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Summary
People are losing their ability to think and act on principles. But they need principles to set long-range goals and make decisions. Without them, people become their own destroyers. Modern philosophy is to blame because it attacks reason.
To stop this suicidal trend, we need to understand the following rules about principles and the relationship between principles and goals:
First, when two men or groups are in conflict while having the same basic principles, the more consistent one will win.
Since they are in conflict, at least one of them must be inconsistent. So the one with the clearer vision of his goal, who more consistently works toward it, will win. The less consistent one just hastens his adversary’s victory and becomes weaker in the process.
This dynamic applies regardless of the merits of their shared principles.
Example: republicans vs democrats. Both agree that the government should interfere with the economy. They just disagree on implementation details. Democrats are more consistently committed to growing government power; the republicans just end up “me-too’ing” them. Recent example.
As a result, government control has been growing over the decades. It will continue to grow until the communists replace socialists and ‘achieve’ “universal immolation”.
This trend can seem inevitable. Some people mistake it for historicism, but it can be reversed by a change of basic principles.
Second, when two men or groups collaborate while having different basic principles, the more evil or irrational one will win.
Mixing opposing basic principles favors bad ones and drives out the good ones. “What is the moral status of an honest man who steals once in a while?”
When good and evil collaborate, it hurts good and helps evil. The good has nothing to gain from evil, while evil stands to gain everything from the good.
Example: collaboration between an honest businessman and a swindler. The swindler does not contribute to the success of the business; the honest one’s reputation ends up luring in more victims than the swindler could have fooled on his own.
Another example: membership of the Soviet Union in the UN. The resulting collaboration between the West and the Soviet Union gave the latter unearned respect, moral sanction, and access to resources. In exchange, the Western world has been swallowed by “cynicism, bitterness, hopelessness, fear and nameless guilt…”
Third, defining opposite basic principles clearly and openly helps rationality; hiding or evading them helps irrationality.
The rational side of a conflict wants to be understood. It’s in harmony with reality, so it has nothing to hide. But the irrational side “has to deceive, to confuse, to evade, to hide its goals.”
The good, the rational must be actively upheld; the bad, the irrational is achieved only by default, by not acting. Construction is hard; destruction is easy.
Lessons
Adhere to your principles with consistency.
Never mix opposing basic principles! Leave irrational/evil people to the consequences of their errors.
Be open and transparent; don’t hide things.
Summary
People are losing their ability to think and act on principles. But they need principles to set long-range goals and make decisions. Without them, people become their own destroyers. Modern philosophy is to blame because it attacks reason.
To stop this suicidal trend, we need to understand the following rules about principles and the relationship between principles and goals:
First, when two men or groups are in conflict while having the same basic principles, the more consistent one will win.
Since they are in conflict, at least one of them must be inconsistent. So the one with the clearer vision of his goal, who more consistently works toward it, will win. The less consistent one just hastens his adversary’s victory and becomes weaker in the process.
This dynamic applies regardless of the merits of their shared principles.
Example: republicans vs democrats. Both agree that the government should interfere with the economy. They just disagree on implementation details. Democrats are more consistently committed to growing government power; the republicans just end up “me-too’ing” them. Recent example.
As a result, government control has been growing over the decades. It will continue to grow until the communists replace socialists and ‘achieve’ “universal immolation”.
This trend can seem inevitable. Some people mistake it for historicism, but it can be reversed by a change of basic principles.
Second, when two men or groups collaborate while having different basic principles, the more evil or irrational one will win.
Mixing opposing basic principles favors bad ones and drives out the good ones. “What is the moral status of an honest man who steals once in a while?”
When good and evil collaborate, it hurts good and helps evil. The good has nothing to gain from evil, while evil stands to gain everything from the good.
Example: collaboration between an honest businessman and a swindler. The swindler does not contribute to the success of the business; the honest one’s reputation ends up luring in more victims than the swindler could have fooled on his own.
Another example: membership of the Soviet Union in the UN. The resulting collaboration between the West and the Soviet Union gave the latter unearned respect, moral sanction, and access to resources. In exchange, the Western world has been swallowed by “cynicism, bitterness, hopelessness, fear and nameless guilt…”
Third, defining opposite basic principles clearly and openly helps rationality; hiding or evading them helps irrationality.
The rational side of a conflict wants to be understood. It’s in harmony with reality, so it has nothing to hide. But the irrational side “has to deceive, to confuse, to evade, to hide its goals.”
The good, the rational must be actively upheld; the bad, the irrational is achieved only by default, by not acting. Construction is hard; destruction is easy.
Lesson
Never mix opposing basic principles! Leave irrational/evil people to the consequences of their errors.
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Bounties let you invite criticism and reward high-quality contributions with real money.
Bounties are in beta. Expect things to break.
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Start a bounty today. Terms apply.
Over time, the substances or activities change your brain chemistry, and you become desensitized to their effects. You then need more to produce the same effect.
There could be a small grain of truth in this explanation when translated into epistemologically proper terms and divorced from hardware specifics.
Usually, when something is fun, that means you engage with it and learn from it. As the fun wanes, you learn less and naturally direct your attention elsewhere. Think of a video game you’ve gotten really good at: first it’s fun, then it gets boring. Boredom means the game doesn’t solve your problems anymore, it doesn’t fit into your problem situation anymore. So you play another game or do something else entirely.
But with addiction, this feedback mechanism seems to work differently: instead of getting bored and looking for stimulation elsewhere, the addict looks for more stimulation from the same activity.
There is also a definition by Gabor Mate that is similar to this. I will add a link when I find it.
Prevailing explanations tend to put emphasis on the object instead of problem situations, like thinking addiction comes from the cigarette. This theory doesn't.
I don’t think that alone means my interpretation of HTV is implausible. We’re bound to find contradictions eventually. In a good book like BoI, they’re just rare, so when we do find them, they go against the bulk of the philosophy.
@liberty-fitz-claridge says (#3885) it’d be implausible for HTV to be justificationist since that would contradict the rest of Deutsch’s anti-justificationist philosophy.
I see why you would interpret the BoI quote in that way, but in the context of the whole philosophy your interpretation is implausible.
How can we tell whether my interpretation is implausible or whether Deutsch really does contradict himself?
I don’t think it’s enough to point out that the quote that (I think) contradicts his philosophy would, if I am right, indeed contradict his philosophy. We’re bound to find contradictions eventually. So I think we’d need some independent reasoning.
Btw, the discussion about HTV has largely moved to #3780 and its children. I’m going to summarize your criticisms there, and I suggest continuing there.
It seems that you've taken the idea of hard to vary as saying that the process of choosing between competing theories is just about measuring how much of this trait they have. One clearly wouldn’t get better explanations from doing that, as it would just be a mechanical way of judging theories.
Yes, but as I understood Deutsch, this process of choosing happens after one has conjectured and criticized a bunch of explanations. I don’t think he suggests that the application of the HTV criterion makes theories better, only that we should use it to choose between explanations after they have been guessed and improved.
So the process of choosing between already existing explanations really is “just about measuring how much of this trait they have.”
Veritula implements unanimous consent …
This notion also maps onto Ayn Rand’s idea that “there are no conflicts of interests among rational men.” (From The Virtue of Selfishness.)
There’s a reason rationality means lack of conflict.
Veritula implements unanimous consent …
I just realized that this notion also maps onto Ayn Rand’s idea that “there are no conflicts of interests among rational men.” (From The Virtue of Selfishness.)
There’s a reason rationality means lack of conflict.
@tyler-mills, both bounties are over.
At the time of writing, the idea saying to keep your job (#3638) has 4 pending criticisms.
The idea saying to quit and do research (#3639) has no pending criticisms.
So at this moment, the rational choice would be to quit your job. Hope this brings you some clarity.
Have you thought about quiet quitting?
Could you also come up with the reasons you dislike your job? Is it because of co-workers, managers or the work you actually do? In either case, the calculation in the calculated risk of quitting your job might be mentally checking out from it, but reaping the good thing about it, which is the financial stability.
Veritula implements unanimous consent …
I just realized that this notion also maps onto Ayn Rand’s idea that “there are no conflicts of interests among rational men.” (From The Virtue of Selfishness.)
There’s a reason rationality means lack of conflict.
It’s contrived beyond the specific example of the guitarist from the dark ages. You’ll never run out of examples that could be challenging for me to answer. I can’t give you all the solutions ahead of time. That doesn’t mean problems aren’t soluble.
All I can tell you is that you’re a problem-solving engine, so it’s possible possible for you to enjoy life 100% of the time, and that this is worth striving for.
It’s always possible to make a living doing something you enjoy. But if you’re looking for a guarantee, you will be disappointed.
The guitarist line above is of course just a throwaway example. The core claims here seem very general to me. Is your stance that a person can always make a living doing something they enjoy? People can create all possible jobs, but this says nothing about human lifetimes, economics, etc. The first people couldn’t have had much fun, I wouldn’t think. Please explain.
Been trying a slight modification of bounties in prod for a couple of weeks or so. Working well so far.
@dirk-meulenbelt recently offered to chip in for a bounty I want to run. That got me thinking: multiple people should be able to fund bounties.
When a revision addresses a criticism, you don’t counter-criticize the criticism, you deselect it at the bottom of the revision form.
To be sure, this isn’t a big deal. But try revising #3908 again, just to practice.
There exist people whose passions exclude all available paying jobs, unless this is not physically possible. Aspiring guitarists in dark ages.
Tyler says:
No preview necessarily, or the first sentence upon mouse-over could work. I’m imagining a structural view independent of the main view. (Though still suggest looking at columns for each idea in the main view).