Hertzlinger, I would summarize your comment as “Once you’ve got religion, you’ve got choice of two different ways to screw up.” It’s not as if there’s anything good about a religion persisting for centuries. Imagine if a cult of 17th-century physicists were still running around.
Finney, I do indeed think there’s a conflict between tsuyoku naritai and majoritarianism. Suppose everyone were a majoritarian—information would degrade from generation to generation, as the “average belief” changed a little in transmission. (Where did all that information come from in the first place? Not from majoritarian reasoning.) Further, if you’re a majoritarian, once you achieve the level of the average, you hit a brick wall—you’re not allowed to aspire to anything above that. Hopefully the reasons for my strong negative reaction to majoritarianism are now clearer.
Hertzlinger, I would summarize your comment as “Once you’ve got religion, you’ve got choice of two different ways to screw up.” It’s not as if there’s anything good about a religion persisting for centuries. Imagine if a cult of 17th-century physicists were still running around.
Finney, I do indeed think there’s a conflict between tsuyoku naritai and majoritarianism. Suppose everyone were a majoritarian—information would degrade from generation to generation, as the “average belief” changed a little in transmission. (Where did all that information come from in the first place? Not from majoritarian reasoning.) Further, if you’re a majoritarian, once you achieve the level of the average, you hit a brick wall—you’re not allowed to aspire to anything above that. Hopefully the reasons for my strong negative reaction to majoritarianism are now clearer.