SSC
Hansonian Optimism
Scott Alexander uses a king-and-viziers analogy to argue that people can be inherently good even when their actions seem selfish, and explores the nature of evil and human goodness.
8 min read 1,224 words
A thread through the archive
self-deception
Essays tagged “self-deception”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Essays on self-deception
14 essaysLW
Tendencies in reflective equilibrium
Scott explores how people's moral intuitions often conflict and can be reconciled through reflective equilibrium, using the example of inconsistent punishment judgments for theft by people of different socioeconomic classes.
9 min read 1,298 words
LW
Ego syntonic thoughts and values
Scott explains how the brain presents socially acceptable desires as genuine values (ego syntonic) and unacceptable ones as external compulsions (ego dystonic) to improve social signaling, with willpower representing the balance between these forces.
8 min read 1,121 words
LW
The limits of introspection
Scott reviews psychological research showing that people don't have introspective access to their own mental processes and instead guess at their reasons for behavior in the same way they would guess at others' motivations.
12 min read 1,741 words
LW
To what degree do we have goals?
Scott argues against negotiating with unconscious desires, distinguishing between behavior-executors (which have context-dependent urges) and utility-maximizers (which have stable preferences), and suggests we mistakenly model ourselves as the latter when we're actually the former.
13 min read 1,971 words
LW
Trivers on Self-Deception
Scott explains Robert Trivers' evolutionary theory that consciousness evolved as a 'public relations agency' to help people deceive others by first deceiving themselves about their true motives.
8 min read 1,145 words
LW
Conflicts Between Mental Subagents: Expanding Wei Dai's Master-Slave Model
Scott expands on Wei Dai's master-slave model of the mind to explain akrasia and self-deception, proposing that the unconscious (U) uses the conscious mind (C) as a PR agency to signal socially admirable values while pursuing selfish goals, requiring just enough genuine support of C's principles to maintain credibility both to others and to C itself.
21 min read 3,191 words
LW
That other kind of status
Scott proposes that people don't just seek status itself, but rather seek mental states that allow them to believe they have status, explaining why people adopt low-status beliefs like conspiracy theories.
8 min read 1,193 words
LW
Would Your Real Preferences Please Stand Up?
Scott argues that the 'Cynic's Theory of Akrasia' (which says people's actions reveal their true preferences, contradicting their stated preferences) is functionally equivalent to the naive theory, just valuing unconscious over conscious preferences, and defends prioritizing conscious preferences because they're rational and morally informed.
9 min read 1,246 words
LW
What I Tell You Three Times Is True
Scott argues that affirmations (repeatedly stating goals aloud) might actually work based on evidence that subconscious beliefs affect success and that verbal repetition influences subconscious beliefs, though he acknowledges this needs proper scientific study.
9 min read 1,379 words
LW
Bogus Pipeline, Bona Fide Pipeline
Scott explains two psychological techniques for detecting hidden attitudes: the Bogus Pipeline (a fake lie detector that reduces conscious lying) and the Bona Fide Pipeline (a reaction-time computer test that measures unconscious associations).
8 min read 1,112 words
LW
The Apologist and the Revolutionary
Scott explains Ramachandran's theory that anosognosia and split-brain confabulation reflect a left-brain 'apologist' and a right-brain 'revolutionary' whose balance governs our ability to change our minds.
11 min read 1,618 words
LW
You May Already Be A Sinner
Scott uses Calvinist predestination and Tversky's ice-water heart study to show how people confuse correlation with causation and deceive themselves about their own motives.
8 min read 1,094 words
LW
Simultaneously Right and Wrong
Scott uses self-handicapping studies to argue that people can hold a biased belief on the surface and an accurate one underneath, much like belief in belief.
7 min read 1,066 words