Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The past is not true

sive.rs

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 362 posts

Re: The past is not true

#281

Post by tracerbulletx »

cayblood wrote: post #236
mrguyorama wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accept that sometimes when you do a bad thing that permanently harms someone else you don't deserve forgiveness (not everyone is christian FFS) and it's not wrong for that to follow you around forever. If that makes you uncomfortable, too fucking bad, don't irreversibly blind someone.

One of the profound contributions of Christianity, corroborated in other wisdom traditions, is the assertion that every single one of us ignorantly does irreparable harm to others in the course of our lifetimes. Recognizing this is the beginning of wisdom, and figuring out how to live life in light of this reality has been the driving force behind many different philosophies and religious traditions passed down over…

Great system for people who want to do a disproportionate amount of harm and not be held accountable in this life.

Re: The past is not true

#282

Post by voidhorse »

Memory is a process. We do not have fixed objects we could call representations stored in our brains. Someone asks "what did you have for breakfast" and I respond with a word "pancakes" — a process and action occurs and we call it memory, I don't go looking up some representation of "the facts" and wheel it out before them, nor do I produce an actual pancake.

In other words, of course memory is an interpretation, and historical thought is basically a collective form of these kinds of processes.

What's fascinating, and what powers the drama of the article is that even if we know this scientifically and philosophically, we often can't help but act as though our memories were objects, were these concrete things that we have at hand. A person can remember, but no person actually possesses memories (unless you want to talk about the dynamic and constantly changing states of a neuronal system).

Re: The past is not true

#283

Post by ImaCake »

aodonnell2536 wrote: post #275
cayblood wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the profound contributions of Christianity, corroborated in other wisdom traditions, is the assertion that every single one of us ignorantly does irreparable harm to others in the course of our lifetimes. Recognizing this is the beginning of wisdom, and figuring out how to live life in light of this reality has been the driving force behind many different philosophies and religious traditions passed down over…

This is a line of thinking that really intrigues me, are there any external resources you would suggest to further read about it? Other than the Bible, of course

I think this is common theme in eastern religions. I feel like I’ve also seen aspects of this in western philosophy. My disclaimer here is I am not well read in any of these topics!

My more general insight is that humans have put a lot of work into trying to seperate themselves from the complications of our obligate social brains. We will always feel bad, but maybe it can be ameliorated.

Re: The past is not true

#284

Post by pstuart »

Ugh. Of course we should be mindful that "history" is created by people and people are fallible (and worse, e.g., intentionally biased), so caveat emptor.

But it doesn't mean that historical facts don't exist (shit happens - those are facts), but the recounting of such should be consumed knowing that there are likely inaccuracies.

This is not license to only take in the history we like or rewrite it to suit our agendas.

I'm technically a Boomer and my education on the history of the US was amazingly light on any details that would today seem unsavory (e.g., the expansion to the West was not simply moving into uninhabited territory, etc.).

A People's History of the United States was eye opening and a welcome revisiting of the "official story". Some might say that Zinn had an agenda to shit on White Men, but I saw it as a heartfelt attempt to correct the record.

I didn't learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre until about 10 years ago, and already there are attempts to squash that because, and I kid you not, "it makes white people feel bad".

Re: The past is not true

#285

Post by bittercynic »

bittercynic wrote: post #253
mrguyorama wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, victims are not obligated to forgive you and neither is society. Sometimes people do bad things that cannot be undone and should not be forgotten. Sometimes that person doing the bad thing is you. Even if you didn't intend to harm someone, even if you did nothing wrong, even if you followed best known procedures and were fully attentive, you can still cause irreparable harm to someone else, and we shouldn't just…

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but it seems like we're in agreement, no?

Replying to myself - I didn't understand the context of this conversation before, but I just read Mark Wahlberg's wikipedia page. Yikes. Seems like the guy was (and is?) a violent, hateful, lunatic. Something smells very off about one of his victims releasing a public statement that he has forgiven Mark.

I was not intending to argue that he should be pardoned.

Re: The past is not true

#286

Post by [deleted] »

mrguyorama wrote: post #198
amp108 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what's inside Mark Wahlberg's heart, but let's suppose it's someone whom, for the sake of argument, we know truly regrets their actions: what are they supposed to do if another person doesn't forgive them?

Accept that sometimes when you do a bad thing that permanently harms someone else you don't deserve forgiveness (not everyone is christian FFS) and it's not wrong for that to follow you around forever. If that makes you uncomfortable, too fucking bad, don't irreversibly blind someone.

[deleted]

Re: The past is not true

#287

Post by femiagbabiaka »

progmetaldev wrote: post #277
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically the raison d'etre of the American justice system today. Of course, I also think it would be nice if someone who committed hate crimes was justly punished for it, but stepping back from this specific example, I think the bloodlust around what constitutes a "just punishment" goes too far in most cases.

The American justice system seems to be based upon profit, and keeping people reoffending in order to continue keeping the justice system in place. There is no incentive to reform as the system currently stands. It is a major failure of society that recidivism is an expected consequence of being "in the system."

I used to think that it was biased towards profit, but after the last 5 or so years, I think that's just a side effect. American society believes strict and long punishment for wrongdoing is the solution to crime. We had a wave of progressive AD's elected into office and they barely lasted 3 years, they're all getting booted.

Re: The past is not true

#288

Post by 999900000999 »

miiiiiike wrote: post #134

He did the right thing by seeking her out to apologize. The rest doesn’t hold water. “There’s a small chance that the chaos and ruin I’ve visited upon others may not be as bad as as those people made me think. Thanks, I knew my negligence/malice wasn’t that big a deal.” The worst people that I’ve ever met would love for that to be true. They’ll stab people in the back or work to damage people’s careers and when you c…

Agreed. This seems to almost rationalize being a sociopath. You can't change the past. The world has no shortage of extremely shitty people who have no regard for others.

Re: The past is not true

#289

Post by [deleted] »

ideamotor wrote: post #106

We lose this when everything is recorded forever. Stated more eloquently: https://twitter.com/BrianRoemmele/status/1681340407857422336... : “I need to say this, even if it does not make sense until decades ahead: Human intelligence and a foundation of consciousness is just as much the ability to forget somethings as it is to remember. We will have to face eternal memories with AI technologies and this will be hard.”…

[deleted]

Re: The past is not true

#290

Post by macksd »

kelnos wrote: post #274
cayblood wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the profound contributions of Christianity, corroborated in other wisdom traditions, is the assertion that every single one of us ignorantly does irreparable harm to others in the course of our lifetimes. Recognizing this is the beginning of wisdom, and figuring out how to live life in light of this reality has been the driving force behind many different philosophies and religious traditions passed down over…

> One of the profound contributions of Christianity, corroborated in other wisdom traditions, is the assertion that every single one of us ignorantly does irreparable harm to others in the course of our lifetimes. The problem, though, with Christianity's take on it (or at least what some Christians take from it), is that they push the idea that all you need to do to achieve salvation is to believe in Jesus as savior,…

> or at least what some Christians take from it > Doesn't matter what I do, Jesus will take care of me

Well yes let's be clear that only a very selective reading of the New Testament allows you to conclude Jesus doesn't think it matters what you do. It's the same kind of logic that leads one to preach the "prosperity gospel". It's very clear that loving Jesus goes hand in hand with loving others and living his commandments as best you can.

Post reply on HN