Psychological biases that impede the success in the reducing intense suffering movement

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“Sometimes people do not want to hear the truth, because they do not want their illusions to be destroyed.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

“Sometimes the truth is the last thing we need to hear…” (Flowers of War).

 

I believe we already have the technologies that would allow us a huge reduction in intense suffering, and yet we are not using them systematically, and the reason is that we have a series of biases [1] or mental programming that work against us and prevent us from happiness.

These mental programming are the result of evolution and prioritize reproductive success over happiness, in addition to largely ignoring intense suffering. I believe that these psychological biases are the main aspect that prevents the success of the reducing intense suffering movement. If we could overcome or solve them, we would be much closer to a totally happy world.

Working on understanding and creating tools to overcome psychological biases could be a strategic priority for the reducing intense suffering movement.

These biases and mental programming I think are, at least:

• Prioritize life at all costs [2] [c3]. Think and act in such a way that the more life the better, without taking into account suffering. Try to live lives as long as possible and have as many descendants as possible regardless of the consequences. To think and feel that not existing would be terrible, when, on the contrary, when we did not exist we had no problem.
• Permanent dissatisfaction (hedonic adaptation or hedonic treadmill [3]). (Rollin Stones’ I can’t get no…)
• Superstition: believing that thinking or talking about terrible things makes them more likely, when it is precisely something necessary to prevent them.
• Believe that some things never change. Act and think as if we were to live forever. Ignoring our own death, which leads to not taking measures so that, when the time comes, our own death entails the least possible suffering.
• Survivorship bias [4]. Believing that intense suffering is something that happens to others. Neglect the possibility that yourself could be unlucky enough to experience intense suffering. Believing that the luck we have had so far will always accompany us. Ignore suffering difficult to survey [5].
• Believing that intense suffering is not so bad, simply due to ignorance.
• Empathy, so that to avoid suffering from empathy, the quality of being “real” from experiences of intense suffering is mentally rejected. They are considered so unpleasant that it is difficult to assume that something like this can really exist.
• Justice, or poetic justice: believing that those responsible for bad actions deserve to suffer, or that whoever caused suffering must suffer in equal measure [6] [c1].
• Believing that suffering is necessary or at least useful to achieve holiness, a state of grace or redemption from sins. In particular, it is observed in Christian morality [c2].
• Believing that suffering favors the virtue or nobility of those who suffer. This is a belief proper to the heroic moral or moral of the knights [c2].
• Believing that making those who offended us suffer restores lost honor and washes out insults. This is a belief of honor-based morality [c2].
• Believing that suffering is necessary for happiness, to “feel alive”, to give meaning to life [c2]. In reality, it is more about overcoming suffering than the suffering itself, since “There is no greater pleasure than when pain goes away.”
• Make of necessity, virtue. Believing that, as “it has always been so,” trying to change it will therefore be impossible or dangerous. Better not to try and strive to believe it is good: “Suffering is instructional.”, “It builds character.”, “It comes with man’s free will.” [10]
• “Carnism”: the psychology of eating animals. [11] [12]
• The poor meat eater problem. [13] [14]
• Fear of the unknown. Need suffering to feel familiarity and realism. Some kind of “thanatos”, but in this particular case, as attraction to suffering itself, in general. The feeling that suffering has to be in the scene and otherwise the scene is not true, insecure (vg. the anaesthesia rejection in the beginning, by doctors), unreal, unfamiliar, alien…
• Wishful thinking (our tendency to believe that everything’s gonna be alright) and overconfidence bias (excessive confidence in our own beliefs and abilities).
• An instinctive aversion to the moral consideration of intense suffering, and to the recognition of the possibility that in the future there may continue to be much more disvalue than value [15].

 

Related documents

• [1] Existential biases
• [2] The big lie
• [3] The Imperative To Abolish Suffering: An Interview With David Pearce
• [4] Survivorship bias
• [5] Types of suffering based on their uncertainty
• [6] About violence and punishment
• [7] What makes people negative utilitarian?
• [8] How Important Is Experiencing Suffering for Caring About Suffering?
• [9] Words will never convince somebody to become an anti-natalist
• [10] Learned helplessness
• [11] Carnism, by Melanie Joy
• [12] Psychology of eating meat
• [13] Poor meat eater problem
• [14] The meat-eater problem
• [15] Facebook thread

 

Quotes

• [c1] To think that “…it is good for people to experience the negative consequences of bad decisions, especially when it comes to criminals and people who hurt us.” —David Moritz.
• [c2] “Sadism and masochism (not just the sexual kind): the psychological bias that there is an unbreakable connection between suffering and happiness/meaning. A simple example of this is epics, fables, and adventure stories. The trials and tribulations of the protagonist are the thing that makes the tragedy or comedy meaningful. The desire to live one’s own adventure is an expression of both sadism (conquering enemies) and masochism (enduring struggle to become a hero). The centerpiece of the Bible is not a description of heaven, but Jesus’s death for our sins … We also think suffering is what it means to be alive.” —David Moritz.
• [c3] “Suppose you’re going to be tortured until you die. It would be better for you to die immediately. Yet, if someone runs at you with a sword, it’s plausible you’ll still run away … Suppose you’re going to live alone in a prison cell for a year, being given food and water. Once that year is up, you’ll be brutally tortured every day for the next year. But if you die within the first year, you can escape the future torture. From a hedonic perspective it’s clearly better for you to refrain from eating and drinking in order to kill yourself. But in practice, doing that would be very difficult. We shouldn’t infer from the fact that you eat after attempting starvation that you actually prefer to stay alive. Of course, the situation for animals in the wild may not be as drastic as the example just painted, but it illustrates the caution we should exercise when drawing conclusions about an organism’s preference for life from the instinctual survival behaviors that it demonstrates.” —Brian Tomasik

 

Acknowledgments

• Thanks David Moritz, Pilar Ovalle, ジェリグ パーリー, Brian Tomasik, Samuel Álvarez