I got bogged down in the section on the development and spread of torture by electricity.
I thought it got too ugly for you and you just gave up in disgust at the senseless brutality.
Raw_Power
Karma: 1,047
You mean that “actual democracy” would be better than “representative government”?
Actually, starting a lobby with the goal of legalizing apostasy sounds like a good idea...
You mean in terms of Body Horror?
Seeing improvements in ways that are immediately tabgible is very encouraging and motivating.
People do have an astoundingly aggravating ability to compartimentalize these things, though: see “Outside The Laboratory”.
Privileged Rituals of Thought?
Thank you for helping me remember what it felt like to think that way. The Dark Side Will Make You Forget indeed… :P
Well, I absolutely agree with all that you just said. But still, knowing what sentences the judge can dole out is important. The problem with mob-rousing stuff such as apostasy… or Frankenstein-monster raising, or being Black, or a Hugonot, or an adulterer, depending on context… is that you could easily be subjected to “mob justice”, and there would be impunity for your murderers: Pontius Piwatus keeps his hands cwean, and evewyone is happy (the dead can’t compwain).
I agree with you on all points here.
You wouldn’t tell that by watching a Hollywood movie
That is, indeed, the bit that I am worried about.
Argue against? I can’t find a single thing here that I disagree with. Except the bits where you argue in favour of mercantilism, but I never argued against that. I would (mostly along the lines of “freemarkets need specific cultural memes specific social and political infrastructures to function well: it’s a great engine but you can’t put it in just any car or in the hands of just any driver, otherwise people will die, and even in the right conditions it’s still massively dangerous, but it’s just so much more awesome than other crappier engines...”), but I reserve judgement until after I’ve read the classics and grown more familiar with the meme-space’s historical evolution.
“Reasonable Muslim” does seem to be a good approach, what with learning not to be a smug idiot and such. One would want to practice it, if only because one would know how painful and confusing a paradygm shift can be in that domain, and wouldn’t wish to inflict it on people who don’t explicitly seek it out. Though, the law being the way it is, even people who are struggling with religion should be left alone to have their own epiphanies.
The “No True Scotsman” fallacy (or, more specifically, the “This Scotsman Who Went And Was Educated In England And Has All The Mannerisms And Accents And Beliefs Of Our English Overlords Is No True Scotsman”) is an authentic problem. I have seen a west-educated boy from country X who, hearing another X-educated X boy who complained that meeting parties in the international organization they worked in were too focused on “disgusting” alcohol and pig. The “western” boy told the “genuine X” boy that he could drink alcohol-free beer or even a soft drink if he so wished, and that there was a sufficient selection of non-pigful food, including vegetarian food if he worried about Halal. The “genuine X” boy flat-out told the “westen” boy that he was “NOT X”. He did not look like he was from X, he did not speak X-ian as well as X, he did not dress like an X, move like an X, and he was waaaay too comfortable with pig and alcohol for his taste. He did so more with the tone of someone who is making an observation that frightens them than with a tone of censorship or condemnation. The “western” boy exused himself politely then spent the afternoon being very, very pissed off and profoundly offended, though that confused him: he thought he had outgrown something as irrational as “nationalism”, “group identity”, and “the desire to belong”, but, he said to me later, he was deepy hurt by that.
There really is a point after which cultural difference becomes so gaping that, while one may have a passport from X, one will be treated exactly as a foreigner by the “authentics”, especially in extremely uniform, totalitarian societies, with a rather sharply defined collective identity. How to reach them, then? Should one even try?
More like, after a certain point, it just gets impractical. Both “modesty” and “immodesty” (also, what a crappy word, synonymous with humility, which is not what this is about, right? well, except for Medaka-chan, but she’s kind of special).
That’s a very puzzling comment… care to elaborate?
Martyrdom’s outcomes are chancey, and, while sometimes it can trigger outrage and change, most of the time it’s just a senseless loss. It is a loser’s save roll. Rationalists are not losers.
Many of those governments ardently desire their intelligent, rational people leaving, and will even facilitate that movement. They get in the way of a stable tyranny.
More importantly, the more they appropriate a foreign culture, the more the locals will see them as “foreign”. A “Return of the Elites” might not be welcome: see Iran after the Shah was deposed,
Capitalism as the source of a nation’s prosperity might also be a red herring: notice how America and Africa are full of perfectly capitalist, utterly miserable nations.
Being afraid of being sent to hell for eternity is no more “evidence” that god exists than is being afraid of tigers evidence that there is one in your back yard.
That was beautiful.
In my opinion, the best advantages rationality can gain is a totally reasonable intelligent well spoken blond woman wearing sleeveless dresses smiling and explaining with devastating clarity just how much sense atheism makes.
That was oddly specific.
So they should avoid having their Real Life personas being linked to LW in any way, shape, or form. This might be difficult if LW grows famous and their influence in the secret apostate is too obvious… How would one go about being a rationalist “with the serial numbers filed off”.
More importantly, it forces constant, exponential economic growth. Jormungard has to grow faster than he eats himself, or the world collapses.