An Algorithmic Lucidity

Contempt for the past is a healthier emotion than fear for the future.

I've been so confused in so many ways that I had been specifically warned against dozens of times, in writing and in person, and I still didn't get it! Of course, I was warned about this, too: everyone knows that there are things you don't know that you don't know, and that there's a difference between endorsing a proposition, and integrating its implications into your way of thinking. But it's still such a shock to actually see ... to go so suddenly from hating the local Authorities for not telling you all the true and important things that your friends have been telling you, to noticing that the things that your friends have been telling you can actually be applied to stop being so hurt all the time about how the local Authorities had misled you.

Speaking of addiction, I suspect that relinquishing ideologically-induced moral outrage is actually harder than getting over many chemical dependencies (although I don't have any experience with the latter). At least with a drug, it's simple enough to draw a bright line around actions you're not supposed to do anymore; you can try pouring the contents of the liquor cabinet down the drain, or signing a commitment contract to not buy or borrow any more cigarettes.

But when one of your most strongly-held beliefs (strongly-held in the sense of emotional relevance, not actual probability; I'm very confident in the monotone sequence theorem, but the truth of its negation wouldn't be a blow to who I am) turns out to be false—or if it still seems true, but it turns out that being continually angry at a Society that disagrees isn't a good allocation of cognitive resources—what do you do then? Turning your life around from that isn't anything as straightforward as preventing specific chemicals from entering your body; you have to change the way you think, which is to say excise a part of your soul. Oh, it grows back—that's the point, really; you want to stop thinking non-useful thoughts in order to replace them with something better—but can you blame me for having a self-preservation instinct, even if my currently-existing self isn't something that ought to be preserved?

But then, blame or the lack thereof isn't the point.

Then the Dean understood what had puzzled him in Roark's manner.

"You know," he said, "You would sound much more convincing if you spoke as if you cared whether I agreed with you or not."

"That's true," said Roark. "I don't care whether you agree with me or not." He said it so simply that it did not sound defensive, it sounded like the statement of a fact which he noticed, puzzled, for the first time.

"You don't care what others think—which might be understandable. But you don't care even to make them think as you do?"

"No."

"But that's ... that's monstrous."

"Is it? Probably. I couldn't say."

In this passage from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, fictional character Howard Roark demonstrates a very important skill that I really need to learn—that of emotional indifference to arbitrary people's opinions: not the mere immunity of "It's okay that people now disagree with the manifest rightness of my Cause, because I know the forces of Good will win in the end," but the kind of outright indifference that I feel about, let's say, the amount of precipitation in Copenhagen in March 1957. Someone disagrees with the manifest rightness of my Cause? Sure, whatever—hey, did you see the latest Questionable Content?

I say this purely for pragmatic reasons. There's nothing philosophically noble about being narrowly selfish, about devoting the full force of one's attention to questions like "What do I want to study?" or "How am I going to make money?" rather than "Why are my ideological enemies so evil, and what can be done to stop them?" So if there's no inherent reason why scholarship or business are more worthy than activism, why explicitly renounce the activist frame of mind?

Because activism is painful and it doesn't work very well. I'm tired of hating Society (whatever that means) for not being what I wish it were. What good has it done me or anyone else, all the hours I've spent over the past five years, fuming and raving over how I have been wronged?

Better by far to focus on the tiny scrap of the world that I actually have control over: to bury my head in a subculture of my kind of people, to master valuable skills, to make piles of money and donate a fraction of it to organizations that are doing valuable work, rather than waste any more precious moments of thinking time being personally offended by all the evil in the world. If someone's interested in what I think, then I graciously welcome them to read this blog. If I see a cheap opportunity to possibly change someone's behavior for the better—to offer them a rationality tip, or glance at them disapprovingly when they violate a social norm that really ought to be kept intact—then I'll take it. But if not, then not.

Some might object that if everyone thought this way, then all social progress would halt: the moral progress of humankind depends on the selfless activists who sacrifice so much to change so little. To which I reply: sure. But not everyone thinks this way, and my relinquishing the cloud of moral outrage that's been making me so unhappy isn't going to change that. We all have our roles to play in this Great Romance of Determinism, and it's long past time for me to finally choose a role that works, rather than one that doesn't.

It's tempting to be resentful that other people don't value your time the way you do. You complain at every opportunity: "Why, why, why do I get socially rewarded for working on this-and-such random chore that doesn't even help anyone, when obviously my great masterpiece (in progress, in potentia, coming soon) on such-and-this is so much more valuable?!"

But I think it's better not to be resentful and not to complain, mostly because it doesn't work. Other people don't care about your great masterpiece on such-and-this. They really don't. Maybe someone, somewhere will care after it's done, but it's not reasonable to expect anyone's support in advance—or, alternatively and isomorphically, it is reasonable, but given that there's nothing you can do to force people to be reasonable, reasonableness is not the correct criterion to be paying attention to.

You can't help being economically dependent on other people, but it seems like it ought to be possible to lessen your emotional dependence: to treat praise and criticism as evidence about the effectiveness of your actions, but not as a controlling force, not as a verdict. This is likely to be desirable not only because if you have fewer needs, then there are fewer ways in which you can be hurt, but also because it is necessary in order to accomplish anything at all: if you're dependent on other people's approval, how will you ever summon the energy needed to finish the masterpiece that no one (yet) cares about but you?

If it helps—consider that if everyone else already valued everything you value, then your existence would be superfluous. Maybe it would be better to be superfluous, better if the world were already perfect without there being anything left for you to contribute—but there's no profit in considering such a remote counterfactual. Take a deep breath, try not to let the subsequent exhalation sound like a mournful sigh, and get back to work, or whatever it is you do.

I reserve the right to arbitrarily change my beliefs or behavior at any time.