“I’m not saying TV Tropes is right about everything,” I typed into the chat window, “but right now it understands your life better than you do.”

I have invented a new form of psychotherapy

I call it Cognitive Trope Therapy

the way it works is that when you have a thought, you write it down

like, say

“You are different from the others. You will never know their innocence… and that is why you should hate your own existence. Die. Die. Die.”

then you figure out whether, if your life were a fantasy novel, these words would be spoken by figures wearing black robes, and speaking in a dry, whispering voice, and they are actually withered beings who touched the Stone of Evil

and if so then you don’t listen

I would write this up as a pop psych bestseller but it would be only two pages long

now

I know what you are thinking

you are thinking “but what if the whispering voice seems like it might have a point”

Eliezer on LW: “We should become supremely rational, moving faster than the comparatively timid procedures of Old Science. We must conquer death itself and win immortality, the faster the better, dismissing those who would urge restraint in this effort as hidebound and inferior thinkers. We shall build unspeakably powerful artificial intelligences to rule over us, transform us from weak creatures of flesh into beings of pure information. Then we’ll build giant structures that blot out the stars, and finally realize our destiny of taking over the galaxy.”

But, humans are enmeshed in a larger web of other humans, who aid in their own survival, and are similar enough to have empathy for. They have significant motive to want this web to flourish rather than die.

Having your brain stubbornly seize upon the first interpretation that happens to pop into your head as the Only Possible Interpretation, regardless of whether it’s literal or figurative  

Easily identifying several possible interpretations of a statement, but having absolutely no ability to parse for context and identify which of those interpretations is most plausible  

Being confronted with a statement that has Implications, then getting thrown for a loop when it turns out that the speaker wasn’t considering any of that and really did just mean it literally  

As something-maybe-akin-to-an-authoritarian myself (in certain respects), I take this problem very seriously. The science of finding, selecting, and controlling your authority figures is a fertile field of inquiry! I encourage you to give it some thought!

“Hey.”

Me:  No.

“This tumblr post feels incomplete.”

Me:  Stop it.  I’m watching you.

“The obvious question -”