2026-05-31
Update
2026-05-30
Maybe I am better at dating people who are more present-focussed, and dating epsilon-shifted clones
Disclaimer
- personal
- target audience - strictly myself
Main
- People often do things to satisfy very-short-term goals or short-term goals or long-term goals.
- Example of very-short-term goal-oriented behaviour: I visited a flower bed because I like flowers.
- Example of short-term goal-oriented behaviour: I am asking people for advice so that I can shift cities in a few months.
- Example of long-term goal-oriented behaviour: I am going to do corporate job for 10 years to buy a large house.
- Imagine 3 different women doing each of the 3 different things above.
- My judgement of them:
- first one: amazing, can I join?
- second one: sure, this might make sense, although it depends why you are shifting in the first place
- third one: this is obviously stupid, the Singularity may be here before you buy your damn house, you are wasting away your entire life for something that does not matter
- To be clear, actually having them work fulltime on ASI risk is still an even better move. But like, "I am going to visit a flowerbed" doesn't invoke "what the fuck are you doing with your life?" feelings from me the way "I am doing job for 10 years to buy a house" invokes.
- To be clear, maybe it is still possible to be together even if you think the other person's long-term goals are stupid. You'll just end up with something like "let's agree to not talk about it" on those topics, or you'll fake listening to them complain their problems.
- I don't know how to listen to people's problems when I think those problems are downstream of a fundamentally stupid worldview. - important
- Like, I can understand where there are coming from, doesn't mean I am interesting in hearing it. I can listen to it once or twice, that is fine, but if it gets repetitive, I'm out.
- It again comes back to the growth mindset thing. I have low tolerance for lack of growth mindset in myself or others. If your worldview is fundamentally stupid, the correct thing to do is to update your worldview, anything else feels wrong to me.
- Shared experiences of suffering bond people a lot, but only if the long-term goals they are suffering for are also shared or atleast relatable to the other person.
Side notes
- Probably this is not an issue just for me. In general if two people have very different long-term goals, there is significant probability they both think the other person's long-term goals are stupid. However they could still have plenty of short-term goals in common, or things they can atleast relate to.
- Lmao I wonder if Richard W Hamming realised any of this shit, when he proposed his criteria.
Main 2
- I don't know, I think there is a frontier of long-term goals I respect, and a frontier of long-term goals I do not respect.
- It's like, imagine I could clone myself with a random epsilon error 1000 times and split work amongst them. What would all my clones be doing? Assume my clones had very high level of trust in each other, and could coordinate really well.
- I think many of my clones would just be working on AI pause to be honest. Maybe a few would just be slow travelling fulltime and making new friends / dating new people. A few clones would work on human genetic engg ethics. A few clones would work on human genetic engg technical stuff. A few clones would work on solar. There will be that one random clone who just do something crazy like become a musician or some shit. Definitely atleast some of my clones will commit suicide due to mental health issues, or drug overdose, or similar. I can even imagine some of my clones doing stuff like becoming a therapist. Maybe one clone does the whole earn-to-give shit.
- If my partner is working on a long-term goal that atleast one of my 1000 epsilon-shifted clones would be working on, then I am lot more likely to respect my partner's long-term goals, and really want to listen to their suffering and so on.
- I don't know, I think Paul Graham's "How to do great work" is relevant here. I'm fairly confident atleast half of my clones will eventually converge on something similar to this, although each clone's ideas of what counts as "great work" might differ significantly.
Main 3
- This also explains why I am able to listen to problems of middle / lower-middle class, but have zero interest in listening to problems of people of my own upper-middle / lower-upper class. For someone in middle class, it makes sense for them to just work hard on some job and get some savings first. This is a rational move. If my epsilon-shifted clones were born in the middle class it seems plausible they would be doing similar stuff too.
Side note
- I am actually excited that I have written up this note lol. It feels so true, and yet I can see this as being genuine intellectual progress on this problem (which value transitions can relationships tolerate) as opposed to neurotic anxious theorising from a place of desperation/unhappiness.
Holy shit wait I got an insight
- Lol I need to actually draw a figure for this. Or I will try describing it in words here.
- Imagine there is a a decision tree of all possible sequences of life decisions. The tree has a very high branch factor.
- Imagine one epsilon-shifted clone has taken the path
A -> B -> C -> X, and imagine another clone has taken the path A -> B -> C -> P -> R.
- Now if the second clone is put into the first clone's shoes, will they continue
A -> B -> C -> X -> Z or will they do A -> B -> C -> X -> undo-X -> P? Basically from the point of view of the second clone, is X advantageous just in a different way from P, or is X so disadvantageous compared to other options. that it is worth spending even more attention/capital to undo it.
- If you have 1000 epsilon-shifted clones coordinating with each other and traversing this search space, it is possible for one clone to traverse
A -> B -> C -> X and for another to traverse A -> B -> C -> P -> R, and for both clones to respect each others' decisions, because there is no consensus on which path is optimal, both clones are operating at the frontiers of knowledge / new life trajectories.
- Ugh okay fine this is very theoretical, but I can also give real world examples. Not now, tired now.
P.S. Epsilon is random error, but I also need to another factor, let's say gamma, for the difference in genetics + culture for being born as a woman. Like, men are more interested in things, women are more interested in people, and all of that. I wish I understood this difference better to be honest.
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