This post is super-quickly written and mostly for reference.
Setup:
precondition: agreeing with the idea. (here synonymous with holding a belief in the idea)
beliefs are intertwined. When you update one belief, you often have to update other beliefs to maintain consistency.
E.g. if you update to “my friend has Covid”, you should also update to “I might have Covid”
all these intertwinings form belief networks, where, if one belief is updated, the whole network might have to update accordingly
Taking an idea seriously means 2 things:
1. updating your whole belief network according to the idea, including when that updates you towards weird or “out there” belief states
e.g., taking “animals can suffer” seriously, should update people towards “veganism good” (neglecting more complicated belief networks for a moment). However, many people find that too weird or radical intuitively and don’t update properly; they fail to take the idea seriously
2. acting on your updated belief network
e.g., because of the updated belief “veganism good”, a person might reduce their consumption of animal products. Many people don’t take this step and, while agreeing with “veganism good” intellectually, never reduce their consumption of animal products; they fail to take the idea seriously
Related:
I think this is one of the things that distinguishes EAs and rationalists from randomly selected smart people. I like to say that EAs have a taste for biting bullets.