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> to make people question their moral beliefs instead of accepting their instinct Yes every genius 20 year old wants to break down other peoples' moral beliefs
by sixo 2y ago
> to make people question their moral beliefs instead of accepting their instinct
Yes every genius 20 year old wants to break down other peoples' moral beliefs, because it's the most validating feeling in the world to change someone's mind. From the other side, this looks like, quoting OP:
> you'd be trying to convince them to replace their moral beliefs with yours in order to win an argument by tricking them with logic.
And feels like:
> pressuring someone into changing their mind is not okay; it's a basic act of disrespect.
And doesn't work, instead:
> Anyway it's a temporary and false victory: theirs will re-emerge years later, twisted and deformed from years of imprisonment, and often set on vengeance.
- sodality2 2y ago> Yes every genius 20 year old wants to break down other peoples' moral beliefs, because it's the most validating feeling in the world to change someone's mind I may be putting my hands up in surrender, as a 20 year old (decidedly not genius though). But I'm instead defending this belief, not trying to convince others. Also, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to have people question their preconceived moral notions. I've taken ethics classes in college and I personally loved having them challenged.
- sixo 2y agoha, got one. Yes it is pretty fun if you're in the right mental state for it, I've just seen so many EA-type rationalists out on the internet proliferating this worldview, and often pushing it on people who a) don't enjoy it, b) are threatened by it, c) are underequipped to defend themselves rationally against it, that I find myself jumping to defend against it. EA-type utilitarianism, I think, proliferates widely on the internet specifically by "survival bias"—it is easily-argued in text; it looks good on paper. Whereas the "innate" morality of most humans is more based on ground-truth emotional reality; see my other comment for the character of that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42174022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42174022
- sodality2 2y agoI see, and I wholly agree. I'm looking at this from essentially the academic perspective (aka, when I was required to at least question my innate morality). When I saw this blog post, I looked at it in the same way. If you read it as "this charity is more useful than every other charity, we should stop offering soup kitchens, and redirect the funding to the SWP", then I disagree with that interpretation. I don't need or want to rationalize that decision to an EA. But it is a fun thought experiment to discuss.