fragmential

I think that the country makes a huge difference here. It's of course naïve to assume that you specifically had the choice, but there are most certainly places where that choice does genuinely exist.

The working population in my own country averages 27.7 hours per week. Excerpt from that source:

Use refers to labour market participation. Net labour participation is trending upwards. In 2024, 73.2 percent of all 15 to 74-year-olds were in employment, and in 2023 the Netherlands had the highest net labour participation in the EU. The average worker worked 27.7

Honestly, from everything I've seen in my life, I tend to worry a lot more about people that don't work and don't have the financial need to work. They often seem to fall into mental health troubles. The healthiest people I do know that didn't need to work, ended up doing so anyway.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the job they pick should maximise money. The benefit of having lots of money, is that you can choose a job that is fulfilling for you that might not fall under the category of jobs that cover your expenses. Or maybe your dream job required so much up-front investment that you couldn't get into it in the first place, like car racing.

This is cool. Are you planning a part 2?

What we as society think is moral is something that changes all the time, and laws and norms follow it, that's just the way society works. That doesn't mean we should give up on enforcing morals because they change anyway. We make laws that try to stay up to date with what we as society think is fair.

This post is deeply discomforting for me, but I am worried that it will be the future regardless.

I must say I disagree on your issue with the European approach. I do think that the current ignorance approach to preventing racial discrimination is the best one. Unless that sentence is completely unrelated to the previous one, and I completely missed your point. (this is highly probable, so if it is the case, please do explain what part of EU privacy law you are concerned about, and ignore the rest of this comment).

Doing option 1 relies on trusting people to... (read more)

Sounds like a good idea. I recommend being at least able to set strictly which things are flagged though (including being able to turn off the feature). It could potentially be an annoyance otherwise. Not to mention there are definitely people that would prefer their post does not contribute to any excess energy usage regardless of how minor it may be.

Great essay. Some sentences tripped me up, however. So here's some things I found regarding spelling, grammar, or clarity.

They sort of systematically choosing to believe or say false things or bad arguments,

"they are choosing", or "they choose".

distort their shared map of reality in a way that let’s them ignore Alice’s arguments about X

Redundant apostrophe; it should be "lets", not "let's".

Making Alice feel like she's the one losing her group on reality.

I think "group" is supposed to be "grip".

that results them to double down on more extreme version of the

I understand the point here, but I don't really think that "try" really changes the meaning much in the direction you want, because of course you can also try really hard without taking a break to think that perhaps your attempt vector isn't quite the right one. It's functionally identical to the term work here.

Perhaps a more accurate phrasing for your interpretation involves "doing the right things", which I think compounds both the choice element and the hard-work element. (This also ties the word morale nicely to the word moral, an etymological sibling.... (read more)

Honestly. I am often a "dark mode" preference person, but I use lesswrong in light mode, because I think lesswrong has a light mode aesthetic and looks very good in it. I personally don't like the dark mode very much. I think it is perfectly acceptable to have light mode by default. I think that serving dark mode to users that have their system theme set to dark mode is not necessarily good. It costs you just a few seconds to change it if you don't like it, and showing the site's identity and aesthetic is good for newcomers. This is just my anecdotal experience, but it is at least evidence that not all dark system theme people prefer to have automatic dark mode.

I'd think that in this scenario the best thing to do might be to simply wait it out and ask them about it at a time that they are in less of a dominant mode. That is, maybe the next day during lunch. And then ask them, still socratically, in a way that respects their authority. So perhaps: "Hey. About the feedback I got yesterday, I've been looking to really understand it better so I can improve more. I've really been thinking about what I could and should have done, and why. Would you like to discuss it with me briefly?"

Absolutely not a professional in re... (read more)