I won't be in general.
Updat
Path 21:
Someone does know the right answer. They even know the right answer for the right reason.
There's no way to tell which one that is without trying it.
The study of history is (among other things) the hypothesis that someone's already tried it.
"What did I miss? Is this categorized well?"
Path 1 isn't very convincing, because democrats already believe it. The fundamental human rights are about listing the things that aren't up for a vote. Using specifically your example, we see cries to stop executions regardless of the crime, because democrats think that you can't vote someone's right to life away. As far as I can tell, voting was originally for solving problems that don't have a clear solution. E.g. there's a right answer to how high the tax rate should be. It is zero, but there's no way for most to learn that, so they vote and hope to get close to the right answer, or at least closer.
Path 2:
Prospiracy. Pull the strings specifically in their own favour and damn the consequences to everyone else, often including their own descendents
Path 4:
Governments are absolutely fantastic at updating when it will increase their revenue. Also great at solving the problem of making the ruling elite comfortable, as above.
Path 5:
Schools do not fail at doing what they're actually being paid to do, which is support the rulers. Indeed, I have reason to believe they're getting better, as per path 4.
Path 7:
And we've kind of solved the germs thing.
IMO Acton got the causation backwards. The corrupt get power, and absolutely corrupt get absolute power.
The great is short for the great murderer.
Path 8:
As per my comments on #2, it doesn't look meaningfully different from #2.
If nothing else, actors always need staying power and at most sometimes need any other goal, even if they genuinely value it more.
Path 10:
No matter what you want, more freedom gives you the option to get more of it, by definition. If it isn't giving you more options, it isn't freedom. With the one exception of controlling other people. My presumption is that anyone who votes against freedom hungers to coerce for its own sake.
Path 11:
Seems the same as path 9.
Path 12:
Almost the same as #8 and #2. I should mention that I agree all these paths are independent lines, but they all lead to the same way-station, so...
Path 14:
Having found the good effects from government policies, I'm now actively looking for a program, any program, that is better than the one it replaced. (Except for the rulers.) It's really hard.
Path 15:
Should probably be put next to paths 2, 8, 12, as it is near the demarcation between same and different.
Path 16:
A different perspective on paths 3 and 11.
"She thought Welfare was a deliberate plot to destroy the black family. I personally don't figure government is that smart."A: they reliably pursue their interests that way and B: if your prospiracy is indistinguishable from a conspiracy, you deserve whatever a conspiracy would deserve. In this case, jail, or at least blistering excoriation. A prospiracy is basically being criminally negligent of avoiding a conspiracy.
"I don't think that the goal of either was to massively increase crime?"I don't have Foseti-level insight into bureaucracies, but here's a couple possibilities.
1: The drug was has in fact worked out great for the cops and prison unions. Massive crime is a side-effect or perhaps necessary precursor to their real goals.
2: That the drug war leads to more crime is not in fact the fault of cops. The real powers in this arena happen to benefit from having lots of people in jail, therefore... I'd very much like to know the names and addresses of those people, incidentally. I'm not entirely sure even the bureaucrats themselves know which ones are the important ones, though.
Edit: 3: Variation on 2. The real powers like having lots of crime - after all, it can't reach into their gated communities and creates a ton of feeling going as "There outta be a law." That lots are in jail is just the cops doing the best they can despite every handicap. That jails happen to be profitable is just a windfall.
Path 17:
Looks to me you made the same mistake. Society doesn't have a treasury. Government has a treasury because it has legitimized violence it can use to extort money.
Path 18:
You can tell trade is good because you're always allowed to trade freely with government's favoured industries. E.g, I haven't checked, but I'm betting what steel tariffs USG imposes depends on whether the automotive industry or the steel industry is currently rich enough to out-lobby the other. So when Ford was ascendant, the tariffs were low, and now they're rising. Even if I happen to be wrong on steel per se, I won't be in general.
Updat
Path 21:
Someone does know the right answer. They even know the right answer for the right reason.
There's no way to tell which one that is without trying it.
The study of history is (among other things) the hypothesis that someone's already tried it.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Psychological Egoism is True and it Matters
If you're truly selfish, you will never act selflessly - it will only be a pretense. If you're truly selfless, then selfishly accruing resources will actually help other people, as you're likely to use them on your not-self.
(This is an expanded version of something Jehu helped me find the words for.)
I take as proven that in any conflict, the less selfish should win, as it causes less collateral damage. If satisfying values is good for one person, then it must be better for more people. Only, the truly selfish will never bow to this principle - by definition, they do not care about anything I might care to use in my argument. Ergo, if in trying to be selfless you let someone else go first, most likely you just harmed more people than you helped.
This can all be derived from psychological egoism, though I do admit the use of 'selfish' in this context can be misleading.
Psychological egoism is true simply because actions follow from goals. You can try to act according to Chappell's definition of selflessness, but that means setting the goal of contradicting your own goals. If you succeed, all it means is that you valued the selflessness goal over other more 'selfish' goals, which means you're still maximizing your own selfish values. (And if you fail it means you succeeded at your other goals.)
What does this imply? This implies that there are those selfless in Chappell's definition. They're the ones that value the values of others as well as their own purely personal values.
When such a person acts selfishly, maximizing e.g. their own warm fuzzies, they help others.
Which in turn means selfishness, in its true philosophical definition, is nothing to be ashamed of. And, as I hope I've shown, anyone who is truly selfish in Chappell's narrow sense will never admit it, as long as selfishness is considered bad.
It is not only pointless to consider selfishness bad, but counter-productive. It it simply a barrier to combating narrow selfishness.
This is not a coincidence. If you were narrowly selfish and wanted to get your natural opponents out of the way, is this not exactly how you'd try to twist them into knots? Certainly, if I ever decide to embrace solipsism, it is exactly what I'm going to do.
Now I'm going to do the same thing from the dark angle.
Assume it is good to be selfish. This proves it isn't good to be selfish - it's a wrong question, not even wrong situation.
If it is good for my opponent to be selfish, it must be good for me to be selfish, by symmetry. It is selfishness that is good, not the particular person being selfish. And I happen to think it would be better if I won. Therefore, their belief in selfishness means that my beliefs imply I should win.
Verification: what if it isn't selfishness per se that's good, but the person? Then I've again proven that selflessness is better. If one person is good, then I just find two people that add up to being more good.
No matter what argument you start with, it proves that every individual should fight unreservedly for the selfish values. If there were an argument that was only an impediment to the narrowly selfish, I would advocate that. But, as above, there cannot be.
(This is an expanded version of something Jehu helped me find the words for.)
I take as proven that in any conflict, the less selfish should win, as it causes less collateral damage. If satisfying values is good for one person, then it must be better for more people. Only, the truly selfish will never bow to this principle - by definition, they do not care about anything I might care to use in my argument. Ergo, if in trying to be selfless you let someone else go first, most likely you just harmed more people than you helped.
This can all be derived from psychological egoism, though I do admit the use of 'selfish' in this context can be misleading.
Psychological egoism is true simply because actions follow from goals. You can try to act according to Chappell's definition of selflessness, but that means setting the goal of contradicting your own goals. If you succeed, all it means is that you valued the selflessness goal over other more 'selfish' goals, which means you're still maximizing your own selfish values. (And if you fail it means you succeeded at your other goals.)
What does this imply? This implies that there are those selfless in Chappell's definition. They're the ones that value the values of others as well as their own purely personal values.
When such a person acts selfishly, maximizing e.g. their own warm fuzzies, they help others.
Which in turn means selfishness, in its true philosophical definition, is nothing to be ashamed of. And, as I hope I've shown, anyone who is truly selfish in Chappell's narrow sense will never admit it, as long as selfishness is considered bad.
It is not only pointless to consider selfishness bad, but counter-productive. It it simply a barrier to combating narrow selfishness.
This is not a coincidence. If you were narrowly selfish and wanted to get your natural opponents out of the way, is this not exactly how you'd try to twist them into knots? Certainly, if I ever decide to embrace solipsism, it is exactly what I'm going to do.
Now I'm going to do the same thing from the dark angle.
Assume it is good to be selfish. This proves it isn't good to be selfish - it's a wrong question, not even wrong situation.
If it is good for my opponent to be selfish, it must be good for me to be selfish, by symmetry. It is selfishness that is good, not the particular person being selfish. And I happen to think it would be better if I won. Therefore, their belief in selfishness means that my beliefs imply I should win.
Verification: what if it isn't selfishness per se that's good, but the person? Then I've again proven that selflessness is better. If one person is good, then I just find two people that add up to being more good.
No matter what argument you start with, it proves that every individual should fight unreservedly for the selfish values. If there were an argument that was only an impediment to the narrowly selfish, I would advocate that. But, as above, there cannot be.
Further on Honest Disagreement
I stated that actually sharing your premises and assumptions is remarkably difficult, and therefore Hanson, Cowen, and Aumann were wrong in some ways. I have been reminded that they are also right in some ways.[1]
I have to agree that disagreements aren't honest, but only because I know how they're not honest.
Most discussions aren't really about what the participants believe.
I mean that tons of very, very common beliefs have been labelled as socially unacceptable. Selfish beliefs. Beliefs about one's superiority, particular or general.
Other kinds of beliefs, such as particularly revealing beliefs; beliefs that make you vulnerable, according to the accepted status game rules, to insults or credibility trashing. Beliefs that make you emotionally vulnerable.
A third kind, slightly different, of beliefs that are too important to allow challenges to. If your lifestyle leans heavily on certain beliefs, and you cannot afford doubt on these beliefs, then it is rational not to make them vulnerable to criticism or questioning.
Taken together, the patterns that ties these beliefs together is that they're the kind you particularly care about, and that saying them out loud is embarrassing. I know, because I do all this too. These kinds of beliefs are usually avoided in conversation at all costs.
And, I should emphasize, this is usually the correct strategy, as I tried to imply above. While some of them are embarrassing due to social constructs, others are embarrassing due to actually being declarations against interest.
Arguing about things you don't really care about is utterly pointless, a complete waste of time. As far as I can tell, anyway, perhaps I've missed something. But I can guarantee nobody learns anything in these 'arguments.' If an argument isn't making me uncomfortable, if the prospect I might be wrong doesn't worry me, I know I'm not arguing because of the belief, and I require myself to have some other good reason, such as practising communication.
Part of the reason I hate abstraction and love concrete examples is that it is so common to cloak these serious, care-about beliefs in layers of abstraction. It sterilizes the argument, makes them safe. Even if you lose convincingly, you can tell yourself it was a loss at the abstraction layer, not on the concrete bits from which it was derived.
However, taken together, I can safely predict that what Hansen or Cowen call meta-rationals will never be noticeable until there's a tribe that gently encourages sharing of embarrassing beliefs. A tribe that forgives the embarrassing trait, that by contrast celebrates the courage necessary to deliberately embarrass yourself. A tribe that doesn't reinforce the aversion response and reiterate that you should be embarrassed about it.
Come to think, this makes me pretty angry. Furious, in fact. You see, many of these embarrassing beliefs are held by ~99.9etc% of the population. These social norms aren't showering contempt on epistemic mistakes, they're showering contempt on being human. Admitting them doesn't mean you're a bad person, they mean you're homo sapiens sapiens and I for one refuse to be embarrassed to be a human being.
[1] I find that it is part of my learning process to criticize what's said before I work out what they were trying to say. Noting and pinning down the errors in their actual words allows me to be comfortable with granting them anything they're right about.
P.S. Yeah I just used Hanson's razor on something written in part by Hanson. Being meta-rational is low status.
I have to agree that disagreements aren't honest, but only because I know how they're not honest.
Most discussions aren't really about what the participants believe.
I mean that tons of very, very common beliefs have been labelled as socially unacceptable. Selfish beliefs. Beliefs about one's superiority, particular or general.
Other kinds of beliefs, such as particularly revealing beliefs; beliefs that make you vulnerable, according to the accepted status game rules, to insults or credibility trashing. Beliefs that make you emotionally vulnerable.
A third kind, slightly different, of beliefs that are too important to allow challenges to. If your lifestyle leans heavily on certain beliefs, and you cannot afford doubt on these beliefs, then it is rational not to make them vulnerable to criticism or questioning.
Taken together, the patterns that ties these beliefs together is that they're the kind you particularly care about, and that saying them out loud is embarrassing. I know, because I do all this too. These kinds of beliefs are usually avoided in conversation at all costs.
And, I should emphasize, this is usually the correct strategy, as I tried to imply above. While some of them are embarrassing due to social constructs, others are embarrassing due to actually being declarations against interest.
Arguing about things you don't really care about is utterly pointless, a complete waste of time. As far as I can tell, anyway, perhaps I've missed something. But I can guarantee nobody learns anything in these 'arguments.' If an argument isn't making me uncomfortable, if the prospect I might be wrong doesn't worry me, I know I'm not arguing because of the belief, and I require myself to have some other good reason, such as practising communication.
Part of the reason I hate abstraction and love concrete examples is that it is so common to cloak these serious, care-about beliefs in layers of abstraction. It sterilizes the argument, makes them safe. Even if you lose convincingly, you can tell yourself it was a loss at the abstraction layer, not on the concrete bits from which it was derived.
However, taken together, I can safely predict that what Hansen or Cowen call meta-rationals will never be noticeable until there's a tribe that gently encourages sharing of embarrassing beliefs. A tribe that forgives the embarrassing trait, that by contrast celebrates the courage necessary to deliberately embarrass yourself. A tribe that doesn't reinforce the aversion response and reiterate that you should be embarrassed about it.
Come to think, this makes me pretty angry. Furious, in fact. You see, many of these embarrassing beliefs are held by ~99.9etc% of the population. These social norms aren't showering contempt on epistemic mistakes, they're showering contempt on being human. Admitting them doesn't mean you're a bad person, they mean you're homo sapiens sapiens and I for one refuse to be embarrassed to be a human being.
[1] I find that it is part of my learning process to criticize what's said before I work out what they were trying to say. Noting and pinning down the errors in their actual words allows me to be comfortable with granting them anything they're right about.
P.S. Yeah I just used Hanson's razor on something written in part by Hanson. Being meta-rational is low status.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Individualism Rubble
The process of finding and fixing that contradiction seems to have lethally wounded my motivation to write up an article proper. I would like to be better about doing what I say I'd do, though, so you get this.
Another perspective on the same events; I invited reality to kick me in the teeth, and reality obliged.
"Notably, La Wik has only the vaguest idea what it is"
Nope, sorry. I still think it's misleading. I still think it needs to tone the abstraction level down about two thirds. I still think it is anemic and waffling. I think it has other flaws. However, none of this is ignorance, just stylistic flaws, and frankly par for the course on Wikipedia.
"I can't even find a Stanford Encyclopedia entry."
Oh hey, look at that. I particularly remember Aretae using the term, though it also came up before and after.
I also used the concept, if not the label. I'm not sure if that overall reflects well or badly on me.
In fact, reality is so obliging about teeth-kicking I find that being incautious about my pronouncements is a fast and easy way to learn, though requiring a metaphorical chin guard.
Emphasis mine,
I often write to find out how I really think. Sometimes it is pretty surprising. Sometimes, reality is pretty surprised, and has a habit of letting me know.
Another perspective on the same events; I invited reality to kick me in the teeth, and reality obliged.
"Notably, La Wik has only the vaguest idea what it is"
Nope, sorry. I still think it's misleading. I still think it needs to tone the abstraction level down about two thirds. I still think it is anemic and waffling. I think it has other flaws. However, none of this is ignorance, just stylistic flaws, and frankly par for the course on Wikipedia.
"I can't even find a Stanford Encyclopedia entry."
Oh hey, look at that. I particularly remember Aretae using the term, though it also came up before and after.
I also used the concept, if not the label. I'm not sure if that overall reflects well or badly on me.
In fact, reality is so obliging about teeth-kicking I find that being incautious about my pronouncements is a fast and easy way to learn, though requiring a metaphorical chin guard.
Emphasis mine,
"These muddled notions played an important historical role in the development of later evolutionary theory, error calling forth correction; like the folly of English kings provoking into existence the Magna Carta and constitutional democracy."I don't think the process is supposed to work without intentional human intervention, but it seems to work for me.
I often write to find out how I really think. Sometimes it is pretty surprising. Sometimes, reality is pretty surprised, and has a habit of letting me know.
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