Infinite Loops cover image

David Pinsof — Everything is Bullshit (EP.161)

Infinite Loops

CHAPTER

The Paradox of Happiness

If happiness is all about things being unexpectedly good, then you cannot by definition pursue it. And so if you try to pursue it, you're going to beset with failure time and time again. I think at the heart of it is a prisoner's dilemma. If I am the only one who's honest about myself and my unflattering motivations and everyone else pretends to have pretty, high-minded motivations, then I lose status and everyone else gains status. That would be equivalent of me cooperating and everyone else defecting. So we're stuck in this prisoner’s dilemma. The only way we can get out of it is by coordinating to punish defectors. We need to call

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Speaker 1
And so if happiness is all about things being unexpectedly good, then you cannot by definition pursue it. And so if you try to pursue it, you're going to beset with failure time and time again and that's going to ironically make you miserable. Which is a paradox and so your pre-print is well-named. As I was listening to you, I was thinking about the parallels between happiness, the unexpected, that's what causes happiness with Claude Shen's information theory. Information is the unexpected new information that you derive. It's like you're listening to a political speech, zero information. Nothing unexpected. It's all the same bullshit to tie it back into everything is bullshit. But if you're listening to a poem, wow, there could be a lot of information because it was unexpected. I always find it interesting because I always try to figure out how these things interweave and the parallels there are probably not accidental would be my guess. If happiness is unexpected and I agree with you that it is, it can't be pursued. Now information can be pursued, especially after good old Claude came up with formulas for us. But what do you think about the idea that we have all of these social mores, these taboos, et cetera? And it just seems to me as I was reading you and I was just thinking about it, they're all wrong for the most part. How does one ever begin to try to break out of that and or somehow set those social without being a heretic unless you want to be a heretic, then that's good. You're signaling something there. But if so many of our social ground state reality beliefs are wrong, how do we move towards right? It's a really difficult challenge. I think at the heart of it is a prisoner's dilemma. If I am the only one who's honest about myself and my unflattering motivations and everyone else bullshit and pretends to have pretty, high-minded motivations, then I lose status and everyone else gains status. That would be equivalent of me cooperating and everyone else defecting. But if we all cooperate and if we're all honest and forthcoming about ourselves and our limitations and our unflattering motivations, then we all benefit. But there's that temptation to defect. There's always the opportunity for someone else to say, oh, yeah, well, all you guys are status seekers and social climbers and selfish. But me, I'm really interested in being authentic and achieving self-actualization and making the world a better place. And you people are just petty and inferior to me. There's always that temptation to defect in the prisoner's dilemma. So we're stuck in this prisoner's dilemma. And I think the only way we can get out of it is by coordinating to punish defectors. So I think we have to create a social norm where if you come out and pretend that you're above it all, that you don't care what people think of you or that you don't care about your status and esteem and the eyes of others, you need to be penalized for that. We need to call you out on that and say you're being self-deluded. You're being naive.

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