Regarding the term “moral schizophrenia”: As I said to AllAmericanBreakfast, I wholeheartedly agree the term is outdated and inaccurate! Hence the scare quotes and the caveat I put in the heading of the same name. But obviously I underestimated how bad the term was since everyone is telling to change it. I’m open to suggestions! EDIT: I replaced it with “internal moral disharmony.” Kind of a mouthful but good enough for a blog post.
Regarding predictions: You’re right, that wasn’t a very exact prediction (mostly because internal moral disharmony is going to be hard to measure). Here is a falsifiable claim that I stand by and that, if true, is evidence of internal moral disharmony:
I claim that one’s level of engagement with the LW/EA rationalist community can weakly predict the degree to which one adopts a maximizer’s mindset when confronted with moral/normative scenarios in life, the degree to which one suffers cognitive dissonance in such scenarios, and the degree to which one expresses positive affective attachment to one’s decision (or the object at the center of their decision) in such scenarios.
More specifically I predict that, above a certain threshold of engagement with the community, increased engagement with the LW/EA community correlates with an increase in the maximizer’s mindset, increase in cognitive dissonance, and decrease in positive affective attachment in the aforementioned scenarios.
The hypothesis for why I think this correlation exists is mostly at the end of here and here.
But more generally, must a criticism of/concern for the EA community come in the form of a prediction? I’m really just trying to point out a hazard for those who go in for Rationalism/Consequentialism. If everyone has avoided it, that’s great! But there seems to be evidence that some have failed to avoid it, and that we might want to take further precautions. SBF was very much one of EA’s own: his comments therefore merit some EA introspection. I’m just throwing in my two cents.
Regarding actual EAs: I would be happy to learn few EAs actually have thoughts too many! But I do know it’s a thing, that some have suffered it (personally I’ve struggled with it at times, and it’s literally in Mill’s autobiography). More generally, the ills of adopting a maximizer’s mindset too often are well documented (see references in footnotes). I thought it was in the community’s interest to raise awareness about it. I’m certainly not trying to demonize anyone: if someone in this community does suffer it, my first suspect would be the culture surrounding/theory of Consequentialism,not some particular weakness on the individual’s part.
Regarding dry discussion on topics of incredible magnitude: That’s fair. I’m not saying being dry and calculating is always wrong. I’m just saying one should be careful about getting too comfortable with that mindset lest one start slipping into it when one shouldn’t. That seems like something rationalists need to be especially mindful of.
Regarding the term “moral schizophrenia”:
As I said to AllAmericanBreakfast, I wholeheartedly agree the term is outdated and inaccurate! Hence the scare quotes and the caveat I put in the heading of the same name. But obviously I underestimated how bad the term was since everyone is telling to change it. I’m open to suggestions! EDIT: I replaced it with “internal moral disharmony.” Kind of a mouthful but good enough for a blog post.
Regarding predictions:
You’re right, that wasn’t a very exact prediction (mostly because internal moral disharmony is going to be hard to measure). Here is a falsifiable claim that I stand by and that, if true, is evidence of internal moral disharmony:
The hypothesis for why I think this correlation exists is mostly at the end of here and here.
But more generally, must a criticism of/concern for the EA community come in the form of a prediction? I’m really just trying to point out a hazard for those who go in for Rationalism/Consequentialism. If everyone has avoided it, that’s great! But there seems to be evidence that some have failed to avoid it, and that we might want to take further precautions. SBF was very much one of EA’s own: his comments therefore merit some EA introspection. I’m just throwing in my two cents.
Regarding actual EAs:
I would be happy to learn few EAs actually have thoughts too many! But I do know it’s a thing, that some have suffered it (personally I’ve struggled with it at times, and it’s literally in Mill’s autobiography). More generally, the ills of adopting a maximizer’s mindset too often are well documented (see references in footnotes). I thought it was in the community’s interest to raise awareness about it. I’m certainly not trying to demonize anyone: if someone in this community does suffer it, my first suspect would be the culture surrounding/theory of Consequentialism, not some particular weakness on the individual’s part.
Regarding dry discussion on topics of incredible magnitude:
That’s fair. I’m not saying being dry and calculating is always wrong. I’m just saying one should be careful about getting too comfortable with that mindset lest one start slipping into it when one shouldn’t. That seems like something rationalists need to be especially mindful of.