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Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
61–70 of 99 posts
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#62Hmmmm. I agree that you shouldn't identify with notions and ideas and labels, because that's just dumb and putting the cart before the horse. But generally, and ignoring the sensibilities of HN? No to most of that.
I started to care about politics since I saw corpses being shoved into a mass grave with a caterpillar while switching TV channels when I was a kid, and it hasn't let up since. Why should it? Politics by definition affects everyone, in ways that actually matter. Just take the web; it matters because it allows people to communicate, the people make it matter. Even more so with politics, which doesn't just affect everybody, everybody owns an equal share of it. Most people let theirs rot, but they still own it, and if the circus around it has been made that complex and hidden among many bloated layers of euphemisms and misdirection, to encourage apathy and and facilitate deception, then those layers need to be removed, instead of removing the "uneducated" from the debate. If a simple but adult mind can't understand it, something is fishy. Politics really isn't that complex as some people would love to make it out to be, or at the very least, sophistry is not complexity, and this makes for a huge chunk of political debate and opinions. As Chomsky said in some talk or other.. when he talks with intellectuals they have a hard time understanding even the most basic stuff, while some peasants in South America for example get it right away. I guess their being on the receiving end of it, instead of trying to rationalize the bloodshed their own gloved hand is doling out (or the hand of the uncle in whose lap they're sitting), helps.
Also, it reminds me of this quote:
The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive.' The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.
-- Sophie Scholl
Safe from what, indeed? From being incorrect? From being inefficient? From raised blood pressure? Why not try to be safe from standing for nothing? I don't mean to be polemic but I truly don't get it. What is a "useful conversation"? Useful for what, exactly? Talking about Javascript is terribly useless when it comes to being a decent person. Talking about being a decent person is terribly useless for debugging Javascript. If it has no potential to make anyone sad, angry or happy, it's likely a gimmick in the bigger scheme of things. Which is fine for HN I guess, but not for general advice on what kind of person one should be. Thanks, but no thanks.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that there are many questions that any given human will be very likely to ask itself at some point in its life, and perhaps to dwell upon at some length. The example you gave of "Where do we come from?" is one, along with "Why am I here?", "What am I meant to do?", and many others. Where I disagree is your leap from those questions to some notion of a "higher being". First, as mentioned previously, this term…
Saying that evolutions answers where we come from is a little like traveling to another country, and when a local asks "where did you come from?" answering "the airport".
It sounds like you're looking for an answer to a question more like "Where did the universe come from?" That's an entirely different question.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that there are many questions that any given human will be very likely to ask itself at some point in its life, and perhaps to dwell upon at some length. The example you gave of "Where do we come from?" is one, along with "Why am I here?", "What am I meant to do?", and many others. Where I disagree is your leap from those questions to some notion of a "higher being". First, as mentioned previously, this term…
The idea, much less the concrete evidence, that science (evolution) can explain everything is about five minutes old compared to humanity - and humanity has looked to the super-natural to answer the big questions for as long as they have been able to express those questions. It doesn't get much more fundamental than that.
Fundamental does not mean old, it means essential. Age has very little to do with it. Never leaving Earth is a part of human life as old as humanity itself, and yet we have proven that it is not an essential one.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#65Some observation on HN these days: Many threads about PERL vs Python ... etc, .Net, Java, or whatever programming languages some people really hates are just moving towards polarizations as religion/politics discussions.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#66> "Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion." I agree that this is how people tend to see it. But it isn't really true. Like JavaScript or auto mechanics or animal husbandry, there is indeed a threshold of expertise for expressing a meaningful opinion. The value of somebody else's commentary on political issues is pretty much directly proportional to their…
> The value of somebody else's commentary on political issues is pretty much directly proportional to their understanding of the political system and their command of objective facts. I think this is objectively wrong for the specific case of politics; unlike, say, analytical chemistry, politics has an active opinion on how each of us live our lives and can't be "left to the expert" (the latter being what the politic…
> 1) Does a homosexual couple with no knowledge of US marriage law not have a valid opinion on whether they should be allowed to marry?
Does a redneck from the south with no knowledge of US marriage law have a valid opinion on whether gays should be allowed to marry?
Does you opinion on what's a valid opinion change depending on whether you think people would agree with you?
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#67> "Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion." I agree that this is how people tend to see it. But it isn't really true. Like JavaScript or auto mechanics or animal husbandry, there is indeed a threshold of expertise for expressing a meaningful opinion. The value of somebody else's commentary on political issues is pretty much directly proportional to their…
> The value of somebody else's commentary on political issues is pretty much directly proportional to their understanding of the political system and their command of objective facts. Politics isn't about objective facts. Politics deals with ought , not is . There are certainly objective, measurable facts relevant to any particular question, but political debate rarely focuses on those; it's usually a contest among p…
People need some notion of the current state of the world in order to have a meaningful opinion of how to change it. Most people think that income taxes on the rich ought to be raised and most people think that 33% is an ideal marginal tax rate for the rich, but the rich already pay more than 33% on their marginal income.
Or there's the position that we ought to balance the budget by cutting foreign aid.
Or the idea that we shouldn't accept any level of radioactivity in our food.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#68I really loved the article, but would go furthermore and say like Mooji find out what you really are, ask the question who is I behind a thought based identity. More on yt:
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#69Among my drinking buddies we have one inviolable and long standing rule:
No discussions of religion or politics
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saying that evolutions answers where we come from is a little like traveling to another country, and when a local asks "where did you come from?" answering "the airport".
It sounds like you're looking for an answer to a question more like "Where did the universe come from?" That's an entirely different question.
We're part of the universe, so that question is still contained in "where have we come from," at least from some values of "we".
But even after that, there's still the appearance of life in the universe and the appearance of life on Earth.