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Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

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Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#101

Post by mbrodersen »

Mitzz wrote: post #95
mbrodersen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure I don’t warship anything. Not even logical thinking or reasoning. Nothing is perfect. Everything is flawed or limited in applicability. No human is either 100% good or evil. Everything depends on context. So what is there to worship?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (as I understand him) would undoubtedly say that Jesus Christ is both perfect God and perfect Man, and therefore Jesus Christ is what there is to worship. Based upon my understanding of him, his allegiance to Jesus Christ is what motivated his actions that resulted in his death at the hands of the Nazis. edit: typo

My argument was that I (for one) doesn’t worship Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Ra the sun god, humans, myself or anything else. So the argument that we all worship something is false. Dietrich might have been worshipping a god or humans but that is besides the point.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#103

Post by Mitzz »

mbrodersen wrote: post #101
Mitzz wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (as I understand him) would undoubtedly say that Jesus Christ is both perfect God and perfect Man, and therefore Jesus Christ is what there is to worship. Based upon my understanding of him, his allegiance to Jesus Christ is what motivated his actions that resulted in his death at the hands of the Nazis. edit: typo

My argument was that I (for one) doesn’t worship Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Ra the sun god, humans, myself or anything else. So the argument that we all worship something is false. Dietrich might have been worshipping a god or humans but that is besides the point.

Fair enough.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#104

Post by mbrodersen »

User23 wrote: post #99
mbrodersen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is clear evidence that morality originated with the evolution of societal thinking and human collaboration. Morality is evolutionary useful because it improves in-group trust and collaboration. In other words, there is clear evidence that morality existed thousands of years before religion. Experiments also show that even 2 year old humans and a number of animal species have clear moral thinking.

> clear evidence [x2] Don’t just tell us there’s evidence, share it please. This is a site for satisfying intellectual curiosity. > it improves in-group trust and collaboration Merely improving in-group trust and collaboration doesn’t meet any kind of acceptable moral bar. Viking raiders had high in-group trust and collaborated extremely well, while raping and pillaging to their hearts’ content. Unless you accept rai…

> doesn’t meet any kind of acceptable moral bar

Says who? Backed by what empirically true evidence? The Vikings had a strong moral code. That’s why they worked so efficiently as a group. They believe in justice and feared their gods. While raping and pillaging.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#105

Post by mbrodersen »

User23 wrote: post #99
mbrodersen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is clear evidence that morality originated with the evolution of societal thinking and human collaboration. Morality is evolutionary useful because it improves in-group trust and collaboration. In other words, there is clear evidence that morality existed thousands of years before religion. Experiments also show that even 2 year old humans and a number of animal species have clear moral thinking.

> clear evidence [x2] Don’t just tell us there’s evidence, share it please. This is a site for satisfying intellectual curiosity. > it improves in-group trust and collaboration Merely improving in-group trust and collaboration doesn’t meet any kind of acceptable moral bar. Viking raiders had high in-group trust and collaborated extremely well, while raping and pillaging to their hearts’ content. Unless you accept rai…

Your arguments are flawed. I don’t have to accept raiding as moral for my arguments to be true. For example, many Americans followed a strict moral code, inspired by and based on the Bible, while happily owning slaves and hanging non-white people from trees if they dared to object to being slaves. A clear example of in-group morals and non-morals directed at an out-group. I am sure those slave owners had a strong sense of justice and fairness to people in their own group but none towards other groups. Exactly like the Vikings.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#106

Post by France_is_bacon »

teddyh wrote: post #20
evolve2k wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are likely infected, each full with slogans and jargon.

Yes, but what do you do ?

Get the hell out of Dodge when the fireworks start. Canada, Mexico, somewhere else.

Just like in Germany, the Jews who foresaw the dangers in time and got out in time survived. The Jews who stayed, well, we all know how that story ended. Jews who stayed because they had good businesses, good job, good house, didn't want to disrupt their kids' life, trusted that the goodness of everyday Germans who wouldn't let it happen.....

Get out in time, before the sh-t goes down.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#107

Post by burrows »

mbrodersen wrote: post #94
burrows wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know how stupid the other side is, yeah you probably look around that stupid yourself Any other techniques for dealing with this? To get a better measurement of my own intelligence I think about my “dumb friend”, and then try to realize that that’s probably actually about how smart I am.

Always attack your own ideas as hard as you can. Ask yourself what evidence you have for what you believe is true. Figure out possible facts that will prove your idea false. Seek out evidence for those contrarian facts. Be ready to drop precious ideas that turn out to be brittle against facts.

Any test for determining whether I’m doing a “good job” at dropping ideas that contradict evidence?

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#108

Post by abecedarius »

pugio wrote: post #69
abecedarius wrote: post #36

Similar thoughts from Orwell from around the same time: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... It's curious how these both name a phenomenon with words that seem off-target, "stupidity" or "nationalism"; they seem to mean something like reducing yourself to a soldier for an egregore. Anyone have a better word for the general pattern?

In The Scout Mindset, Julia Galef calls a very related state "the soldier mindset" - this is similar enough to the term you proposed but I think you would enjoy reading the book.

It's very good. I'd say she focuses more on people in a more reachable state; I can imagine the eaten-by-egregores reading the book going "Yeah! This is what's wrong with the outgroup!" or just angrily rejecting it all, but it's mainly about how/why to improve in this regard on the margin. She sees the soldier mindset as having its place.

Orwell acknowledges we all have these tendencies but focuses on the people he sees as too far gone (I have no idea about all those 1940s folks).

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#109

Post by mbrodersen »

burrows wrote: post #107
mbrodersen wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always attack your own ideas as hard as you can. Ask yourself what evidence you have for what you believe is true. Figure out possible facts that will prove your idea false. Seek out evidence for those contrarian facts. Be ready to drop precious ideas that turn out to be brittle against facts.

Any test for determining whether I’m doing a “good job” at dropping ideas that contradict evidence?

How often have you dropped an idea you think is true after attacking it with everything you have? If it never happens then it is likely that you are not doing a “good job”. If few ideas you like/agree with survive then you are more likely to be doing a “good job”. It is humbling for me to realise how quickly I can emotionally believe something to be true and then realise that I have no real evidence to support it. And remembering all the things I used to think was true and I now realise might not be (not enough conclusive evidence). The key insight is that ideas are just models of the world. All flawed and with the potential to be improved/more accurate. Don’t become your ideas. Stand apart from your ideas/truths and be critical of them. Assume you are wrong and try to prove it.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#110

Post by macintux »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #64
InTheArena wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He used his ideology to break away from the group and to found a group in opposition to the first.

... a group based on a religion responsible for no small amount of evil in itself. As the GP suggests, replacing one brand of stupidity with another isn't the solution. It's the whole problem. Bonhoeffer's essay is worthwhile, but it's also true that his closing paragraphs provide a flawless example of what the previous ones warned about.

> ... a group based on a religion responsible for no small amount of evil in itself. As the GP suggests, replacing one brand of stupidity with another isn't the solution. It's the whole problem.

Or, maybe, only a powerful belief in something can provide the strength to actively resist the encroaching darkness.

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