By Spencer Greenberg and Amber Dawn Ace
Image created using the A.I. DALL•E 2
This is the third of five posts in my sequence of essays about my life philosophy, Valuism - here are the first, second, fourth, and fifth parts (though the links won’t work until those other essays are released).
Sometimes, people take an important value - maybe their most important value - and decide to prioritize it above all other things. They neglect or ignore their other values in the process. In ...
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choice
What If You HAD To Do It?
A thought experiment about what you'd be truly capable of doing, if you had no choice:
Think of something you value that:
A. Multiple other people you know are capable of achieving, but that…
B. You assume you would not be capable of achieving, even though…
C. You have never actually tried to do this thing well before.
Now, suppose for a moment that you have no choice but to do the thing. That is, everything you care about in the world will be destroyed if you do not achieve it i...
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The Cactus Crossing Conundrum
The Cactus Crossing Conundrum is an ethics and "fairness" thought experiment I wrote for you in which your moral intuitions are represented as a number between 0 and 100:
Suppose there are two villages, "Smallville" and "Largeford," which are a 5-minute walk apart. There are 100 people in Smallville and 200 people in Largeford - so Largeford has twice as many people in it.
According to their ancient traditions, ALL of the people in the two villages must meet once per month in one of t...
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Making Really Hard Decisions
Suppose that you have to make a decision that will significantly alter the course of your life. For instance, imagine that you are trying to:
decide whether to marry your boyfriend or girlfriend
choose between two job offers in different fields
decide whether to finish your PhD program or drop out
pick between two cities that you're thinking of moving to
These kinds of decisions can be excruciatingly hard, and people often waffle in an unpleasant state for months trying to ch...
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Wanting While Not Wanting
Why do people who hate that they overeat keep overeating? Why do people who know that their girlfriends or boyfriends are bad for them keep taking these girlfriends and boyfriends back? Why do so many people who want to go to the gym never actually bother to do it?
These circumstances can be explained, at least partially, in terms of desires changing and conflicting with each other. What we want when we consciously reflect on a situation sometimes differs from what we want when we are actuall...
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Do We Know Why We Act?
Looking back on our decisions, we generally feel as though we can explain them. Why did we hire that candidate instead of this one? Because he was clearly more qualified for the job. Why did we go on a date with that person and not the other one? Because he or she seemed nicer. Why did we sentence that criminal to a harsher sentence than this other one? Because she committed a more damaging crime. If we are making our decisions for rational, well thought out reasons, we should be able to explain...
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