it's like the old "rationalists should have secret identities" - if you're in the job of going meta real hard on human nature or w/e you still need an object-level pursuit that grounds and tests your insights and i don't really know where to look for that yet
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This has been on my mind a ton recently, too. The old "rationalists should win" thing. While there's lots that's bad about that meme, there's also something to it.
Developing skills that widen the scope of fun and creation and joy we can experience seems like one good grounding
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yes haha a lot of this is an elaboration on "rationalists should win"
like agh if we think we're so right about everything let's use it to make our lives amazing already
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Totally!! The big question mark is how do we moneymake with it?
Seems like a good thing to do is to come to an understanding, at least tentative, of what we believe is Definitely Valuable. Then see if we can monetize providing that
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Ironically I kinda see coaching in this light, though only if people end up better off in a real way. Then defining that still feels a little tricky, like maybe I'd have to understand the nature of the Good fully to know what "in a real way" means
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There is something here that feels fraught and really worth examining.
For ex: seems strange NOT to acknowledge that greater life satisfaction, ease, relaxation are intrinsic goods, yet if they come at the expense of generativity and engagement-with-the-world seems wirehead-y
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So what do, since because of this there *does* seem to be a risk of wireheadiness with offering coaching or circling?
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there's a bit where says explicitly "All things being equal, human beings are ridiculously ANTI-wireheading" and i've been chewing on this
wireheading is not actually the failure mode i'm worried about with coaching etc, it's something a bit different
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i think helping people feel happier etc. is actually highly compatible with increasing their engagement with the world, certainly i myself have been most engaged with the world when i felt the happiest
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what i'm worried about is the possibility of sort of generating self-reinforcing loops - like spreading a coaching philosophy that makes people feel good by giving them hope in various ways but isn't necessarily conducive to like the broader human project in some sense
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or e.g. like creating a "circling ecosystem" that's people running circling workshops which inspire other people to run circling workshops etc. and similarly with people running meditation trainings that inspire other people to run meditation trainings etc.
i think we have enough evidence now from case studies to tentatively conclude that "closed-loop meditation" is a real thing, that people can teach a style that damages people in subtle ways and still manages to produce a large ecosystem. real worried about that sort of thing
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I actually want to point out a further subtlety I see here.
Is this circling ecosystem thing so very different from a "guitar ecosystem" for example? In a post-scarcity world, maybe a good part of what we'd do would be of this form: transient creative acts
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Yeah, absolutely! I worry about this, too. And I get the sense this thing is actually pretty fundamental to the problem of "making money in ways that aren't terrible"
A lot of ways that money is made actually seem very much like this to me!
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As one example: people demand more streaming at least partly (I suspect, could be projecting, probably am in part) because they're so tired from working full-time jobs. Not *exactly* circularity but if we elaborated it more we might see the circle explicitly
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Totally agreed re apps lmao
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I've had the same worry. And I'm really confused about how to think about it, since just going endlessly meta feels like a real risk but then e.g. "raising children" is also kinda meta (just boosting someone else) but also obviously real?
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children are grounding because they're born perfect beautiful animals before we fuck em up!
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