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study critique (270)
book review (223)
AI (112)
economics (105)
effective altruism (105)
education (93)
creative writing (91)
debate (90)
forecasting (89)
politics (89)
prediction markets (88)
science (85)
AI safety (79)
media criticism (76)
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rationality (76)
psychiatry (73)
psychology (72)
mental health (69)
highlights from the comments (68)
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rationality (76) Eliezer Yudkowsky (46) Robin Hanson (20) self-deception (14) decision theory (13) behavioral psychology (6) preferences (5) unconscious mind (4) utility maximization (4) ego syntonic (3) ego dystonic (2) Blue-Minimizing Robot (2)

To what degree do we have goals?

Scott argues against negotiating with unconscious desires, distinguishing between behavior-executors (which have context-dependent urges) and utility-maximizers (which have stable preferences), and suggests we mistakenly model ourselves as the latter when we're actually the former.

lw
Jul 15, 2011 1,971 words 82 likes 52 comments Read Read Opened Opened
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