Feels like "likes/upvotes" serve to inform you of what is important, but also causes you to gauge the crowd and censor your dissent.
Though an elegant argument is usually welcome in all quarters...
Persuasion and the Prestige Paradox (2021)
61–67 of 67 posts
Re: Persuasion and the Prestige Paradox (2021)
#62Why does the article interleave prestige/high-status and intelligent/educated as if they refer to the same thing? Is it trying to say two things that could be related but making one argument?
I was all ready to believe what I thought I already agreed with until I found these patterns of faulty persuasion. Luckily, even if the argument is faulty it doesn't preclude truths being present.
Re: Persuasion and the Prestige Paradox (2021)
#63Anecdotally, I've seen this play out at religious communities (though I'm not at all in doubt that this phenomenon is commonplace and prevalent everywhere). I've often noted to myself when core beliefs that were expressed/ leaked, revealed that rather than being rooted in the Bible for instance (interpretations of which are highly debated), many people's beliefs in said community were often about furthering and advan…
I'm frustrated by militarism in a sub-set of Christian culture; blind allegiance to police and military.
Re: Persuasion and the Prestige Paradox (2021)
#64I've been saying it forever: prestige is the #1 driver of human motivation, and because of this humans do not scale. The prestige party destroys forward progress with empty displays of acquired crap.
You can be actively anti-status seeking by valuing, rewarding, and praising people who are not seeking status. In this way we can be the change we wish to see.
Re: Persuasion and the Prestige Paradox (2021)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
True enough. This is why the simulation hypothesis is so interesting - i.e. the notion we are all living in a perfect VR simulation that never glitches. Science can't be used to address the veracity of that hypothesis, much to the apparent dismay of the fundamentalist atheists. I really lost interest in Richard Dawkins after he said something like "I won't answer silly questions about whether chairs and tables are re…
> True enough. This is why the simulation hypothesis is so interesting - i.e. the notion we are all living in a perfect VR simulation that never glitches. That’s not the hypothesis, afaik - we’re beings generated inside the simulation rather than ‘brains in a vat’ experiencing it. Science could address veracity if (say) whatever was running the simulation chose to make it apparent, either directly (by revelation) or…
I think that’s just moving the goalposts; evil still exists in the mind of the evildoer.
Re: Persuasion and the Prestige Paradox (2021)
#66Anecdotally, I've seen this play out at religious communities (though I'm not at all in doubt that this phenomenon is commonplace and prevalent everywhere). I've often noted to myself when core beliefs that were expressed/ leaked, revealed that rather than being rooted in the Bible for instance (interpretations of which are highly debated), many people's beliefs in said community were often about furthering and advan…
Discussing Christian Culture (capital C) in the context of this is particularly apt, because it is supposed to be about walking and growing in Christ, yet it often ends up being about...other things. Certain parts of Christian Culture are just downright weird in their emphasis on hypermasculinity ("Jesus is a warrior who is coming back!"), wealth/success ("God's blessings!"), cultural influence ("we need to fight in…
I think you can see faith as a fork like this. Because in a world without science and reason people just believed. Magical thinking was the best explanation going. It only became faith when you could effectively disprove it. And Christianity took that lack of proof and made it a defining part of the movement. It became virtuous. And over the years science shined a light into the darker corners of knowledge and left less space for religious explanation. Until finally we are left with the unknowable. Not very satisfying.
Re: Persuasion and the Prestige Paradox (2021)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For a while, placards stating something like "In this house, we believe in science" were showing up all over the area I live in. It's very odd because concepts like faith and belief are inherently religious, and don't have any place in scientific inquiry. Belief is not “inherently religious”, religion is one of many kinds of beliefs. Science is centered on a particular epistemology—a belief about what makes a belie…
True enough. This is why the simulation hypothesis is so interesting - i.e. the notion we are all living in a perfect VR simulation that never glitches. Science can't be used to address the veracity of that hypothesis, much to the apparent dismay of the fundamentalist atheists. I really lost interest in Richard Dawkins after he said something like "I won't answer silly questions about whether chairs and tables are re…
From your last sentence, it sounds like you agree with Dawkins. Isn't a question that is epistemologically unanswerable a silly question?