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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   30160 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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it's xkcd 356 for rats. as @hbtz pointed out on another medium

its a pretty good question! its a idiot economist, commons problem, and altruism problem triple whammy
its also prolly a spiritual problem cuz mottecels prolly dont rate the psychological cost of living as a red pill picker as opposed to a blue pill picker

The psychological cost of living as red picker vs. the cost of dying as a blue-picker.

HMMMMM.

The psychological cost of living as red picker vs. the cost of dying as a blue-picker.

It didn't occur to me until reading this, but also there's the possibility of the psychological cost of living as a blue-picker - which is the knowledge (at least with very high confidence) that I futilely risked my life for no gain. The odds that my vote was the decisive one that brought blue from 49.99% to 50.00% or whatever is minuscule, which means that, almost certainly, regardless of what I picked, all the blue pickers were going to live anyway. My picking blue meant nothing in terms of causing good, but I was able to manipulate my brain into convincing myself that it was worth it to pay the real cost of a real fear of real risk of dying, when removing that fear was as simple as picking a different color which, again, would have caused no negative consequences.

but I was able to manipulate my brain into convincing myself that it was worth it to pay the real cost of a real fear of real risk of dying, when removing that fear was as simple as picking a different color which, again, would have caused no negative consequences.

Yes, one should expect that your natural instinct is to generate any plausible justification for a choice you made in the past, and that the justification needs to pass social muster.

I'm partially solving that by straight up precommitting to picking red in all cases and broadcasting this intent. I won't have much cognitive dissonance later.

the psychological cost of living as a red pill picker as opposed to a blue pill picker

What psychological cost?

Yeah, I would quite easily pick Red and go on with my life no different from yesterday.

Mottcels? Really?

Also I think the vast majority of blue pill pickers are liars. If faced with the actual choice, they pick red.

the psychological cost of living as a red pill picker as opposed to a blue pill picker

What cost would that be? I'd pick red, and I'm sticking with that choice, and the only 'psychological cost' I'm suffering is all the blues declaring I'm a selfish murderous monster. I'm happy with my choice otherwise, and maybe a bit sorry that the blues are too stupid to come in out of the rain ("choose red and all live"/"but what about the blind three-legged puppy who will lick the blue pill by mistake???? I must save them by throwing myself off the cliff alongside them! by the power of snuggles and friendship, magic will happen and we will gain the ability to fly if I do that!")

What cost would that be?

negative reactions to surviving where someone else didn't are common. this is not a hard concept to understand nor grasp.

by the power of snuggles and friendship, magic will happen and we will gain the ability to fly if I do that!")

in this scenario, i think you have to realize that 50%+1 picking blue does save everyone, including those who misread the question or whatever.

negative reactions to surviving where someone else didn't are common.

It turns out that the sort of people who will pick red are also resistant to survivor's guilt (Deisach, 2019)

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