2026-02-24
Morality as identity, and why I want to lower my morals on purpose
Disclaimer
- Quick Note
- Contains politically sensitive
Main
- Some people I have met and read, both online and offline, seem to have a perspective that morality is a part of your identity.
- Identity changes slowly over time. Maybe it only changes rapidly when you are in a period of intense suffering.
- I don't yet know if this perspective is true.
- On morality of cyberattacking the US intelligence community
- I think part of the problem is that deep down I know I am a Loser. If I look at my own past actions, then my moral standards are too high for someone who can actually enter into a conflict with the US intelligence community and Win. Also I move too slowly to actually Win, people who win execute at a higher rate than I do, even though my rate is already high.
- In theory, winning this conflict is more important to me than anything else in life. It is more important to me than my friends, my past or future partners, whether I make money, whether I have a lot of material goods, and so on. I have already made non-trivial sacrifices along all these dimensions to get to where I am in life today, so this is not just words floating in air, I have proved it with my actions atleast a little.
- Unfonrtunately, I am realising I need to lower my morals even further, in order to fight the US intelligence community. They are far more ruthless than I am.
- Right now I think I have narrowed down the scope of the problem to something that feels attainable from my current moral position, instead of expecting to change my entire moral system overnight. If I want to lower my moral values, I have to make small deltas not big ones.
- I have often joked that if I deliberately put myself into a situation of intense suffering (like say, Xi Jinping's bad childhood), then out will come the person who actually has the morals required to win. I seem unwilling to actually do this to myself, though it is possible it may work.
- As a side note, I am also growing increasingly distrustful of people who claim what their moral values are, including those who claim to have no morals and those claim to have high morals. People who claim to have high morals often betray this by showing lower morals in their actions, and people who claim to have no morals also often betray this by showing higher morals in their actions. I am increasingly only willing to trust actions shown over a long time period here.
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