I 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.
Yes! I love the heresy :D
I wish there were more frank expressions of beliefs that go against the status quo. I strongly agree with you, even as my core moral values and ambitions line very well up with the chase of my personal ambitions.
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.
It's good that they turned out OK despite being misled by their parents; you may find that OK because tradition, I find it simply a form of lying, regardless of whether you actively said anything or not.
This all rather reminds me of the thinking that brought about the female founders conference. I have faith that at some point in the future this form of sexism will become less fashionable !! What were we thinking you will all say. And no-one will remember the dissenters.
So sexism is bad then. I guarantee you this is not something "you can't say", or goes against today's moral fashion.
I'm glad this was submitted here for discussion. The first time I read this essay I had trouble coming up with ways our society behaves that "people in the future will find ridiculous." Many of the ones in the comments are just ways our society is backwards, but not many taboos. 1. America's devoted support for our military. A support so unquestioning that you can be beaten up for saying otherwise. Polar opposite fro…
I'm happy you did include 3. While I can normally discuss absolutely anything with my girlfriend, my opinion on this matter is one of the very few things she refuses to discuss with me.
Letting your kid believe in Santa for a while is far more powerful learning experience than showing it that others believe in this nonsense: not only can't others' beliefs be trusted, your own beliefs can't be either.
There are better ways to teach that than by showing them you're a liar. Telling them Santa is real is IMHO wrong; that's not a debatable point, that's my opinion. I don't support teaching delusions to kids whether it's Santa or God.
There are better ways to teach that than by showing them you're a liar.
No bait intended, I honestly mean it. I just felt like "it tastes good" being a weak justification since it is by nature very subjective, so I look for a better justification. also, to answer in order: -Indeed, there are multiple approaches, and this is why I find it hard to select one vs. the other. If my body "craves" meat, there's usually a reason due to digestive peptides that the nutrition from the food I'm crav…
People crave sugar, nicotine, narcotics, and other things that aren't good for them, so your argument falls apart there. You crave meat for a variety of psychological and physiological reasons, but not necessarily because you're missing something that meat provides. My argument for not eating meat is simple - why kill something for food if I don't have to?
So as I said above, there's a certain degree of actual feedback in terms of your body "Wanting" foods that contain proper nutrients, and while with a combination of multiple types of beans, supplements, and other foods you can approximate some of the proteins you'd be missing out on by not eating meat, it's both far more complicated (and until recently in my life, expensive), and as my initial statement about a lack of "True Understanding"(tm) of necessary nutrition tried to state, has potential long term effects. (and I mean biologically long term, multiple generations. If there are meaningful long term studies on what various exclusionary diets do across generation I'd like to see them, but my understanding was that our data was currently very insufficient.) So I'd respond, there are some constraints that don't say I _have_ to eat meat, but certainly shift the cost/benefit analysis more in its favor.
Dude, you're not trying hard enough. :) Most unspeakable thoughts today deal with isms and phobias: sexism, racism, agism, Islamophobia, homophobia. There are others of course. For example, I am not a climate-change denier, but if I was I certainly wouldn't say so on HN! I'm gay so I'll pick on my own group: HIV is ridiculously high amongst urban gay men. To me, it's obvious why this is the case. Evolutionarily, men…
I agree with you about most of those phobias, but I strongly disagree about Islamophobia. I think future societies will be surprised by how much human suffering we permit in the name of being "tolerant". Religions are not all created equal, and no intellectually honest person will claim that Islam and Jainism are equally valid moral frameworks (this is why few people fret about Jainophobia). We know that Islam and it…
Causing suffering is neither unique to Islam nor the intent of the majority of its adherents. Being intolerant of the factions of Islam (and other religions/sects/movements) that do cause suffering is not problematic, but generalizing that intolerance to the rest of the faith is.
Here are some things I think future societies will condemn us for: 1. Prison. Almost every modern penal system focuses on punishment rather than rehabilitation. I think that as our understanding of the brain improves, we'll be able to find the causes of violent behavior and cure them. Punishment will become cruel and unusual. 2. Eating meat (and other animal rights issues). Even if they're not conscious, most tasty a…
1. It's true they don't focus enough on rehabilitation and too much on punishment, and that sucks. 2. Eating meat is very natural. Even animals do it. 3. Nope. So completely and utterly wrong.
In the future, people will not be measured by how productive they are. They will see that human organizations greater than 150 people are divorced from reality. Productivity will be considered a shared delusion held during the Age of Work.
Managers often ask me how they can make their workers more productive. What I cannot say is, "There is no productivity."
There is a book that goes into deconstructing productivity. It's called "How to Survive in an Organization" by James Heaphey. It's based on a generation's worth of study on organizations like corporations.
Here are some things I think future societies will condemn us for: 1. Prison. Almost every modern penal system focuses on punishment rather than rehabilitation. I think that as our understanding of the brain improves, we'll be able to find the causes of violent behavior and cure them. Punishment will become cruel and unusual. 2. Eating meat (and other animal rights issues). Even if they're not conscious, most tasty a…
#1 is only partly correct insofar as some people that can be helped. Sociopathy is permanent and uncurable. It's also common among people with a criminal record. Sifting those out from otherwise lost but psychonormal individuals is not trivial.
Sociopaths can be motivated to behave.
I believe most sociopaths don't commit major crimes (maybe they could but benefits are none or don't outweight consequences). There are some people who are sociopaths and can't control themself but they are a minority of a minority. Most crimes have a motive, don't they?