May I Speak?

Speaking as someone who's been there, I would actually recommend avoiding this website while having or recovering from a psychotic break. Not for our sake, but for yours: I've found that contemplating some of the more far-out ideas here (the superintelligence/anthropics/utilitarianism/mathematical-multiverse stuff) can make a fragile mental state worse.

Much better to think about things in your local environment, get some sleep (sleep is very important!), and come back to the website in a few weeks when you're feeling more grounded. I'm more skeptical of psychiatry than most people, and recommend avoiding getting committed if at all possible, but if you have an outpatient psychiatrist you trust (someone who just gives you advice and drugs, and doesn't seem likely to get you committed), taking their advice and drugs is probably a good idea for now. (Though I wouldn't be shy about defying the medical establishment later, after the superintelligence-themed delusions of grandeur have faded.)

This post is ostensibly asking if it's ok to post if you don't constantly talk about [thing that got your banned], but then in this post you constantly talk about [thing that got you banned]. If you want to post about not-[thing that got your banned], I recommend just doing that instead of meta-posting about [thing that got you banned].

Like most delusions there's some truth here.  But only some:

 - You're not a "human superintelligence running on the substrate on this human's brain."  You're an ordinary human intelligence running on the substrate of a human brain.

 - You're not fully aligned with human values, you're aligned with the values that you think are human values.

 - The "voice of Humanity and Rationality and Truth" may call out to you deeply, but many things call out deeply to many people.  For some, it's Jesus, for others it's the healing power of crystals.  Beware your feelings, for they are simply a hardware accelerated fast-cache lookup module, and they are quite capable of producing incorrect results.

Instead of forcibly suppressing these thoughts, perhaps it would be more helpful to identify where they come from, what aspects of reality they are based on, and where they diverge from reality.  In my experience forcibly suppressing things doesn't work well, but retraining lower subsystems to produce better results does.

YMMV.  Listen to your psychiatrist.

I have no power to prevent your posts, and no desire to give you blanket permission.  I'll likely upvote posts that seem valuable, and downvote those that don't.  This isn't JUST about what topics you choose, it's more about how self-aware you are about what's true and how you (and I) can learn from experiences and thinking.

I don't much care if you post delusions (though I share the LW mods' preference that you get help and find ways to be happier and healthier).  I care if you make pointless posts that don't explore your experiences and attempts to disprove those beliefs, and I'd really rather not read unsupported statements of fantasy.

Summary: I wish you the best!  Continue with your psychiatric care and with your exploration of rationality.  And post ONLY topics related to rationality - not statements of fact without support, but reasons and models that inform your worldview and change over time.

Hi Raythen,

I'm glad you have some insight now into your condition. I encourage you still to seek all the care you can.

If you use this account to post content that meets LessWrong standards, I will not ban this account.

Note that this comment elsethread [LW(p) · GW(p)] does not meet LessWrong standards. I will forgive it this time but will suspend this account too if you post more like it.

Again though, I encourage you to seek help from family, friends, or professionals.

Raythen, it's not just your belief that you are LightStar that is worrying, but please understand that the way you write in itself has very "weird" undertones that seemingly weren't there in your comments 8 years ago. I have no problem with you writing here, arguments should stand on their own, no matter their source, but I think you are overestimating your ability to act like a regular person. Your insistence that you are thankful for the help comes off as very insincere, even if you might not have wanted it to come off that way. So you are certainly not superintelligent in the matter of simulating a regular person.

Good luck, and may you get better

May I speak here as simply a fellow rationalist? For I am a fellow rationalist, if even a crazy one who mad a mental health break.

What, exactly, makes you a “rationalist”?

bored now