When is Winning not Winning?

Azathoth should probably link here. I think using our jargon is fine, but links to the source help keep it discoverable for newcomers.

"You win the game you are playing"

Play the right game.

Could you please include a summary of what goes on in the video? That would make it easier for those of us who can read but not listen (noisy room and all that).

One's concept of "winning" comes from Azathoth. There's no avoiding that. However, not everything from Azathoth is a bad thing, so I doubt that your real objection is that we follow an evolved morality. Is this an accurate interpretation of what you're saying?

"Often, the 'rational' choice for agents is to defect in Prisoner's Dilemma-type situations. Those that do are rewarded, but their actions are a net negative for society. Despite this, we say that those who do antisocial things are winning, while those that do prosocial things are not winning. Shouldn't we reward those who sacrifice their own personal goals to help the group?"

This is why I have much lower expectations for individual rationality than group rationality. Sometimes, strong individual rationality in a low rationality population can't really do better than implementing solutions like defecting in a tragedy of the commons that a more rational group could have avoided in the first place.

I'm confused about your opening statement regarding 'different rules apply to the elite class.' Drug usage is not limited to the upper class, nor is admitting that you've used drugs limited to the upper class either. Obama could have hardly been called elite when he was using drugs, and barely even when he was writing that book. My friends and acquaintances are equally open about their past drug use.

To put it more succinctly, he was treated the same way most lower class drug users are. They receive no punishment and eventually grow up and do fine in life.

Your paragraph on 'Obama Winning, Penn is not' is similarly confusing. Obama is the President of the USA and presumably sitting on the hugest pile of utility on earth, but Penn Jillette is exceedingly rich sitting atop an estimated $175 million net worth. By my estimation, both are winning.

I ask the OP: Have you read the meta-ethics sequence? It answers many of your questions.

Other than that, your title is misleading and your post can be summarized as "society sucks because humans are stupid." If you care, look into raising the sanity waterline.

"Winning" means achieving your goals. It doesn't mean optimizing society unless optimizing society fits into your utility function. If you value hedonism above all, then you win by experiencing pleasure. Its generally agreed here that hedonism alone is insufficient for achieving happiness. You say that resources are wasted on status games instead of making things "better". What does "better" mean? "Better" for who? Rationalism is NOT about holding onto moral obligations. It is about eliminating cognitive flaws so as to improve your ability as an agent to achieve your goals. What you are essentially arguing here is that certain values are somehow inferior to others because they do not correspond to your sense of ethics.

I can feel this post triggering a little BlueVsGreen thinking habits. Instead I'm going to attempt to stay Bruce Banner, and simply ask for clarification, but if my comments appear frustrated/insulting- please forgive me.

Can someone, OP or otherwise, explain to me, directly, the connection being made between Penn's rant and rationalists loving hedonism? Even if I accept each assertion, the materials don't construct a train-track capable of being traveled for my brain:

• What does Penn's rant have to do with the nature of the goals we choose and should choose?
• Winning short term goals can be destructive to long term goals; I got it. Again though, not seeing the connection to prior prior paragraphs. The seduction of short term, even wanting seemingly human-long(years) instead of generations-long goals. Got it. Important topic. However, again: how does this relate to previous paragraphs of Obama/Penn/society/elites/etc?

My inklings-

• There is a lot of talk about Penn- or is this a hidden discussion of high-utility Obama and HIS hedonistic behavior? Not accusing, but when I supported a color team, I found it difficult to directly associate faults the team leader.
• Am I over analyzing due to repeated pattern-exposure/anchoring to difficult not-how-homo-sapians-were-evolved-to-think bias Articles of Truth+3? Should this instead be taken as a loose interior monologue to explain how one event (the video) sparked a series of associations to bring up a topic worthy of further discussion (devilish attraction of short-term/winnable goals)?

Again, ending topic is very worthy of discussion- but I'm not seeing how it fits together

Edit: fixed link error with a bigger error, then fixed again.

Rationality doesn't tell you what to care about. It can tell you how to be the best paperclip-maximiser equally well. "Winning" depends on what you care about; and most of us do care about the fate of society, not just maximising our own wealth and status. So being a hedonist wouldn't necessarily be "winning".

What is a problem is forgetting that you care about long-term things, or far away people. So we certainly do need to be on guard against short-termism, and if "winning" connotes focussing on short-term benefit to you, then perhaps that's an argument to stop using the word. But it's not a deep problem.

"Winning" refers to making progress towards whatever goals you set for yourself. Rationality can help you achieve your goals but - unless you'res suffering from akrasia - offers little guidance in figuring out what goals you should have.

I only have far goals to get more of my near goals at some point.

It seems the majority of people who disagree with this post do so on the basis of rationality being a tool for achieving ends, but not for telling you what ends are worth achieving.

I disagree. As is written, "The Choice between Good and Bad is not a matter of saying 'Good!' It is about deciding which is which." And rationality can help to decide which is which. In fact without rationality you are much more likely to be partially or fully mistaken when you decide.

What does "better" mean? "Better" for who?

That's part of the question we're trying to answer. As for the "for who" part I would answer with "ideally, all sentient beings."

Winning is achieving your ends, not achieving them better than the other guy achieves his.

Also, I'd suggest that you'd improve your analysis if you stopped anthropomorphizing society.

And you should also distinguish between instrumental and epistemic rationality, which I think a lot of people around here should do more of as well. One sense of Rationalists Should Win is I want to Win, and don't want any part of a Rationality that makes me lose. Another sense is Epistemic Rationality helps you Win, which is usually true, but I'm against making a fetish of Epistemic Rationality and treating it as synonymous with Winning.