Improved Cores Unwanted

[Lincoln Cannon]

Should we be worried that the characteristics that persons want LEAST to enhance are empathy and kindness?

 

 

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Improved Cores Unwanted

via Overcoming Bias by Robin Hanson on 7/3/09

The most interesting thing I learned at the Symposium last weekend was this two year old paper on a survey about enhancement.  Its main result was that the more people considered a feature to be a key part of their identity, the less they wanted to improve it.   Few folks want to improve their empathy, self-confidence, or self-control, while more folks want to enhance their rote memory, math ability, and wakefulness.   I suspect something similar holds for beliefs: the more important a belief is to our identity, the less eager we are to improve that belief via evidence or analysis.  Beware identifying with beliefs!

The paper’s main table:

 

 

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[David Foster]

So, basically, the things we are most responsible for and most capable of changing, are the ones we are the least interested in changing.


That sounds about right.

[Lincoln Cannon]

Or maybe we're most concerned about tech determinism when it comes to desiring to modify our desires themselves?