100% agree with the principle that buying peace of mind can be a good deal whether the peace of mind is quantitatively justified or not, and the broader principle that we shouldn't be disdainful of emotions. But while emotions aren't entirely rational, they're not entirely irrational either. I expect that learning and applying the method in this post will help the user feel peace of mind at a level of insurance that's somewhat closer to optimal than they would have otherwise.
It's also probably useful to learn the quantiatively optimal strategy so you can be consciously aware of what premium you're paying for peace of mind, and make thoughtful decisions about how much it's worth to you. I said that buying peace of mind can be a good deal, but I'll bet there are people who -- if they could see exactly how big the risk-aversion premium they're paying is -- would decide that they'd rather deal with more anxiety and pocket the cash.
Maybe it's because I've read other posts like this, but I read it as expressing the unspoken assumptions of a particular group, not trying to get others to adopt them. That is, I took the scare quotes around "be reasonable" as actually self-effacing. I mean, it's obvious that the author does think these are good things, but the post came across to me as descriptive. If the post were written so as to imply that some people actively endorse the opposite of these things, eg, "pointless busywork is cool" then that would be obnoxious, but it seems worthwhile to me to point out that many people don't pay much attention to busywork either way and it's not a factor in their evaluation or decisionmaking.
I may also be biased because I love hearing about how different implicit assumptions and perspectives lead to different experiences, so that's what I went in wanting to read (and was satisfied).
Thanks, that clears up a lot for me! And it makes me think that the perspective you encourage has a lot of connections to other important habits of mind, like knowing how to question automatic thoughts and system 1 conclusions without beating yourself up for having them.
I'm a little surprised by how you view the subtext of the ice cream example. If I imagine myself in either role, I would not interpret Bryce as saying Ash shouldn't like ice cream in some very base sense. I interpret conversations like that as meaning either:
1) "You might have a desire for X but you shouldn't indulge that desire because it has net bad consequences"
or
2) "If you knew all the negative things that X causes, it would spoil your enjoyment of it and you wouldn't be attracted to it anymore."
or
3) "If you knew all the negative things that X causes, your hedonic attraction to the better world that not-x would create would outweigh your hedonic attraction to the experience of X."
Those can all create some kind of unhealthy or manipulative dynamic but I don't see them as the same thing you're saying, which is more like 4) "it's wrong and stupid to enjoy the physical sensation of eating ice cream."
Do you agree with my reading that 1-3 are different from what you're talking about, or do you think they're included within it?
If I look at depression as a way of acting / thinking / feeling, then it makes sense that there could be multiple paths to end up that way. Some people could have neurological issues that make it difficult to do otherwise, while others could have the capacity to act/think/feel differently but have settled there as their locally optimal strategy.
The "horse tranquilizer" thing goes back to long before the pandemic. I was hearing it in the aughts in relation to recreational use. My guess about the term is that 1) among drug warriors, it's good moral panic fodder, 2) among drug users, it sounds really funny, and 3) I imagine it's easier to divert doses from the veterinary system than from the human pharmacy system, so it may have originated with dealers whose supply literally had the words "horse" and "tranquilizer" on the label.
I know of at least one telehealth service that reportedly has a pretty low bar for writing a ketamine prescription. My understanding is that everyonesmd.com is fully legit and a month's supply of ketamine costs less than one dose from Mindbloom. Now, on the other hand, some people probably shouldn't turn themselves loose with a month's worth of a mind-altering drug to be used ad lib -- but if you have a promising regimen in mind, and the medical system isn't delivering, this could be a big deal.
(everyonesmd.com looks VERY sketchy but based on online reviews and a report from someone I know personally, they do provide a telehealth appointment that can result in a valid prescription. I don't know if I would trust their drug suppliers but if you talk to customer service, instead of going through their checkout process, they are required to transfer your prescription to a reputable compounding pharmacy of your choice).
Another thought on this is that people often talk about smothering social norms or moralities by giving examples of petty, infantilizing rewards for behaving in infantilized ways. What about a libertarian-oriented society that enforces rules primarily intended to prevent people from restricting one another's behavior? What about an economic system that encourages entrepreneurship and invention by doing things like enforcing contracts, or providing a social safety net so that more people can start businesses or create products without worrying that they'll literally starve to death in the street if their first idea doesn't work? Participants in a society like that should still maintain some awareness that this is the work of humanity, not an expression of a fundamentally just universe, but it's hard for me to argue that just participating makes them into slaves.
This description does a good job of providing two kinds of evocative theme but I think it doesn't draw out the connections or distinctions that need to be clarified when people are interacting with is vs ought, or perhaps with cosmos vs. society. When describing everyday life as a physical object in the universe, I think a rock-bottom existentialism is obviously right: The universe does not owe you anything. God isn't going to punish your oppressors or reward you for being good, and God also isn't going to punish you if you get what you want by being arrogant and doing things that are shocking. If that's master morality, then fine.
But when we form a society, we can choose to make a world where people who follow the rules are rewarded. We can describe obligations for people to participate and belong, and actively put energy into the system to buffer those people from random shocks. I can see how that reads as slave morality from the perspective of someone who's an unreflective participant in it, but I think that's also an unsatisfying way to describe an active project to defy the nature of the universe and, through work, create a world more to our liking.
So in sum I think your description here needs to clarify when this kind of be-good-and-you'll-get-a-cookie living is bad simply because it's inaccurate (God is not going to give you a cookie) and when you think it's wrong because, even if people establish an enclave in which rules are enforced and people are taken care of, that diminishes the human spirit or is actively harmful to its participants.
It might also just be a matter of hierarchical perception. To use a smaller scale example:
I'd go with "I don't think this conversation is helping us ________" (eg, come up with solutions, figure out what to do next, understand why we really disagree). It opens the door to suggest meta-level changes to how you're interacting without 1) accusing them, 2) suggesting that they're the only one who should change, or 3) inviting arguments about their intentions or internal state. It might also help reorient the conversation from a small-scale win/lose frame towards a broader shared goal of accomplishing something. Finally, it allows you to suggest specific changes to make the conversation more truth-seeking while also addressing whatever may be motivating them to not be truth-seeking (eg, fearing that if they "lose" then their needs won't get met, perceiving you as trying to pull status on them, trying to preserve their image for an external audience).
If you're having a debate that's mostly for an external audience, then maybe you should just call out that the liar is lying. If you're trying to work with them, then it's probably better to try to figure out what aspect of the conversation is motivating them to lie and trying to incentivise telling the truth instead. If you can't do that then it doesn't really matter what's going on in their head; you're not going to have a productive conversation anyway.