Joe Carlsmith: belief

Transcript context

…Part of your day job is writing these Section 2/2.5-type reports. Part of it is like, “society is like a tree that's growing towards the light.” What is it like context switching between the two of them? I actually find it's kind of quite complementary. I will write these more technical reports and then do more literary and philosophical writing. They both draw in different parts of myself, and I try to think about them in different ways. I think about some of the reports as much more like, “I'm more fully optimizing for trying to do something impactful. ” There's more of an impact orientation there. In essay writing, I give myself much more leeway to let other parts of myself and other parts of my concerns come out, self-expression and aesthetics and other sorts of things. They’re both part of an underlying similar concern or an attempt to have a kind of integrated orientation towards the situation. Could you explain the nature of the transfer between the two, in particular from the literary side to the technical side? Rationalists are sort of known for having an ambivalence towards great works or humanities. Are they missing something crucial because of that? One thing you notice in your essays is lots of references to epigraphs, to lines in poems or essays that are particularly relevant. I don't know. Are the rest of the rationalists missing something because they don't have that kind of background?…

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