Published on 10 April 2012
Through rationality we shall become awesome, and invent and test systematic methods for making people awesome, and plot to optimize everything in sight, and the more fun we have the more people will want to join us.
This morning I have been wrestling with myself, with help from Professor Quirrel. Meaning, with help from Eliezer Yudkowsky. Why? Because I wish to become awesome (cf, above). All of his quotes are good - they are rational, and so it is easier to be awesome because they are probably right. I’ll just focus on a couple that struck me hard just now.
To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty.
I do this all of the time. I am endeavoring to change it. If you notice me boasting about my flaws, please point it out to me and tell me to shut up. If I get annoyed by that, use the code word ‘Hufflepuff’ and I’ll understand and fix that.
Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think controls you more than thoughts you speak aloud. Submit yourself to ordeals and test yourself in fire. Relinquish the emotion which rests upon a mistaken belief, and seek to feel fully that emotion which fits the facts. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm. Evaluate your beliefs first and then arrive at your emotions. Let yourself say: “If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it is cool.”
My cross to bear is laziness. So:
If I am lazy, I desire to believe that I am lazy. If I am not lazy, I desire to belive that I am not lazy.
When I am lazy, I desire to believe that I am lazy. When I am not lazy, I desire to belive that I am not lazy.
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