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diff --git a/blog/you_dont_matter.org b/blog/you_dont_matter.org new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bed3ec --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/you_dont_matter.org @@ -0,0 +1,123 @@ +#+title: You Don't Matter +#+author: Preston Pan +#+description: Ideas aren't real, and morality is a spook. +#+html_head: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../style.css" /> +#+html_head: <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple-touch-icon.png"> +#+html_head: <link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon-32x32.png"> +#+html_head: <link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon-16x16.png"> +#+html_head: <link rel="manifest" href="/site.webmanifest"> +#+html_head: <link rel="mask-icon" href="/safari-pinned-tab.svg" color="#5bbad5"> +#+html_head: <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#da532c"> +#+html_head: <meta name="theme-color" content="#ffffff"> +#+html_head: <meta name="viewport" content="width=1000; user-scalable=0;" /> +#+language: en +#+OPTIONS: broken-links:t +* Introduction +You don't matter. This should be entirely clear, yet I don't believe people actually get some of the implications +of this idea. Your ideas aren't real. This, too, is something that everyone intuitively understands yet in practice +seems to be not further extrapolated on. In this blog post I attempt to explain peoples' impact on the world, and +peoples' ideas as it pertains to greater society. Note that I talk about my progressive culture because that is what I know. +This is almost certainly the case (maybe even moreso) for other cultures around the world. +** Morality is a Spook +People in my progressive culture are pretty quick to realize that their sense of morality is not "real", and that +peoples' moral sensibilities may not always be in line with other people. In other words, it seems perfectly acceptable +to say that morality is subjective, or that in some sense it does not pertain to the real world, and it is made up +by people. This is a statement which seems to be true from an empirical standpoint, and even if you don't agree that it +is, there seems to be truth in the statement seeing as how the term morality would seem to have no meaning without conscious +beings, or, depending on your outlook on animals, morality would seem to be a useless term without humans. + +Now, if you're a progressive and don't "believe in" any particular god, this subjective sense of morality seems to be +quite viable. Given that morality is not real, it is still true that people in general have some in-built goals or desires. +Now the question to what you "should do" in life remains clear. It seems perfectly clear that from your perspective, your +goal in life is to try to achieve some in-built goals or desires. This could include being conventionally moral, or it +could not. In either case, you decide. + +Said in-built goals or desires are not permanently fixed. You can start caring about more things, or stop caring +about other things. In other words, giving up on a goal achieves the same effect as achieving said goal with respect +to fulfilling all your desires. In this sense, one should evaluate all goals as a cost-benefit analysis of giving up +on them versus actually working on them and achieving them. In the future, when I tell you, the reader, that you +"should do x", it is in this sense I mean it. I mean that it is likely that if you do the cost-benefit analysis for your +own goals, it is probable that x will achieve your goals, either by way of giving up or by otherwise changing your +circumstance, in the most "painless" way possible (takes the least time, least effort, basically the most efficient way +to get to where you want to be). In this sense, "should" is highly tied to prescription which is tied to moral outlook +(you "should" do x if and only if it is moral to do x, and it is moral to do x if and only if it is efficient +towards the goal of achieving your needs). Let's take this idea and expand on it in several practical examples. +** Your Ideas Aren't Real +Think about democracy. Is it a system which is moral in and of itself, or is it a system which is used to achieve some +objectives? Many people would say the first, except if you take the previous section as fact it seems wildly incoherent +to say that some idea, democracy, can have any inherent moral worth at all. Instead, it seems plausible to assume that +what we mean by some statement like, "democracy is moral", is actually a proxy for some sort of cost-benefit analysis +of the pros and cons of democracy existing totaling to it being a pro. Now let me ask a pretty obvious question: if you're +an individual person, what does weighing the pros and cons of a system /mean/? Of course, the individual need not consider +/systems/ in order to simply achieve their goals in most cases, it is sufficient to just focus on your own life. + +You could say you're weighing the pros and cons with respect to /society/. Okay, depending on your definition +of society, it seems as though the definition of a statement like, "democracy is moral" has restored its meaning. Yet, +I can point out something else that seems pretty obvious to say, which is that /you are not society/. In fact, you have +/little to no/ influence over broader society, and you make no significant portion of society. You may have friends that +you can count on, as well as a family, but democracy is an idea that pertains, in many cases, to nation states. + +Your ultimate goal in life could be that you want to influence society as much as possible. I am telling you that it +/shouldn't be/. That is to say, it is a lot easier to have influence over your own actions than influence over society, +so it is easier to give up on that ambition than to actually satisfy that ambition (I would argue that this is unambiguously +true in almost all circumstances). If you're not convinced, there are most likely a couple million people in your society, +and you're only one of them. The empirical probability that those millions of people should listen to you either directly +or indirectly is objectively low (drops off proportional to 1/n), else you are delusional. + +So to recap, what does it mean to make a statement such as, "democracy is moral"? Well, it seems logical that it means +something like, "it is better on average for society to have democracy than to not, weighing the pros and cons". Yet, +this kind of statement is useless to say for nearly every individual who says it, if it isn't said for fun or for some +goal which you should probably give up on anyways. Speaking of democracy, let's run a social experiment. +** The Democracy Experiment +The gain of voting in an n player game involving two candidates +and popular vote drops off at 1/n, but the time it takes to be informed and vote has a constant value. The decisions +of individuals in this game most likely, in real life, at most influence the decision making of one or two other +people (in total, from the whole chain reaction), +so the effect of influence is not very significant (so you can't argue that you have an influence over the crowd to vote, +because you don't). Given all these conditions, for a large n, voting should not be +worth it for most people, because the choice of you voting is independent of everyone else voting. You voting or not voting +has no bearing over the crowd. Yet, the common retort is, "if everyone thought like you...". This logic is dead on arrival, +because /not/ everyone's going to think like you. The character of the system is that other people irrationally vote +regardless of if you do, and your decision to vote or not vote has no bearing over the crowd voting or not voting. + +This simple fact is what I call IEEDI (if everyone else did it) syndrome; people are quick to conform rather than +think about the personal cost-benefit analysis, even if the logic stops working for large societies. +*** Activism +Activism is another example of IEEDI syndrome where people irrationally calculate the cost-benefit analysis of going +to protests, divesting, engaging in violence, etc... and go along with the crowd, even if it does not benefit them. +Again, it is much easier to give up on the ambition of doing activism rather than incurring all the costs of doing +activism, most likely. "If everyone thought like you, nothing would change" is another instance of IEEDI. You have no +control over what others think. +** Politics +When people say, "do you think we should do x", it is clear using this analysis that this means something like, +"do you think the cost-benefit analysis for society weighs in favor of doing x?". It is worth pointing out whenever +someone does this that your opinion on any analysis for broader society doesn't matter, as your opinion cannot change +anything. People can get divided over political opinions even though it seems to literally not matter what +political opinions you have from an impact perspective (even if someone is /literally hitler/, they can't do anything +to change broader society in practice). One could argue that there are some personality traits that are associated with +political opinions. For everyone inside the acceptable range of discourse right now, the personality trait differences +are probably really low on average, even though they can be shown to exist. Anyways, if it's really the personality +trait differences that matter, it seems irrational to comment on the politics of the person, because it's actually +the personality traits that you're filtering for. + +That is to say, despite how useless politics is in every day life, people irrationally commit a lot of their personal +lives to it and operate suboptimally as a result. This is another case of IEEDI. +** You Don't Matter +Perhaps a common theme in this blog post is that you don't matter. More accurately, you /do/ matter to yourself and people +around you, and you should try to maximize your life around that, if that is your goal, because it is an achievable goal. +On the other hand, trying to influence society in any way, or treat society as something more real than you, is a lost +cause, in the sense that in most cases you should either look to give up on your goals of influencing society, or you +are making some category error that I've just demonstrated is irrational given the premises. + +Another sense in which you don't matter is the sense in which your identity is malleable. You don't have to care +about nearly anything, but there are some things which are hard not to care about, such as the people around you, +your own well-being, and maybe one or two divine or ultimate purposes at a given point in time (I personally +fulfill this by trying to get people around me and people on the internet to seriously consider opposing viewpoints, +which I myself find satisfying). Note that there is nothing wrong with having such a purpose, so long as it is harder +to get rid of than to fulfill, or it's just fun. In my case, it is pretty fun to do what I'm doing. +* Conclusion +Unless you are a millionaire or a billionaire or are doing it for fun, it's pretty hard to have control over millions +of other people, so you should probably give up. You don't matter, ideas aren't real, and morality is a spook. And +I can't promise you anything: this advice disguised as a rant may help you, or it may hurt you in your case. If it helps +you, I also can't promise your situation will become well after you take my advice. I /can/ promise you that you'll +start to actually improve your life. |