"To launch a taboo, a group has to be poised halfway between weakness and power."
What You Can't Say (2004)
21–30 of 308 posts
Re: What You Can't Say (2004)
#22I don't really understand this article. What is the point of an empirical approach to taboo. I was a student of philosophy for years, and ethics is essentially a top-down way of finding the exact things he's looking for. Whether it be Kant's categorical imperative or Singer's expanding circle, it seems to me this taboo chasing is missing the bigger picture of finding a justifiable ethical framework, and then everything he's asking about falls out simply, and easily.
Re: What You Can't Say (2004)
#23Do you think you'll raise your children to believe in Santa, HN?
Honestly I will probably do as my parents did. I will buy christmas presents, label them "From: Santa", and I'll put them under the tree in the middle of the night, and I will decline to explain how they got there. My children can choose or decline to believe whatever rumors are swirling around the neighborhood. EDIT: personally I never asked about it because I didn't want to risk stopping the gifts.
This is also what we did with our kids. In fact, while they no longer believe (they are 13 and 18), we actually still do it.
I've never thought about why we continue to do it, but even gifts exchanged between my wife and myself get labeled "from: santa" in many cases.
Re: What You Can't Say (2004)
#24I find that in engineering circles theology and the notion of the existence of God is one of those 'moral taboos.' And advocating more nuclear power stations or private gun ownership. It is fascinating that were you to advocate gun control in the late 19th century, it seems nearly everyone would have laughed you out of the room. But that sentiment has reversed here in the 21st century. Always interesting to think abo…
Here's another one that will incite HN:
Personal ambition is overrated, and we're actually just buying into the lies of Western culture that we have to become the Ubermensch to be happy.
I struggle with this.
Re: What You Can't Say (2004)
#25Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?
If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think whatever you're told.
The other alternative would be that you independently considered every question and came up with the exact same answers that are now considered acceptable. That seems unlikely, because you'd also have to make the same mistakes. Mapmakers deliberately put slight mistakes in their maps so they can tell when someone copies them. If another map has the same mistake, that's very convincing evidence.
Is it a possibility that someone has controversial opinions but could be unafraid of expressing them to a group of peers?
Re: What You Can't Say (2004)
#26I find that in engineering circles theology and the notion of the existence of God is one of those 'moral taboos.' And advocating more nuclear power stations or private gun ownership. It is fascinating that were you to advocate gun control in the late 19th century, it seems nearly everyone would have laughed you out of the room. But that sentiment has reversed here in the 21st century. Always interesting to think abo…
There was plenty of gun control enacted in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was targeted toward black southerners, however, and AFAIK rarely made it to the US Supreme Court. The laws were usually ruled more-or-less constitutional.
Here are 5 decisions: http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndcourt/state/18st.htm http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndcourt/state/23st.htm http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=25 http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndcourt/state/154st.htm http://www.guncite.com/court/state/31ar455.html
Re: What You Can't Say (2004)
#27Do you think you'll raise your children to believe in Santa, HN?
I didn't; I've always showed my child the non-sense others believe without cause. Now 20, she has a solid grasp on reality and a firm bullshit detector.
We did (see above). Both of my children (13 and 18) also have a solid grasp on reality and firm bullshit detectors. I suspect belief in Santa, as a child, has little to do with it.
Re: What You Can't Say (2004)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it is no less true now. If anything the explosion of ubiquitous and instantaneous social media has only exacerbated the tendencies towards branding unorthodox thinking as Thoughtcrime as a twittermob of snark and hatred can be summoned in hours if not minutes.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Social media, at it's core, glorifies groupthink, rewarding you handsomely with stars and likes when you say the right thing. In time, you start thinking of what you should be saying, and then you start wondering what you should be posting so that you're perceived as a certain type of person. And when you start down that path, it feels like you become a bit more intellectually subs…
This happens here too. The downvote is a pretty big deal for such a tiny button. I'll admit to writing comments I never posted because I knew people would eviscerate me for going against the groupthink. It doesn't change my thoughts... I just don't say them "out loud".
Re: What You Can't Say (2004)
#29This is a great article. If you believe everything you're supposed to now, how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to if you had grown up among the plantation owners of the pre-Civil War South, or in Germany in the 1930s-- or among the Mongols in 1200, for that matter? Odds are you would have. This is lost on most people. You'll just hear "of course it was wrong!" and this poi…
It's difficult to overstate the power of propaganda. I think an apt comparison here is the public's opinion of the Iraq war during the build up. The media told people what to think, and, by and large, they thought what they were told, or were cowed into silence. Not that it mattered-- millions protested anyway, and were ignored.
To be blunt, the majority of people didn't even have the capacity to say "but this is wrong!" whether behind closed doors, in their mind, or in public.
They have no agency.
I think a good rule is that people who are handed their worldview from the mainstream media are going to be gullible/misguided by default. It's harsh, but I haven't found any examples to the contrary yet.
Re: What You Can't Say (2004)
#30"Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?"
I think this test is fascinating when applied to the Musk vs. Gates debate from yesterday.
How taboo is it to say forget charity? I know I feel uncomfortable with saying: 'forget the poor, we can fix them after we've figured out how to create a sustainable form of first world living' and yet that seems like a far more rational strategy to act upon.