on-what-matters

[on-what-matters]

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη

Death, where is thy sting? Hades, where is thy victory?

[on-what-matters]

i don't like bodybuilding because i have the intuition that vanity and a focus on appearance more gennerally is a vice.

(although i don't hold this view sufficently strongly that i'd try to make people stop body building if i thought that this would predictably increase their welfare measured hedonically or my their preferenaces)

[on-what-matters]

i think ocd requires something like the vitue of faith

[on-what-matters]

i'm also worried that i'm like unwilling to consider the arguments for rational egoism because i lack the courage to do what's right if it does turn out to be correct because so much of my identiy and community is built around a commitment to contributing to the common good.

in some sense though i think that this disproves rational egoism - i wouldn't be willing to exploit my friends or my community if it was true because it would be a beytrayal

[on-what-matters]

feeling very attracted to the idea of heroic compassion again - i think this is probably a bad sign evidentially (although not causally.)

but i really have sacrificed things for the common and that really does come with a cost and rational egoism really might be true and i'd have made an important mistake and signifgant personal cost. but we just have to choose who we are.

[on-what-matters]

parfit's argument against rational egoism with the more minimal present desire theory is really brilliant - this just is a coherent theory that's clearly incorrect and this does seem to effectively defeat rational egoism as an a posteroi nesscarry truth as the answer to moore's open question.

slightly worried that writing this is a compulsion

[on-what-matters]

I have ocd lol

Ok so i've been really worried about rational egoism, and I'm now pretty sure that this is an ocd type way rather in a real way, because i have desire to go over an argument i think goes through in way that looks like a compulsion.

[on-what-matters]

Feeling useless and self-hating

I don't know I don't think I have anything useful or interesting to say on this.

[on-what-matters]

soldier

soldier

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Ruthless, relentless.

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it is my duty to be happy

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soldier

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Strength and courage

Strength and courage

[on-what-matters]

How I fail

I fail by having my agency - both my goals and my beliefs, the core of acting as a person with goals in the world - destroyed by OCD.

In short, I need to be Chidi from season 4 and not season 1.

Facing enormous stakes with courage and clarity.

[on-what-matters]

Uncomfortable incentives

In some sense, the easy option is to be maximally ea and this makes me suspicious of it, I think correctly.

I also happen to think it's the morally correct option.

This seems like it should be a good thing - in general, I want private and social incentives to align, but in practice, I'm finding it stressful for the vague reason that it makes me question the authenticity of my self and my actions.

[on-what-matters]

The virtues of bravery and strength

For the first time in my life, I’m facing challenges which require the virtues of bravery and strength. I’m used to facing challenges of conscientiousness, determination, kindness, self-control, intellect. 

I’m not not used to facing challenges of bravery and strength. 

Bravery because the risks of AI are real. There could be very large personal costs to my actions, but they are worth it for the same reasons that helping others is always worth it. I will die and this is extremely concerning, and made all the more concerning by the fact that I may, inadvertently, bring about my own death. The response must be one of bravery in the face of fear, and courge to do the right thing. 

Strength because the temptation is to yield to the delusions of mental illness. It is tempting because in some sense I really believe them despite, intellectually, knowing that the track record of my worries of terrible things happening that well informed others say are fine is extremely poor. As a forecasting matter, I’m confident that I’d perform extremely poorly if I used this as a model. The outside view, that I did not, in fact, have jaundice, was correct. 

Not falling to these beliefs requires the virtue of strength. 

This is a particularly hard virtue to embody because it feels like, from the inside, not doing the thing that’s my edge - systematically investigating hypothesis and instead just ignoring evidence that feels compelling to me. Bayesian for limited creatures such as ourselves is a fine art and sometimes requires acting on a theory of the second best.  

I sort of lack a cultural script to follow in drawing upon these virtues. There are lots of cultural scripts for the importance of working hard, for the importance of day-to-day kindness, the importance of self-control. I can find as many youtube videos as a want for how to become more continenous, but many fewer for how to be brave when you must do the right thing but you’re afraid, and afraid of something real. In this arena fiction and history provide me with more help than do contemporary cultural scripts.

There are more cultural scripts more cultivating strength - in some sense all of CBT looks like this. 

It’s so easy to recognise warped beliefs from the outside, and so difficult to do when inside them.

[on-what-matters]

I'm willing to suffer

I'm willing to suffer to help others.

Death takes my welfare to zero.

I'm willing to die to help others.

I shouldn't be afraid of death - zero welfare is fine.