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I disagree. Being a functioning human being has to come first. It's nobody's job to drive themselves insane with worry over something they have no control over.
First of all - no, being aware of painful ideas and engaging in politics does not risk psychologically scarring you and making you a "nonfunctioning human being". Thinking about climate change doesn't cause climate anxiety, thinking about AI doesn't cause AI anxiety.
(if you quit your job to study AI full time, or even just to blog like Scott, that ... i mean, if it's "nonfunctioning" by a psychological definition, that definition is wrong).
The extent to which a person can influence events - "control" here is used pejoratively, as if "controlling" events, is both impossible and bad, but counterfactual influence is everywhere. Was it mentally unhealthy for moldbug to write about NRX stuff? Can he not control it? How could he have known billionaires and congressional staff would read his stuff? Plausibly. unhealthy. Was it unhealthy for [john brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist%29) to die inciting failed ("impossible") slave revolts? Certainly. What about Jesus? Maybe "mental health" isn't a useful idea.
And - if nobody took 9/10 chance of eventual death expeditions to the frontier, none of us would be alive.
If nobody caused "severe mental anguish" to ponder deep questions, western philosophy wouldn't exist.
Myopic obsession might. Also OP and his climate anxious employee aren't (afaik) bloggers with a huge platform.
There's a difference between pondering and driving yourself crazy with worry. OP is neither John Brown nor Jesus, and the same goes for his employee taking sick days.
Indeed, but that's touching grass, not... whatever OP is doing.
You haven't really supported this assessment. Care to elaborate?
Right, but if the problem is real, "driving yourself crazy with worry" isn't enough. You might have to spend the majority of your time worrying about a problem nobody even knows exists. Even worse, most people who do this will pick something stupid - but if nobody did this, then we wouldn't have e.g. yudkowsky
It's not 'being a functioning human being', though (because most of the people doing it die). "being a functioning human being" or "mentally healthy" is just a way to launder pre-existing judgements behind a facade of socialized morality or common sense, it doesn't actually mean anything or convey anything.
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