151–160 of 201 posts
This is the natural consequence of killing God, as Nietzsche observed. Without an objective basis, there's no objective truth about what's valuable, right, or good. But we desperately want to be right, so we ignore what God says is right and invent our own version. "For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." - The apostle Paul's le…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt makes this nicely clear. He claims that liberals mostly value fairness and harm avoidance. More conservatives in addition also value authority, ingroup and purity. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind ). To me this rings intuitively true and strongly validates your point. To me ingroup, authority and purity are at best suspect if not actively negative, so there see…
ALL people value fairness and harm avoidance. They just define 'what' or 'to what level' is fair or harmful, differently than you. It shows the bubble one lives in to think otherwise. It's very telling that you apply more favorable labels to one group and labels associated with negative outcomes to another.
Social Media rewards polarized, highly motivated points of view. This isn't a "both sides" thing, it's a human nature thing. These highly polarized posts never change anyone's minds. They only make people more motivated. It can be good to be more motivated, but the cost is driving a wedge between people who are differently motivated. So how can tech solve this? I have no idea, but people can help by having conversati…
I think it has to be a change to the culture. Many of us have been shocked at the sudden rejection of Classical Liberalism. Preference for free exchange of ideas, objectivity, debate, judging arguments without regard to who is making the argument. I think those of us who were engaged in that intellectual world, never realized that most people are not invested in these values. So now that everyone has the capability t…
I don't like this idea that feelings of righteous indignation need to be moderated like some kind of proverbial addictive substance. If you believe things, you will feel righteousness when they are (or are perceived to be) challenged. The better question is: why do we believe what we believe? And why have these beliefs done so much harm?
Righteous indignation can lead to dismissing data conflicting with your current beliefs, and wishing harm on those who disagree with your beliefs. That is why humility and tolerance are important.
Our beliefs have led to some horrific outcomes over the past several hundred years. What interests me personally isn't how to believe less in order to avoid risk, it's how to believe in such a way that the resulting actions will improve our lives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Downside is sometimes people doesn't understand what you meant. But the explicit purpose is to conceal what you actually mean to avoid criticism. So, you need to be more specific about “people”: one downside is that the intended audience sometimes doesn't understand what you mean (another is that the audience you are trying to bypass sometimes does.) PG is referring to the long-recognized practice of political dog-…
>> PG is referring to the long-recognized practice of political dog-whistles here. Serious question: what exactly do you mean by "political dog-whistle"? No similar term is contained in the Paul Graham piece that was linked and I am genuinely curious what it is you are implying by this. I have heard this term "political dog-whistle" thrown around over the past few years and for me it has somewhat poor metaphorical qu…
The act of using coded words, phrases or even emoji to say specific things to a specific group while seeming innocuous to the general public. It can be used for members of a group to acknowledge who each other are, or to rename issues so that they seem different to the general public, or to bring up events to push an agenda. [0]
[0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dog-whistle
This is the natural consequence of killing God, as Nietzsche observed. Without an objective basis, there's no objective truth about what's valuable, right, or good. But we desperately want to be right, so we ignore what God says is right and invent our own version. "For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." - The apostle Paul's le…
>But in the case of righteousness, such a belief is almost always mistaken. Most of us, whether we be timid or bold, liberal, conservative, or (especially) some version of radical, are prone to imbibing heady infusions of the stuff. Viewing ourselves as “good,” in fact we become grievously toxic, literally intoxicated. In this poisonous state of mind we are able to write off others — often literally billions of other…
> When you feel that you have right on your side you can do some horrific things.
> If you think that you have the moral high ground, that's a very dangerous position and you can do some really dreadful things.
For those who don't know, the Weather Underground were a violent revolutionary/militant/terrorist group in the US in the 70's who aimed to (more or less) overthrow the US government.
I wonder what the author's thoughts are on "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. It mentions many clear refutes backed up by history to the idea of how bad it is for humans to be "addicted to righteousness". For example, individuals have not and do not live by themselves in a vacuum as only selfish. We are also very group-ish, and it is the righteousness or norm…
But in modern secular societies, family is less influential, and people get their information from other sources. For example, most people go to public schools, which teach from a secular perspective. They consume secular media and participate in an increasingly secular, globalized internet culture. It is increasingly possible for a person to completely abandon their parents' ideals and integrate themselves into a different community.
For that reason, I would argue that people today are likely to find other ways to spread their ideas other than passing them on to their children. This might be through art, including stuff like spreading memes on the internet. It could be through career, such as publishing research in a journal. Or through politics and activism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually both sides of arguments both have truth to them and the way to objective truth exists via trying to understand why both sides believe what they do. Athiesm seems like the objective rational truth. But why do billions of people believe in an invisible man in the sky? What is the objective truth that we can learn from that?
I think that this is fundamentally untrue. Middle between truth and lie is a lie. When you are trying to find truth purely by searching middle of what people say, you are enabling bad actors and punishing honest people.
Truth (and science) are iterative.
The world is infinitely complex and unless one is omniscient the only thing one can know for certain is that one is less wrong at the moment.
To think one has known an irrefutable truth is fanaticism and righteousness.
Lobotomy's won the Nobel prize when science roundly believed they were beneficial and I'm sure in the moment those experts thought they knew an irrefutable truth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually both sides of arguments both have truth to them and the way to objective truth exists via trying to understand why both sides believe what they do. Athiesm seems like the objective rational truth. But why do billions of people believe in an invisible man in the sky? What is the objective truth that we can learn from that?
I suspect you’re making more implicit assumptions than you realize. Also your snarky, facile dismissal of religion makes the idea of constructive engagement with you seem unlikely. I think you missed the point.
Talk about missing the point.