What You Can't Say (2004)

Of course, this is basically never true. But the unhappy realisation that it's not true in your own case is so agonising that the human mind distances itself from it like a cat from a hot stovetop. Cosmic-horror stuff about how many stars there are or how many metres you are from the centre of mass of the universe are is just an amusing trifle in comparison. Even people who are rationally aware of some of this (often because they recite it once every week) are protected by powerful psychological defence mechanisms from actually having to confront the realisation very often. (Often the upshot of the weekly exercises is that the person simply becomes more confident than ever that they're a great person and they have it all figured out, in much the same way that developing a self-image as a lover of truth and rationality so often makes people markedly dumber.) Add to that the fact that, of course, changing your behaviour to become less of a scumbag often comes with serious or very serious costs to your well-being and relationships with others, and it's not even close.

The final nasty kicker is that, of course, an individual person's judgement of right and wrong isn't necessarily any better than that of his or her society. Futhermore, people who share a particular critique (good God I hate that word) of their society tend to band together into their own subcultures, partly to better resist the material and social pressures from society to conform. So now you have a new self-image, a new lifestyle and a new in-group, and the process repeats itself.

\* The few exceptions, sadly, are largely psychopaths and other people who simply don't give a shit.

The Patrician took a sip of his beer. "I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to its day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

-- Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

I find that paragraph to be a perfect rebuttal to appeals to nature. Hat tip to ChronoDAS for bringing it to my attention: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ud/rationality_quotes_march_2010/1p...

on IQ - I'm not sure that's necessarily true, or at least, the differences are complex (one group has a slightly higher average, the other a higher standard deviation, which has implications at the right-end of the bell curve). but for day-to-day social impact, that's not nearly as important as wondering what society should with people in the bottom 50% of the IQ distribution, which is another topic we don't discuss.

I often wonder whether the political correctness furies directed at pg were a factor in him putting sam altman in charge.

for example - it was considered wildly controversial to say that not being able so speak english without a heavy accent might put you at a disadvantage in starting a company in an english speaking country. really?

also - yc is the most forward thinking vc on women's issues in the country, and yet they were still accused of gender bias etc. wildly unfair, you might say.

kind of hard for a thoughtful person to deal with all that chatter. you have to adopt a PR perspective, make general statements - no longer operating from a place of logic, just a desire not to offend.

my sense is that there are many foolish things progressive americans believe which future generations will laugh at. we already laugh publicly at conservatives, but we're supposed to take everything progressives say seriously.

here's a controversial closer - even if we equalized educational access to EECS, funding - women would be less likely to start companies than men, because men are hard-wired to take risks (hormonal profiles, probably other brain circuitry). tens of thousands of years of evolution can't easily be overcome, in even 100 years.

doesn't mean we shouldn't encourage women, or that they can't do it (they obviously can) but bemoaning the out-of-whack ratios constantly, and expecting parity to be around the corner, seems foolish IMHO.

also, to answer in order: -Indeed, there are multiple approaches, and this is why I find it hard to select one vs. the other. If my body "craves" meat, there's usually a reason due to digestive peptides that the nutrition from the food I'm craving is something that'd be useful. I realize I could with time potentially reprogram this, but, the statement stands.

-You'd actually be wrong. I enjoy both bow hunting (which I had the opportunity to learn initially as a boy scout) and game shooting.

-If you notice, I qualify that with avoiding creating undue harm. I think it's quite a strawman to draw an equivalence between consuming animals that are killed in a humane fashion with e.g. rape especially. If you kept it to manslaughter, you'd have a stronger point, since I have a hard time arguing against anything outside of specific targeted uses of violence either. (please don't take this as bait; just that there have been wars in history I do not oppose.)