Oddbean new post about | logout
 While I radically disagree with their point of view, I try to remain sensitive to people's plights. 

As someone who once felt misunderstood and cast out because of social quirks and psychological predicaments, I can imagine that people tend to reach for this kind of argument because it speaks to the fact that while merit, excellence and intelligence are, in concept, desirable, the way we have measured that as a society, has been distorted over time.

These unfortunate souls do not realize that while their personal experience might have been negative, the overall result for humanity has been positive, as evidenced by our success at increasing the human population and longevity, in spite of the severe problems that we still do face as a species.

That we fix HOW we measure these 3 attributes to properly assess the value of an individual to our community, and so that the individual might also properly evaluate their contribution to their's, is what we are taught by lowering our time preference. These creatures have such an alarmingly high time preference, that even reaching for such a realization is beyond them.

In due time though.. it will come to them too. 

Either that, or oblivion. and so we wait.