Open Thread, Feb. 2 - Feb 8, 2015

Paul Graham wrote an article called What You Can't Say that seems somewhat relevant to your position, and in particular engages with the instrumental rationality of epistemic rationality. I bring that one up specifically because his conclusion is mostly "figure out what you can't say, and then don't say it." But he's also a startup guy, and is well aware of the exception that many good startup ideas seem unacceptable, because if they were acceptable ideas they'd already be mature industries. So many heresies are not worth endorsing publicly, even if you privately believe them, but some heresies are (mainly, if you expect significant instrumental gains from doing so).

I grew up in a Christian household and realized in my early teens that I was a gay atheist; I put off telling people for a long time and I'm not sure how much I got from doing so. (Both of my parents were understanding.) Most of my friends were from school anyway, and it was easy to just stop going to church when I left town for college, and then go when I'm visiting my parents out of family solidarity.

My suspicion is that your wife would prefer knowing sooner rather than later. I also predict that it is not going to get easier to tell her or your children as time goes on--if anything, as your children age and absorb more and more religious memes and norms, the more your public deconversion would affect them.

I think that your edit clarified things for me substantially. I read the entire article that you linked. I regret my earlier post for reasons that you will hopefully see.

I have a relevant anecdote about a simpler situation. I was with two friends. The One thought that it would be preferable for there to be less and/or simpler technology in the world, and the Other thought that the opposite was true. The One believed that technology causes people to live meaningless lives, and the Other conceded that he believed this to be true but also believed that technology has so many other benefits that this is acceptable. The One would always cite examples of how technology was used for entertainment, and the Other, examples of how technology was used for work. I stepped in and pointed out the patterns in their respective examples. I said that there were times when I had wasted time by using technology. I pointed out that if a person were like the One, and thus felt that they were leading a less meaningful life by the use of technology, then they should stop. It would be harmful were I to prescribe that a person like the One indiscriminately use technology. I then said that, through technology, I was able to meet people similar to me, people whom I would be far less likely to meet in physical life, and with whom I could hold conversations that I could not hold in physical life. In this way, my life had been made more meaningful by technology. And so it would be harmful for someone to prescribe that I indiscriminately do not use technology.

I learned three things from this event:

1) I should look for third alternatives.

I definitely did not consider this enough in my original response to you, and I apologize. Just like it is not a matter of less technology vs. more technology, it is not necessarily a matter of 'Keep your old life,' vs. 'Start a new life.' Honestly, your 'vague tentative plans' sound like potential third alternatives. I would say keep thinking about those, and also feel good for thinking of and about them. I'd love to hear about them, however vague and tentative. Vaniver touched on this. I would say that he found a third alternative in his own life. I'm bisexual; in physical life, I'm selective about whom I tell, and I don't feel outraged that this is pragmatic or feel inauthentic for doing it. Others would feel like they were in a prison of their own making. I picked the best alternative that I could live with.

2) I should remember that humans are never 'typical.'

There are people who feel like their skin is on wrong when they use technology that they consider undesirably advanced. I love technology. The One thought that people who used technology were suffering from a sense of meaninglessness, and they were simply unaware of this, or actively ignoring it. This was not true for me: Technology makes my life more meaningful. For either of us to act otherwise would be for us to act against our preferences. Likewise, it may have been more important for Shulem to act authentically than it was for him to keep his social relationships. Maryles had a sneaking suspicion that this is false. Yet, Shulem may really be more lonely and really not regret it.

3) I should remember that humans do things for more than just happiness.

People value other things besides happiness. The One saw that some people were happy playing mobile games all of the time, their reward centers firing away, but didn't think that it was worth it because their happiness was meaningless. The One valued meaning more than entertainment, and perhaps even more than happiness in general. People forget this easily. I see this in the article when Maryles says:

Not that I have a right to tell people how to live their lives. I just wish that he would have made choices that would have kept his family intact, and given him a better more meaningful life. Shulem says that he has no regrets. And yet I wonder if he has had similar thoughts? So I am sad for Shulem who still seems to live a very lonely life. I am sad for his children who lost a father they once loved. And yet I am hopeful that those with similar leanings that read his book will realize that the kind of radical change Shulem Deen made- even as he felt it was the right one based on being true to oneself -may not be the best solution for individual happiness.

He wishes that Shulem had made decisions to give himself a more meaningful life. He wishes that Shulem had made decisions to give himself a happier life. He wishes that Shulem had made decisions to give himself a less lonely life. He thinks that, ultimately, Shulem has made decisions to give himself a more authentic life at the price of forgoing these other possibilities. About this, he may be right. Another possibility is that there was no more preferable alternative. Maryles suggests otherwise: He seems to think either that authenticity, meaning, community, and happiness are all the same; or that all are reducible to one; or that all necessarily follow from one. I cannot glean which he believes from context. It is entirely possible that Shulem feels that his life is less happy, less meaningful, more lonely, and more authentic, and that he prefers all and regrets none of this. On the other hand, you, it seems, would not prefer this and would regret this, because you are not typical, as said above. I keep the complexity of value in mind when evaluating potential third alternatives.

Lastly, because things are often about that which they explicitly are not, I feel obliged to touch on this:

I was sad not so much about his erroneous (in my view) conclusions about God and Judaism. Although I am in no way minimizing the importance of that - this post isn’t about that.

If this is true, then 'The Lonely Man of No Faith' is a bad title, in the sense that it isn't representative of the article's implication. (It does, however, make for excellent link bait.) No one is thinking, "Surely his lack of faith is merely a coincidence. There must be other reasons that this man is lonely." Maryles has to say that the post is not about 'that' precisely because everyone has assumed that it's about that.

The general implication is that the so-called truth-seekers are worse off even though the opposite should be true. On this, I will say that any time that I have seen someone become less satisfied with their life by reading about the sorts of things that are posted here, it's because they have experienced a failure of imagination, or their new beliefs have not fully propagated. The failure modes that I've seen the most are:

• No absolute morality implies moral relativism or moral nihilism. ("Actions are not intrinsically good or bad, therefore, morality is open season or meaningless.")
• Reductionism implies existential nihilism. ("Magical processes are really natural processes of such complexity that I mistook them for magical processes? I live for nothing!")
• Determinism implies fatalism. ("Things can only go one way, therefore, I should not make decisions.")
• Representing truth values with probabilities rather than with Boolean values implies epistemological nihilism. ("I can't know things for sure, so I should stop trying to know things.")
• The lack of sensation after death is equivalent to a sensation of darkness and silence of infinite duration). ("I know that you're saying 'no experience,' but I feel like you're saying 'one of the worst experiences that I can possibly imagine.'")

You've given no indication that you believe any of these things, but I had to address that because of the article's implication, and you or others very well may believe these things, explicitly or implicitly, without indication. You identify as an open-minded person; you seem to take pride in it. As such, you may not really believe that there is no God; rather, you might believe that you ought to believe that there is no God, because perhaps that is what you believe open-minded people do, and you want to do what open-minded people do. (I had this very problem. Belief in belief goes both ways!) Saying that one atheist is less happy because he has been separated from his loved ones is very different from saying that atheists are universally dissatisfied because theism is essentially preferable. Though the author attempts to make that distinction, I think that he fails.

I'm also not saying that I deductively concluded that truth-seeking is preferable to ignorance. I inductively concluded it. Truth-seeking could have been horrible: It turns out it generally isn't.

I have never been in a situation similar to yours, so my advice may be wrong, but here it is anyway.

When people change their opinion, they sometimes go from one extreme to the opposite extreme, as if to make sure they would not drift back to their old position. But there is no need for sudden large changes. Unlike religious people, atheists do not have a duty to proselytize everyone to their non-belief. To put it bluntly, you are allowed to lie and deceive, if it is necessary for your survival. I do not support lying in general, because it has its cost, but sometimes telling the truth (at the wrong moment) has a much greater cost. The cost of lying is weakening the relationship with people you lie to. So I think you should try to be open with your wife (but be careful about your coming out), but lying to everyone else is an option.

When explaining how you feel, focus on the positive parts, not the negative parts. Rejecting religion is the negative part. It is not your terminal value to be non-religious. You probably still like some aspects of the religious culture; and that's okay. (Atheists are free to celebrate Christmas, if they choose to.) It's just that your positive values are understanding the world, being honest, etc. and religion happens to be incompatible with that. You are throwing religion away because the alternative would be throwing your curiosity or sanity away. If you are going to explain to someone the negative part, you should explain the positive part first (without even mentioning religion at the beginning). Only when they value the positive part, you should show them the conflict; then they may empathise.

Specifically, I think you should show your wife all the cool things you are interested in, starting with the noncontroversial ones. She does not have to like them all; different people have different preferences; but you may find something that is interesting for both of you. Then you have an enjoyable topic to talk about which is unconnected to religion. The more such topics you have, and the more time you spend debating them, the less time you spend debating religion, and the less role the religion plays at keeping you together. Then the impact of abandoning religion will be smaller. Just start with the simple stuff; do not go into "adversarial intellectual debate mode" you are probably using with your friends sometimes. Instead, be a guide in an intellectual adventure. For example, find some noncontroversial TED talks videos (not about religion, politics, evolution, global warming, or whichever topics are controversial in your religious community) and watch them together (maybe even with your children). Be the one who brings positive value, not the one who causes conflict.

You should be strategic about your social circle. I do not know the people around you, but I have read stories where people lost their whole religious community after coming out. You may have a few loyal friends who will stay with you regardless, but even those friends may be under pressure from their friends and families. You prepare strategically for this by creating new friends in advance. Preferably ones that your wife will like too. Every new friend who does not share your religion, is a friend who will not abandon you when you come out. To some degree, friendship is a question of spending time together, and having experiences in common. Essentially, you should manage your time to spend more time with people outside your religious community. (I hope they are available.) Again, bringing new nice people as friends is a positive step. Finding new interesting activities you and your wife could enjoy together, outside of your religious community, is also a positive step. You could take a family vacation outside of your community, with the new friends.

Shortly, build new bridges before you burn down the old ones. Treat everything related to your religious community as something you may lose, as something that may be used to blackmail you in the future, so do not invest in those things. Plan to minimize possible damage in the future.

Also, if you want your wife to support you, you also have to support her. Support her in all her dreams, help her explore the world. Be a team together. Make it obvious you would support her even where your religious community wouldn't.

(I take it "follow me" means "stay married to me despite the overt religious difference" rather than "deconvert along with me".)

Keeping secrets from your wife seems like a really bad idea. Are there ways for you to test the waters a little? (Admit to having serious doubts about your religion, maybe?) Perhaps there's something you can do along those lines that will both (1) give you some indication of what you can tell her without hurting her / making her file for leave you / ... and (2) prepare her mind so that when you tell her more it isn't such a shock.

My situation somewhat parallels yours -- formerly quite seriously religious, now very definitely (and openly) atheist, married to someone who is still seriously and actively religious. But my guess, from how you describe the situation, is that your family and friends are likely to be more bothered by irreligion than mine. (In particular, both I and my wife have plenty of friends and family who are not religious.) So I can tell you that it's all worked out OK for me so far, but I wouldn't advise you to take that as very strong evidence that openness about your (ir)religious opinions would work out well for you.

Even so, my guess is that it wouldn't be as terrible as you think it would. But, again, I don't think there's any reason for you to trust my guesses.

Lie.

Maybe you'll lie for the whole rest of your life. Maybe you will lie until your kids are out of the house. Maybe you'll lie for another few weeks or years and then decide the truth is important enough to you that Shulem's story no longer seems worse to you than living with the lie.

People lie all the time, and I think it would be foolish to try to craft a life in which you never lie, or in which you feel horribly guilty about lying. Maybe there is some society in which it makes sense not to lie for everybody, but maybe there isn't, either. Certainly a society such as your own is NOT that society. Your society enforces an appearance of conformity of agreement on certain matters of "fact" which are not obviously matters of fact at all. For you to fall foul of this enforcement is a purely voluntary action on your part. I suppose if there were a magical creature who could read your mind and who would punish you for lying, one might make the case that your best bet would be to tell the truth and take the societal consequences which are less severe than the consequences imposed by the magical creature. In some sense, this is analogous to choosing to one-box in the Newcomb's box problem: rationality means winning. For you to take societal consequences for telling the truth when the truth you are telling is that there is no magical creature reading your mind and enforcing rules about what it must contain, well, that is irrational to the extent that it involves making a choice to lose.

To the extent I can imagine being in your situation, my main concern would be getting my kids out. In my own personal lying, I never lie to my kids except if I think it is for their own good, not mine. Of course, you obviously love your Hasidic life so much that you mgiht believe that lying to your kids to keep them in theirs is for their own good, and far be it from me to tell you you would be wrong. I am very aware that for me, an intelligent physicist engineer, the "cost" of false belief in the supernatural is much higher than it is for the clerk in my department who lives her entire life at her Jehovah's Witness church. She witnessed an atheist discussion between myself and someone else once and sent me fairly naive reasons she should stay in her belief, and I responded, and I meant it, that she should believe if that is what she needed to make her life work.

Honestly, I think your real difference from your peers is not that you found the reasons not to believe, but that you couldn't convince yourself to ignore them! For myself, I give you great credit for being like that, which is small consolation I imagine for risking the loss of your family and your life. I was lucky to come from a family which was already fairly liberal (compared to hasidism anyway) about religion and in which about half of them in my parents' generation leaned towards atheism anyway. I have the luxury of living in a society which barely has the energy to even complain about my atheism, in which my atheism is as vibrant and powerful as their religiosity. If I lived in a society that punished atheism, I would lie about it. I would go only as far as I could go publicly without risking the things I found important. My own version of one-boxing: I do NOT sacrifice myself for abstract beliefs.

Ironically, I will close by suggesting you have faith. Don't be more publicly atheistic now than you can. Chances are if you hide it now that you may find over the coming years your trade-off point moves towards more exposure, more openness. Enjoy your life: we ALL live in medieval mind-controlling societies, the differences are matters of degrees rather than matters of kind. Enjoy the one you are in and make a difference on the margin. In real life, we are not truth-seeking machines, we are life-seeking machines. Our brains evolved to serve our lives, to invert that, and have a life which serves your brain is hardly required, especially once you understand that magical mind-reading controlling creatures probably do not exist.

Mazel Tov, Mike

Hey there, Parmenides. I am totally cool with you venting at me.

And if it did get out, then we'd risk losing virtually all of our (close-knit, wonderful, highly supportive) families and friends.

I take this especially seriously. Leaving the tribe is hard, especially when it has tangible benefits and costs. I think this is the biggest thing that the rationalist community has yet to fully address insofar as it seeks to compete with other communities in traditional domains, but certainly not for lack of awareness. I think I'll link this video I found of William and Divia Eden's wedding ceremony.

I kind of feel like a creep for doing that, but this is a great example of how rationalists are making their own communities and institutions and rituals. Eliezer makes a bunch of science jokes and implicitly jabs traditional everything, as he is wont to do; the spouses agree that they totally love each other and are in it for as long as they both think they should be and that both of those things are cool; they keep the usual wedding trappings because wedding trappings are fun, and fun is cool; they change their last name to Eden because Eden is a cool last name; and there's a general feeling in the air that being cool about most stuff when it's cool to do so is generally the coolest way to go. Basically they do everything possible to avoid the kind of shitty problem that you're in now. (That is not to say that you could have avoided it through some superior exercise of personal integrity.)

You might also dig these Skepticon panels on how rationalists deal with relationships and death. I highly recommend the one on relationships because there's an atheist on the panel who to my knowledge is a former fundamentalist Christian and is in a relationship with a woman whose entire family are devout Christians.

I say all of this because you can find a new community or have a hand in making a new one. LessWrong is one such community. I have said before that most LessWrongians are 'super smart and super ethical.' They make good company. ChristianKI says something important as well:

Without knowing the social environment in which you are operating it's hard to tell, but are you really sure you would lose all your friends.

You might be overestimating the probability that your tribe will abandon you. After all, that wouldn't be a very Christian thing to do, would it?

(More accurately, I'd label myself agnostic leaning atheist with regard to the existence of one or more intelligent world-designer(s), but I give almost no credence to any religious claims beyond that. In any case, for simplicity I'm just going to refer to myself here as an atheist.)

I used to say something really similar to this. I would say, "Nominally, I'm agnostic, but practically, I'm atheist." Then I thought about other, less important beliefs in which I could make a distinction between 'the nominal and the practical.' Say a person with whom I live leaves the house and goes to the store, and it has been some time, and another person asks where they are. Usually, I say, simply, "He is at the store." But this is not necessarily true. It is entirely possible that on the way to the store he was diverted from his usual route and out of kindness stopped to help a troubled motorist, and so he is nowhere near the store; or that the store has become the site of a hostage situation, and so no one may enter the store; or that the other has already, as we speak, been killed in a traffic accident, and so he may never enter a store again; etc. Yet, I do not tell the other resident, "Nominally, I am agnostic as to the whereabouts of our fellow resident, but practically, he is at the store." My veiled belief is that he is at the store, so this is how I act. It is undesirable to act contrary to this belief because the consequences are obvious and completely negative. It is easier with religious beliefs because the consequences are not as obvious and short-term positive (but long-term negative). Nominal beliefs are useless in life because life is always lived in practice. All to say, I have learned here that very little is certain and that that is far less important than one would initially think. Almost certainty is more than enough, and you and everyone else rely on that fact everyday.

My wife would probably decide to follow me - but there's a chance she might not, and I love her way too much to risk losing her.

I think it's funny (funny-strange, not funny-haha) that you say that you're not willing to risk losing her, but you go on for another paragraph after this about other reasons that you should not do this even if you are willing to risk losing her. It sounds to me like you, in fact, are willing to risk it, and rightly so in my opinion, and like that fact scares the shit out of you, and rightly so in my opinion.

Even if she did follow me it would cause her a tremendous amount of mental anguish which I really don't want to impose on her.

Realistically consider your ability to be exactly what is desirable to your wife for the rest of your life. Ask yourself if you think you can really avoid resenting her (and you do not have to be evil or lacking in character to be resentful) for the rest of your life. Never have I successfully willed myself to meet the expectations of others.

And that's besides the terrible emotional effects that a revelation of this sort would have on my parents, kids, siblings, and friends.

I really don't see how momentary 'grief' from the loss of a tribe member, even a community's worth, is worse than you feeling what you currently feel for a lifetime. And if you don't tell the kids, then you could perpetuate the cycle.

Talking to you is a moral hazard for me. I want to make more evangelizing atheists. I tried to be a counterpoint to your gloom more than an impartial advisor, and hopefully that resulted in a more thorough overview of the risks and payoffs of this decision. I say this because I see a lot of talk of the risks of coming out of the closet, but not a lot of talk about the payoffs, and when you do talk about them, you bury them in implications about risks. You're definitely continuing in a motivated fashion. Like everyone else, you also have an overwhelming compulsion to maintain the status quo.

One last piece of advice, since I see a lot of 'all about their feelings, and not mine': Learn that making sure that the rest of your life does not suck at the cost of some hurt feelings is totally okay, and that learning that will make the rest of your life not suck.

You don't say how old your children are. Is the timing on this revelation to your wife, if it occurs, likely to affect whether they are brought up religious, or is that ship sailed now?

Like many of the others, I would advise you to tell your wife, but not necessarily others, at least until it seems more convenient to do so. But it is important that you make it clear to her that you are expressing your own position, and not attempting to convince her of it. As long as that is clear, I think there is no significant danger of losing her. Consider the one friend who already knows; if they did not abandon you over your beliefs, why would your wife do so? On the other hand coming out and openly trying to convert her to atheism is almost certainly a bad idea, and would definitely result in a significant risk of losing her.

Also, I think this situation is quite common in social groups which are strongly religious, and that while you may overestimate the harm that would be done by simply being open with everyone, many of the comments here dramatically underestimate that harm, because most of the commenters were never in such situations in the first place. And I think it is very, very wrong and harmful to suggest "well, if they would react badly, then ** them all, abandon everyone you know and join a new community."

My wife would probably decide to follow me - but there's a chance she might not, and I love her way too much to risk losing her.

I'm just going to focus on this, because if I were in your position it would just loom over everything.

My wife made me swear not to keep secrets from her, because of her personal history with an ex. But even if she hadn't ... that's just too big and too relevant to your relationship. Having a secret like that damages your relationship, even apart from your own painful awareness. It just flies in the face of core values of marriage, or even friendship. It's disrespectful to her.

You have a lot to lose. But you also have a lot to gain, if you can repair this break. Are you (ex-)Christian? If so, she should at least be able to stay married, given what the New Testament says about divorce. Being in open disagreement would feel worse, but I don't think it would actually be worse, it would actually be a closer relationship. And as you imply, that could be temporary. Which means you'd have to listen to her attempts to bring you back into the fold, with a mind as open as you can stretch it, and go over the whole religion question all over again. An ordeal, and a steal at twice the price.

Without knowing the social environment in which you are operating it's hard to tell, but are you really sure you would lose all your friends?

People don't have to follow you. It's quite okay when you believe different things then people around you.

Parmenides, hello.

I am deeply touched by your story. I can't imagine how hard it must be on your place, for which reason I feel I have no right to tell you anything. However, you asked for advice, so here are my 5 cents.

I think that your most urgent moral obligation is towards your children. You shouldn't let them be raised believing in blatant falsehoods. I don't know how old they are which obviously makes a big difference. But I would make deconverting them a priority.

I would seriously consider telling my wife. I'm almost physically incapable of keeping secrets from my wife. I know it would be killing me if I did. But then, I don't know you, your wife or your relationship.

Make atheist friends. I don't know where you live so it's hard to be specific. Is there a LessWrong meetup nearby? Some other atheist community? Atheist people you know from other places: work, schools you went to?

If you want an e-mail friend, feel welcome to write me any time: top.squark@gmail.com.

I wish you the best of luck. I think I don't speak only for myself when I say LessWrong is rooting for you.

Movements like the Brights can give you ideas for your current situation. For an online community of like-minded people (of any faith or none), I recommend Beliefnet.

The standard pledge for people in the rationalist sphere trying to make the world a better place is 10% of income to efficient charities, which if you're making the typical kind of money for this site's demographics, is closer to "token" than "difficult and thankless task", even if it's loads more than most people do.

Personally, my own response was to notice how little guilt I felt for not living up to moral obligations and decide I was evil and functionally become an egoist while still thinking of utilitarianism as "the true morality".

I'm a rationalist, however I don't feel a strong motivation to make the world a better place?

There is no connection between being a rationalist and trying to make the world a better place.

What is a "better place" is a function of your values, anyway. People tend to disagree about that and occasionally go to war to figure out their disagreement :-/

My own desire to "make the world a better place" is rather attenuated, rather local, generally restricted to people I know and like.

In my own case, I have concluded that human morality is purely inherited sentiment. So I do stuff that feels good to me and skip the rest. So I gave $5 and a hamburger to a homeless guy I saw at a fast food place I frequent, but feel no particular desire to identify a charity which is effective at feeding other homeless people. The guy I supported made it to a position in front of my face, which is all I need to get sentimental.

I love my family and my children and my friends. I'll help them with stuff in interesting ways. If you want my help, figure out how to become my friend. Don't try to convince me abstractly that you "deserve" it or that helping you is more "effective" then helping my already fairly well off family and friends.

So yeah, I think it is quite possible to be rational in the sense of wanting to figure out truth from falsehood, and to not be particularly altruistic in an abstract sense.

What you feel is perfectly normal. Humans are not automatically strategic; we use adaptations instead of maximizing values. Think about your brain as a machine built with some heuristics... it works okay on average, in the ancient jungle. Do not overestimate it; it does not have the magical power of doing the right thing. As a rationalist, you should see the limitations of your own mind.

If we want to achieve more, we have to be strategic (or have luck). Find out what realistically motivates you: (1) punishments and rewards, (2) peer pressure. This is your environment. It may support you in your goals, it may actively work against your goals, or it may just move you in a random direction. And you do not have a magical power to overcome that pressure.

All you can do is find a few moments of extraordinary willpower and clearness of mind, and use those moments strategically to (a) steer your life towards a better future, and (b) increase the probability of having these lucid moments in the future. For example, if your environment works against your goals, you may change your environment so it works less against you in the future. Or try to create a habit that would push you in the direction you want to be pushed. If you do it strategically for a longer time, these small changes may add together, and your life may change.

I do recognize making the world a better place a good thing, I just don't feel much intrinsic motivation to actually do it.

This is what a human brain does when it does not receive social rewards (and possibly receives social punishments) for thinking about making the world a better place.

thinking or being told that I'm "obligated" to do something actually decreases my motivation

I guess in the past "being told you are obligated to something" was probably a good predictor of coming punishment (if you fail to fulfill your obligation). Also "obligation" often means that if you do it successfully, you will not receive a reward because, hey, you merely did your duty. Of course you hate these all-pain-no-gain obligations.

I don't see myself being able to do something I really don't enjoy for long enough that it produces meaningful results

That's how human brain is built. You can't enjoy something you don't receive rewards for. The difference between humans is that some of them were trained to give themselves internal rewards for doing some stuff; then they can enjoy doing that stuff even without visible results.

I estimate that I'm more likely to accomplish things with social benefit if I focus on my own needs and wait until I feel inspired to do something for others

...or you could try to create some social reward system. Which is easier said than done, but maybe you could find a group of people with similar goals, tell each other about good stuff you did, and then provide to each other social rewards.

Human brain is designed to work according to some rules. You cannot overcome these rules, but you can try to change your environment so that these rules start working for you instead of against you.

My own position is closer to 'a human making the world a better place is only a reliable task in incremental local ways and inevitably goes wrong at large scales because our world map is inevitiably horribly horribly flawed no matter how hard we try to perfect it outisde extraordinarily narrow areas' than 'not much motivation to do it'. Totally get what you are saying though and it can result in similar results. There are a few simple ways to throw a bit of money around if that exists though (EG givewell) which are exactly such incremental local things.

Incidentally I would actually call for dissensus on how to make the world a better place. The more things people are trying the better the odds that something will actually work and then get picked up on.

If I were to take a reductionalist approach, what's the connection between rationality and making the world a better place.

A few thoughts here:

1. There's a concept called "Right Action" - Acting by using your logic to fulfill your values. We all have things that scare us, bore us , etc, but ultimately you can make the choice to act on what youultimately value. Sometimes, you just choose to do what you think is right, regardless of how you feel.

2. One thing that could help is to remove the word "should" for your mental vocabulary - As per above, every moment is a choice. You get to choose whether to act on what you value. This takes "saving the world" from something that is repelling because of obligation, to something that is compelling because of choice.

3. One other thing that might help is to remove any thoughts of "making the world a better place" out of your mind. This is a huge goal, it's daunting, and it's not actionable. Instead, what might work is to focus on a particular project, and even then, only the very next action to take. I have a long term plan to make the world a better place, but "making the world a better place" almost never enters my day to day thoughts except as a reminder of WHY i'm taking those small, individual actions.

4. Finally, something that's helped me is to think about emotional and willpower sustainability (which you talk about at the very bottom). There's a few things you can do in that regard. Firstly, find a project to focus on that excites you and is mostly work that you enjoy. Secondly, if you're doing something that is boring/scary/unfulfilling to you (as every project sometimes requires) see if you can delegate it. Thirdly, If you can't delegate it, make sure to take breaks and give yourself permission to do things that recharge you.

Human beings derive joy from doing good. Studies on happiness find that this is one of the bigger correlates of happiness. If you're at all normal, there's probably a lot of room for you to do more good and be happier.

As for intrinsic motivation and System I... it's difficult, updating your System I isn't as straightforward as updating your System 2 (aka using evidence to update your beliefs). One day I plan on writing a post about this...

However, there are some things I'd like to note:

I guess in part it's because I expect genuinely trying to improve things (rather than making a token effort) to be a rather difficult and thankless task.

I don't think it's that difficult or thankless (although I'm definitely in the minority here and I don't know anyone as optimistic on this front as I am, so take that for what you will). For example, take this very website/community. There's tons of relatively simple and straightforward improvements that could be made that I think would have a relatively high impact. Like making the website easier to use and including new features. For example, adding a section that makes it easy for LWers to brainstorm and collaborate on projects. That's a high level action that I could see trickling down and having a big impact. And if you're talking "genuinely" as in making fundamental changes to the way things work... I've got some thoughts here.

Also, as far as I can tell, my psychological makeup is such that feeling, thinking or being told that I'm "obligated" to do something actually decreases my motivation. So the idea that "I'm supposed do that because it's the ethical thing to do" doesn't work for me either.

Me too :/. I think that it's easy to give this spite too much weight as you make decisions. To some extent, I think it's ok to "let the spite be". Trying to exert complete control over these sorts of emotions is too stressful. Whatever marginal gains you make in making your emotions "more accurate", it's probably outweighed by the stress it causes. Finding the right balance is difficult though.

I do like the idea of making the world a better place as long as I can do that while doing something that inspires me or that I feel good about doing. Part of the reason, I think, is that I don't see myself being able to do something I really don't enjoy for long enough that it produces meaningful results. So in order for it work, it pretty much has to be something I actually like doing.

I think that you'd be more motivated if a) you thought you had a better chance at succeeding and b) recognized how big an impact altruism probably has on your happiness.

I don't know how to feel about that.

For the record, I admire your honest attempts at introspection and truth.

That's pretty much my attitude as well.

How would you respond if I said I'm a rationalist, however I don't feel a strong motivation to make the world a better place?

With just this information, I'd likely say that being an aspiring rationalist doesn't really have anything to do with your goals, as its mostly about methods of reaching your goals, rather than telling you what your goals should be.

Following it up with this:

To be clear, I do recognize making the world a better place a good thing, I just don't feel much intrinsic motivation to actually do it.

Confuses me a bit, however.

If one of your goals is making the world a better place (that's how I'd rephrase the statement: "I do recognize making the world a better place is a good thing," saying as saying things like "X is good" generally means "X is a desirable state of the world we should strive for), your intrinsic motivation shouldn't matter one bit.

I have little intrinsic motivation of eating healthy. Preparing food is boring to me and I don't particularly enjoy eating most healthy things. I still try to eat healthy, because one of my goals is living for a very, very long time.

I guess in part it's because I expect genuinely trying to improve things (rather than making a token effort) to be a rather difficult and thankless task.

One the one hand: How difficult is it to give 10% (or even 5 or 1 percent, if your income is very low) to an effective charity?

On the other hand: So fucking what? You know how the world becomes a better place? By people doing things that are difficult and thankless because those things need to be done. The world doesn't become a better place by people sitting around waiting for the brief moment of inspiration in which they sorta want to solve a local problem.

Part of the reason, I think, is that I don't see myself being able to do something I really don't enjoy for long enough that it produces meaningful results. So in order for it work, it pretty much has to be something I actually like doing.

This is one of the many reasons why effective altruism works. It allows you to contribute to big problems, while you're doing something you enjoy and are good at.

(Or we can wait for /u/blacktrance to come in and try to convince you that egoism is the right way to go.)

I agree. Given that they had one remaining timeout, the sequence of pass, run (timeout), gave them three chances to score instead of 2.

Still, its quite possible that a less risky throw might have been superior, even if it was lower chance of success.

As it was, that throw was inches away from being the game winning touchdown instead of the game losing interception.

The 538 article is exactly the kind of context-free argument that justly gives 'statistics' and 'rationalism' a bad name. Yes, in game-theoretic terms you want to pass a certain amount of the time. Yes, there is a good argument for calling pass on that specific down. But the issue is not whether 'pass' in the abstract was a good decision, but whether the specific play-calling actions in their particular context were good. And they were not. They were indefensible.

• Firstly, Seattle went out in a 3 WR group, thinking that this would get New England out of goal-line defense (and thus make it easier for the run play). This didn't work, and they were foolish to think it would. This put Seattle in an awkward position where they would either have to run without enough blockers, or put the ball in the hands of poor players.
• Secondly, Seattle ran the play out of the shotgun, making clear their intention to pass. There was no play-action or roll-out. This gives up all the game-theoretic part. If you are going to inform the opponent of your choice, you need to go with your strongest possible choice, whereas...
• Thirdly, Seattle ignored their most favourable matchup. Seattle were the second-best offense in power-rushing playing the worst defense in stopping power runs. And instead...
• Fourthly, Seattle went with a very unfavourable matchup in very unfavourable circumstances. They asked a receiver known for his downfield speed (and not much else) to fight for the ball on the goal-line. With the centre of the field cluttered, and all the defenders short, they called a quick slant into the centre of the field.

Yes, that play normally doesn't result in an interception. Yes, there's an element of bad luck there. But it's also an example of really poor decision-making that ended up with Seattle essentially running the play New England would have chosen for them. They screwed up, and it's embarrassing seeing the lengths people go to to defend the indefensible.

I would recommend this article highly for more depth.

I have always thought that any discussion of sports was sort of a playground for human bias and human error. So much passion for no real purpose. Affiliating with a team? The opposite of taking a principled position.

I guess it never occurred to me before that actually making this thought explicit might be valuable. But since discussion of the pass has reached less wrong, here it is.

All the advice on resisting video games and the like (internet blockers, social support) has been on using tricks of one sort or another to restrict the act, not the desire.

Some advice is about substitution, i.e. you identify the emotional need driving a stubborn behavior, and find a more approved behavior than satisfies the same need.

For me, becoming able to like a new thing seems like a much more positive change than stopping liking an old thing. The latter -- even if it would be beneficial overall -- feels like an impairment, a harm.

If others feel the same way -- I don't know whether they do -- then they would be less inclined to offer advice on how to impair yourself than on how to enlarge your range of pleasures. And if others are expected to feel the same way, advice-givers might refrain from offering advice that would be perceived as "how to impair yourself".

(A perfectly rational agent would scarcely ever want to lose the ability to like something, since that would always lower their utility. The exceptions would be game-theory-ish ones where being known not to like something would help others not fear that they'd seize it. Of course, we are very far from being perfectly rational agents and for many of us it might well be beneficial overall to lose the ability to enjoy clickbait articles or sugary desserts or riding a motorcycle at 100mph.)

For food items you can create distaste by mixing the food item with something that makes you throw up.

Cue Extinction

http://www.asitrainingonline.com/cue-extinction/

On LessWrong, or on blogs by LWers, advice has been given on how to become bisexual, or polyamorous.

That seems like bad advice. Your preferences are what they are. "Giving advice on how to become bisexual, or polyamorous" seems just as bad as "giving advice on how to become heterosexual, or monogamous."

However, there is no advice on LessWrong for how to stop liking something... Are there effective methods of ceasing to enjoy some activity, or of refraining from enjoyable things? What presently enjoyable activities would you use them on?

This does seem like an issue that needs discussion however. I took the hard route myself, but maybe my story is interested. Perhaps later when I have time I can be proded to give an overview of how I transformed my preferences over the last 15 years.

This post seems like a horny teen trying to stop watching porn. Why stop watching porn? Remember to include the middle. Why is the solution that you try new things and play the occasional video game sounds so, uh, what'd-you-call-it, Not-a-solution?

Just write a bunch of stuff that comes into your head and you'll sooner than later have way too much stuff.

I heard something years ago that stuck with me. In an optimum environment, 100% of human variation on everything would be genetic. So if you do everything you can environmentally to improve your kids intelligence, 100% of the variation left must be genetic. Similarly with height, musical ability, etc etc.

So whenever one finds that less than 100% of the variation in some positive trait is genetic, it means at least some of the population is not optimizing the environment to bring out that trait.

Not obviously relevant to the comment above, but on the same topic so I stuck it here.

Is there some reason you consider the anti-vaccination movement as closer to this than any other alternative health movement?

In Pakistan, people are suspicious of health workers because the CIA used vaccination programs as cover stories for their agents.

Some people in Africa say that being vaccinated wreaked havoc on their psychic perception, and advise others not to do it.

Some people are allergic to ingredients used to make vaccines.

Some people object to having a medical procedure forced upon them.

It is tough to track down primary sources of information on this issue. Even if you go to a university library, many of the scientific papers are from an era that has not been digitized. Vaccine manufacturers do not release all of the information that is relevant. Getting enough good information to develop an informed opinion is not as straightforward and easy as one might expect.

People encounter problems in the medical system and do not have their concerns adequately addressed.

There are a variety of reasons that people have reservations about getting vaccinated. I think that to understand this in more depth, thinking of a monolithic "anti-vaccination movement" is probably not going to help.

In other words, it is possible that some people who object to vaccines could be more or less described as "trying to take heroic responsibility without having good judgement" but I don't think that description would be applicable to people who object to vaccines as a whole.

I think most of the people in the anti-vaccination movement have peer that are also in the movement. Going with peer opinion isn't taking heroic responsibility.

I can imagine different people in the anti-vaccination movement having different psychological motives. For some of them, it may be just the "purity" instinct. Others may have studied the topic a lot, unfortunately from bad sources or with bad understanding. (The difference is that the latter could have reached an opposite conclusion if presented with different literature and/or peer pressure, while the former would always opt for "not doing anything against the nature".)

Then it is an empirical question of which ones are how frequent.

Temporal discounting plus low contingency seems like a strong candidate. Parents see a strong immediate negative effect when they give their child the shots. There's a low probability long-term positive effect from receiving the shot. It's a fairly typical reaction to incentives.

This seems reasonable to me for many of the people joining. I'd put religious proselytizers in the same camp.

Two other possible explanations.

I think the anti-abortion movement fits this description quite well in many ways (though obviously this is an even more politically-charged view).

PS. Not in the mood for an abortion debate here/now; sorry in advance for not replying to any comments along debating lines.

What have you already tried? What hasn't worked in those approaches?

The obvious suggestion is going to (or starting) a local Less Wrong meetup. They're a good way to meet people who can become your "tribe."

Another option (and one that worked very well for me for quite a while) was to move most of my in-group needs online. I don't make a strong distinction between cyberspace and meatspace friendships, so this worked out pretty well. The "bonobo rationalists" of tumblr have a skype group that has general conversation, if you need something to try out.

What is important to keep in mind is that "having a tribe," means that most of your interactions will (and maybe should?) be trivial and banal. You need to build a rapport with the people, so that your brain will more readily accept their praise and advice.

A mental health professional that get's angry at you for pointing out that some advice doesn't work is either unskilled or is using anger as an alternative strategy to create pressure to change.

I'm myself not a mental health professional but do have quite a bit of coaching training and would never get angry at someone for him finding advice not useful. It's not even in my reservoir of choices if I think it would be helpful.

Unfortunately I don't think that a majority of academically trained psychologists have enough control over their own emotions to not get angry for bad reasons and go into self-justification.

I don't know whether your state reaches depression but to the extend that it does exercise is very important. Do you do exercise?

After exercise the second highest rated intervention on curetogether is to spend time with a pet. In the absence of human interaction, a dog can fill some of that niche. It can give you the feeling that there somebody who accepts you like you are.

Otherwise find a tribe. LW meetups are good. Joining a sports team is also good.

Why do you find it hard to meet like-minded people? Have you tried meetup.com? The only solution to not having a group of people you like is to meet more people. You're certainly not lacking for options. It sounds like you just need a better searching method.

Edit: I don't live in the US (I feel this is worth sharing because it affects the advice/options available).

Where are you from?

I'm not sure how useful the question is (but I'm still curious how people with that particular experience might answer). From my discussions on polyamory with people who are polyamorous, it seems to be rather like an orientation. Some people are only happy in polyamorous relationships, others are only happy in monogamous relationships, while still others don't have a strong preference. A person with a strong preference for polyamory would likely be unsatisfied with a monogamous relationship, while someone with a monogamous preferences would be happy to not be polyamorous anymore.

What I'm trying to say is: This is a bit like asking: What is the effects of experimenting with sexual intercourse with people of the same sex on later satisfaction with sexual intercourse with people of a different sex? The answer's going to vary widely depending on whether people are homo-, bi-, or heterosexual.

I don't think there are enough people who have tried it and then gone back to being monogamous for there to be a consensus - but there are a few people who have, for example, Patri Friedman.

I would guess that these people will find monogamy more satisfying after going back to it.

For me, it's made me more able to cope with all sorts of issues, a better communicator etc, but didn't change overall satisfaction secondary to those effects.

Question seconded.

Something to think about:

Although the rate of polyamory within the LW-space is higher than in the general populace (IIRC, last survey had ~15% poly, ~30% unsure, >50% monogamous within LW), the rate of cheating among ostensible monogamists is quite high in the general population — and possibly also within LW as well.

(We shouldn't assume that LWers are more fundamentally honest than everyone else.)

Depend on how you feel about anthropically selfish preferences, and altruistic preferences that try to satisfy other peoples' selfish preferences. I, for instance, do not think it's okay to kill a copy of me even if I know I will live on.

In the earth-mars teleporter thought experiment, the missing piece is the idea that people care selfishly about their causal descendants (though this phrase is obscuring a lot of unsolved questions about what kind of causation counts). If the teleporter annihilates a person as it scans them, the person who get annihilated has a direct causal descendant on the other side. If it waits ten minutes, gives the original some tea and cake, and then annihilates them, the person who gets annihilated has no direct causal descendant - they really are getting killed off in a way that matters more to them than before.

Isn't all this just punning on definitions? If the particle velocities in a gas are Maxwell-Boltzmann distributed for some parameter T, we can say that the gas has "Maxwell-Boltzmann temperature T". Then there is a separate Jaynes-style definition about "temperature" in terms of the knowledge someone has about the gas. If all you know is that the velocities follow a certain distribution, then the two definitions coincide. But if you happen to know more about it, it is still the case that almost all interesting properties follow from the coarse-grained velocity distribution (the gas will still melt icecubes and so on), so rather than saying that it has zero temperature, should we not just note that the information-based definition no longer captures the ordinary notion of temperate?

At least if you are talking about Physics, whether you know the position and velocity of every atom in a system or not is irrelevant to what its temperature is. The point of thermodynamics is that under a broad range of conditions, there are statistical quantities which are predictable, such as the average kinetic energy of components after "enough" time has passed (enough time to reach thermal equilibrium in a given experiment),and of course it is not only the average kinetic energy, but the distribution of energies which are known.

There may be interesting or even amusing information theoretic senses in which tracking the microscopic details can be said to have zero entropy, but these do not impact the physics of the system. IF the system is one in which the conditions for thermal equilibrium being reached are there, then we will be able to predict the same distribution of kinetic energies in the system whether or not we are tracking every single molecules velocities and positions, or not.

As to whether or not a 0 K ice cube will melt, it will melt if your put it in contact with a gas that has enough kinetic energy in it such that when that energy is divided by all the molecules in the system, the average energy per molecule is greater than k*274 K where k is boltzmann's constant. Your detailed knowledge of every molecules position and velocity will not stop the ice cube from transitioning to its liquid state as kinetic energy from the gas is transferred into the ice cube.

NO matter how entertaining alternative definitions of entropy and temperature might be, they are completely irrelevant to the time-evolution of liquids, gases, and solids interacting under the conditions in which they are described to good accuracy by thermodynamics. There is nothing arbitrary or "in the mind' about thermodynamics, it is a simplified map of a large range of real situations, a map whos accuracy is not affected by having additional knowledge of the terrain being mapped.

Nope, sorry.

Also, I still don't buy the claim about the temperature. You said in the linked comment that putting a known-microstate cup of tea in contact with an unknown-microstate cup of tea wouldn't really be thermal equilibrium because it would be "not using all the information at your disposal. And if you don't use the information it's as if you didn't have it."

If I know the exact state of a cup of tea, and am able to predict how that state will evolve in the future, the cup of tea has zero entropy.

Then suppose I take a glass of water that is Boltzmann-distributed. It has some spread over possible microstates - the bigger the spread, the higher entropy (And also temperature, for Boltzmann-distributed things).

Then you put the tea and the water in thermal contact. Now, for every possible microstate of the glass of water, the combined system evolves to a single final microstate (only one, because you know the exact state of the tea). The combined sytem is no longer Boltzmann in either subsytem, and has the same entropy as the original glass of water, just moved into different microstates.

Note that it didn't matter what the water's temperature was - all that mattered was that the tea's distribution had zero entropy. The fact that there has been no increase in entropy is the proof that all the information has been used. If the water had the same average energy as the tea, so that no macroscopic amount of energy was exchanged, then these thing would be in thermal equilibrium by your standards.

The lesson is that statistical methods are superfluous if you know everything with certainty. It's worth noting that classical mechanics is completely symmetric with respect to time (does not have a distinguished "arrow of time"), whereas thermodynamics has a definite arrow of time. You run into problems if you assume that everything behaves classically and try to apply thermodynamic notions.

Landau and Lifshitz's Statistical Physics has some discussion of issues with entropy.

I'm pretty sure Manfred is right. You drop a block of ice of unknown configuration into a cup of tea of known configuration, then your uncertainty about the system will grow over time. Of course entropy != temperature. You coudl say that the tea has zero entropy, but not zero temperature.

But what's the point of this thought exercise?

That depends what vaccines you got as a child. In the States, the HPV and MVC4 vaccines are normally given after age eight, along with tetanus booster shots every decade or so, but I have no idea how Europeans do it.

It's something to ask a real doctor, but I do think it'd be worth asking -- assuming a similar schedule, there's a good chance you missed a couple of shots, and you're certainly due for a tetanus booster.

HPV vaccination is important, especially as men are the carrier-transmitters.

"Worthwhile" implies cost-benefit analysis. What's the cost to you? In the U.S., if you have health insurance, vaccinations are typically covered. So the cost is pretty much an hour or so of your time and some minor discomfort.

This question makes no sense for vaccination "in general" -- each vaccination against a specific disease is its own separate decision driven, I guess, by how likely do you think you'll find yourself exposed to these specific pathogens.

You shouldn't be worried. Because of the low low energy of radio waves, all chemical transitions they could cause in your body are already happening due to random thermal motion.

If the amplitude is high enough, though, radio waves can still move ions around. So it's possible that standing next to an AM antenna would have some psychoactive effects, similar to transcranial magnetic or DC stimulation (though the existence of a similar effect for RF, that shows up before the heat input becomes dangerous, is far from certain). But these would be be chemical changes and have nothing to do with cancer.

Also, you're totally right about radio waves warming things up.

The question is too general. If you find yourself in front of a microwave antenna dish, yes, you should be very much concerned about RF radiation X-D and there's not much doubt about that.

The cell-phones-cause-brain-cancer scare was successfully debunked, wasn't it?

I would people to drive cars unrestricted. If I find that people are using cars significantly more dangerously than they should, I'd require insurance. If there is public outcry regardless of insurance (perhaps due to people considering life to be a sacred value, and there being lives lost), I'd put a price floor on insurance.

Probably not the way it's done in the USA (from what I gather, drivers' licences are basically being handed out like candy), but the way it's handled in most European countries - requiring comprehensive education, practical exercise and independent examination on trafic laws, behaving in traffic and operating a car. The one thing we can learn from the US, though, is the absolute stigma against drunk driving, which is just not present to that extent. If cars were invented today, that's the one thing that'd probably change mechanically - a simple suite of sensors and a switch that shuts the engine down and engages the parking brake if the driver is drunk, fatigued or otherwise impaired.

It would depend on how bad travel was without cars yesterday. Historically, it was horses which must have been really bad. I think if they knew back then about speeds, traffic, and conditions they still would have done it. Parts of China and India have proved it quite recently (last 50 years).

Now if we had most people in high density housing, good transport (both public and private), and online ordering/delivery then maybe cars would be very restricted.

False: There are no $20 bills lying on the ground because someone would have picked them up already.

True: If there are a lot of people scanning the ground with high-powered money detectors, you are not going to find enough $20 bills with your naked eye to make a living on.

I don't believe in the strong form of the efficient market hypothesis. (I agree with some weaker versions of it).

If all humans made all investing decisions from a perfectly rational state, then the efficient market hypothesis would probably hold true, but in reality people sometimes become either overly confident or overly fearful, creating opportunities to exploit them by being more rational.

That said, in order to beat the market you must be better than the average participant (which is a high bar), and you must be enough better that you overcome trading fees. This is similar to playing poker, you must be significantly better than the average of the other players at the table in order to beat both them and the rake.

For the average person, the advice to simply buy index funds with a portion of every paycheck is the advice that will bring them the most utility, and one could be considered to be doing them a service by convincing them that the efficient market hypothesis was true, even if it isn't.

My family has been investing for as far back as anyone can remember, and consistently beating the market for as far back as anyone can remember. Hell, my mother compares herself to the indices -- which makes perfect sense: if you're not beating the S&P 500, you may as well just buy whatever is on that. She's not buying whatever is on that.

We have methods that have been handed down for as far back as anyone can remember, supplemented by the books that back up our methods, some of which are about exploiting systemic holes in the way large funds work -- relative legibility, inability of large funds to invest in small companies, etc.

So no.

(Disclaimer: I haven't invested at all because I don't have the money to. Once I have a regular and sufficiently large income, I plan to stick it in an index fund until I've joined an investment club, spent several years studying the methods, etc., and only start picking stocks after that.)

As Lumifer says, the truth value of the EMH depends on the exact formulation, and there are several variations even within the typical 'strong/semi-strong/weak' divisions.

But let me put it this way - I don't take people who argue against the weak-form EMH seriously, unless they own a yacht.

While we're here: How do real-world incentive structures interact with the EMH?

In the same way that "No one was ever fired for buying IBM", is it true that "No one was ever fired for selling when everyone else was"? And would that mean someone without these external social incentives will have an edge on the market? For example, what about a rule like "put money into an index fund whenever the market went down for X consecutive days and everyone is sufficiently gloomy"?

The so-called "weak efficient market hypothesis" is more-or-less correct. The "strong efficient market hypothesis" falls apart once you attempt to taboo "efficient".

Another way to phrase this is that in some strict sense market "inefficiencies" exist, finding them is a hard problem. (The general case of this problem is NP-hard.)

It's debated occasionally. I don't think there is a consensus on LW.

It might be useful for you to distinguish various forms of EMH (e.g. strong, semi-strong, and weak). Many people hold different opinions about different forms.

https://intelligence.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/01-16-2014-conversation-on-existential-risk.pdf is a discussion between Eliezer, Holden and Luke where Holden argues for thinking about Global Catastrophic Risks instead of xrisks.

preventing death from disease is not a terminal goal for him; it's sacrificeable

You're using a wrong framework which assumes that in every choice there must be only one terminal goal, if you sacrifice anything that sacrifice is not terminal.

A more useful framework would recognize that there is a network of terminal (and other) goals and that most decisions involve trade-offs. It's very common to give up a measure of satisfaction of some terminal goals in order to achieve satisfaction of other terminal goals.

In this specific case, trading off death from disease against government intrusion sounds like a normal balance to me -- your choice is a function of your values and how much death prevention you get/avoid in exchange for how much of government intrustion. In specific situations I can see myself leaning either this way or that way.

I find your worry over the trade-off between terminal goals worrying :-P

Are you worried about his ethics or is he making a mistake in logic?

The columnist says "This opinion is not immoral. Such choices are inevitable. They are made all the time." Is that the part you disagree with?

Well, first you have to know how to start a society in the first place.

Similar to the fraternal organizations, like the Freemasons or Oddfellows?

How does this differ from the rationalization game?

Similarly to political topics, label "PUA" refers to a diverse set of beliefs and techniques. In such situations, humans have an instinct to choose one of the following options: "accept all beliefs" or "reject all beliefs" (internally represented as "the label is good" or "the label is bad"). Therefore whenever we start debating the topic, it quickly becomes a debate about whether PUAs are good or bad.

To prove that PUAs are good: select one belief that makes sense, preferably one that many people ignore. Then say "this is the real PUA".

To prove that PUAs are bad: select one belief that seems harmful and is offensive to many people. Then say "this is the real PUA".

We have already played a few rounds of this game, and it wasn't productive.

Maybe not make a post titled "How to fuck hot bitches", but rather "Overcoming anxiety using rationality".

Plenty of people here engage with the topic more deeply and it's not the headline matters.

As far as those two go, if the goal is to overcome anxiety than the highly anxiety inducing activity of cold approaching woman in bars, likely isn't the most straightforward way to do so. You find that sentiment even from people like Tucker Max.

If your target is anxiety you could go and take a message workshop. There are also plenty other options.