7.0 KiB
"On Self-delusion and Bounded Rationality" or "Weren't we just talking about rational horror stories?"
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Author: u/ArgentStonecutter Emergency Mustelid Hologram*
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URL: http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/selfdelusion.html
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Score: 24
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Created: 2015-07-21T02:02:15
Post:
Comments:
u/None [+9] (an hour later)
[deleted]
u/None [+12] (12 hours later)
She is a Straw Vulcan. That's her thing. And her life goes to shit, because anyone with the compulsion to actually act like a Straw Vulcan has serious issues.
u/None [+7] (14 hours later)
[removed]
u/sir_pirriplin [+3] (14 hours later)
It doesn't say who is check-mating who. Maybe some chess players lose interest when they find out they will win for sure?
u/Chronophilia [+2] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
That was my interpretation. If the game is solved, it's not interesting to keep playing it. What does it matter whether you win or lose?
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
Straw Vulcan is when you use an extremely "logical" character to show that emotion is better than logic. That's not really the point of this story; that passage is used to show social maladjustment more than to say anything about rationality.
u/None [+10] (2 hours later)
[deleted]
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
Yeah, I almost put it down for that reason. I mostly kept reading because the title said it was horror story. (Which I agree with. I enjoyed it as such.)
u/None [+1] (12 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Transfuturist [+2] Carthago delenda est. (18 hours later)
pls delete dup
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
Thanks, got it.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a minute later)
Ah yes, there it is...
u/None [+4] (12 hours later)
That last section reminded me disturbingly of people I know.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+4] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (13 hours later)
Horrifying, isn't it?
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est. (14 hours later)
By the end of class, it wasn't only sapphire donut-holes that had broken loose in my mind and fallen into a new equilibrium. I never was bat-mitzvahed.
I'm not sure if the "omni" trio is canon in Judaism, but why does she lose her faith entirely because "must be electromagnetism lol" when it could easily have been "hashem did it lol"? It would be no stretch for her to view it as god specifying physics to not work conventionally in the tablets.
The first assures him, in so many words, that she won't cheat on, desert, or cuckold him—but the second can produce evidence that she's incapable of these acts.
And then certain magical fetishes come about...
"Right, but if the only reason it works is that you believe it works, then how can it work if you know it only works because you believe it works?"
Well, looking it up for once certainly disillusioned me of the possibility.
At Shannon's party I downed four glasses of wine, about five more than the number to which my brain is habituated.
Well that explains it. Her brain is naturally producing Klatchian coffee! Perhaps she's a parallel descendant of Samuel Vimes?
I need a substance that will cause permanent brain damage, not just a temporary impairment
...Oh dear.
Once I knew how to look, I started encountering evidence all about me for the reality of the Nonphysical Plane.
kek
Deepak Chopra
AAAAAAAAA
[done]
Well, there's a fetish for that too, but this wasn't really written in that sense.
u/notmy2ndopinion [+3] Concent of Saunt Edhar (14 hours later)
Two cars race toward each other on an empty freeway; the first to swerve is the chicken. How should you play if you want to preserve both your status and your life? The answer is clear: in full view of your opponent, rip out your car's steering wheel, blindfold yourself, down a bottle of Jack Daniels, scream. If you can persuade your opponent that you're incapable of making the decision to swerve, then he has to swerve. In other words: the stupider, more ignorant, more irrational you can prove you are, the better the chance you have of winning. How much of human life follows the same pattern?
Great quote. Is this original or is it from something else?
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (15 hours later)
I don't have my copy on hand, but I believe the core concept was first laid out by Thomas Schelling in "Strategy of Conflict" (circa 1960). It might have been Bertrand Russell (around the same time) if it wasn't Schelling. The wording would be different, but not by much; "chicken" is one of the classic games in game theory.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (15 hours later)
"It's hard to collect a refund if the salesman is sniffing at your crotch and howling at the moon." - Dave Sim (via the mouth of Lord Julius (a Groucho Marx expy))
u/callmebrotherg [+4] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (2 hours later)
o.0
This is one of those fics where I'm not sure if the author is subtly hinting that the real problem is her mental problems, or if I'm just being overly optimistic and reading into it because I don't want to accept that the author thinks that being smart is worse than being dumb.
u/Roxolan [+7] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (a day later)
"But he was wrong", Shoshana continued. "Flatly empirically wrong. That's what i came to tell you. i know plenty of people at MIT—including myself—who've found fulfilling relationships and some veneer of happiness without changing their belief systems, or abandoning scientific skepticism, or ingesting mind-altering substances—at least, not too many. i mean i might accept little delusions—like that my fiancée is the greatest guy on earth, assuming for the sake of argument that he isnt—but that does not imply that I need to accept enormous delusions about the nature of the cosmos!"
Subtly?
u/None [+2] (10 hours later)
[deleted]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.3353
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (14 hours later)
Which paper is this?
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (14 hours later)
Likely this one ("Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity").
u/None [+1] (19 hours later)
[deleted]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.0538