Eliezer Yudkowsky

So is this a failure to have enough ego?

Is this a failure to make myself be independent?

I would say that this is something like a failure to consider positions that would sound even wackier and more extreme when people are already calling you extreme.

But I wouldn't call that not having enough ego.

I would call that insufficient ability to just clear that all out of your mind.

In the context of debate and discourse, which is already super tricky.

In the context of prediction, in the context of modeling reality.

If you're thinking of it as a debate, you're already screwing up.

Man, this is an example of where I wanted to be able to put people into fMRI machines.

And you'd be like, okay, see that thing you just did?

You were rationalizing right there.

Oh, that area of the brain lit up.

You are now being socially influenced.

It's kind of the dream.

And, you know...

I don't know, I want to say just introspect, but for many people, introspection is not that easy.

Notice the internal sensation.

Can you catch yourself in the very moment of feeling a sense of, well, if I think this thing, people will look funny at me.

Okay, now if you can see that sensation, which is step one, can you now...

refuse to let it move you, or maybe just make it go away.