“People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.” —Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander from the book “Wizard’s first rule” by Terry Goodkind.
Spectral_Dragon
Karma: 192
At least the first book, is written nicely and tells a good traditional story as long as you don’t go any deeper into the meanings of it all, though it gets worse as the series goes on. I find the last book hilarious as the main character defeats the communists by first beating them in a game of American football. All in all, it’s actually decent, if a bit… Grim at times, if you only want a fantasy novel.
It could certainly be better, and a little less transparent, but it has some good, useable quotes.
I’ve definitely felt like that, and I don’t think I’ve been aware of this community for less than a week. Yet, I feel a sense of belonging, and I argue more against people that don’t share my views. At least when someone explicitly says something along the lines of “God bless you”. I’ve been the same for a while, but it’s gotten worse. I AM kind of a party-pooper when it comes to a lot of things. I guess I just want things to be better without considering if people want to be helped. Maybe I should stop and go with the flow more, and only point it out when it’s a major thing. Now that I think about it I’ve done the same concerning alcohol: I think it’s wrong, and try to make others share my views. I don’t specifically have anything against the people who do it, so… I think I need to be more tolerant. Also, it’s not my right to tell anyone how to live their lives. Usually, if someone wants to believe life on earth started as fungus between an alien’s toes, it doesn’t harm anyone. Alas, it’s never easy.
I think it’s fairly simple, as I’ve encountered this problem before. The odds would be .5 in the terms that “either the coin landed heads or it didn’t”, with (assuming non-partial others) a 1% chance that you’re in the odd room. To you it might seem that it’s .5 because you’re either in a blue room, or you’re not. However, it’s also that you’re either in the odd room, or one of the 99 of the differently coloured ones.
One variant would be that there would be two seemingly identical buildings, one with 99 red rooms and one blue, one with 99 blue rooms and one red. You go into one of the buildings, and fall down a trapdoor into a blue room. The odds that you walked into the building with 99 blue rooms should be 99 %.
With a 99 percent certainty, you can guess what the result of the coinflip was.
Not only competition, but what seemed logical. I’m only 5 years late to this, but I figure I’ll add this regardless: Shrimp made people sick, so it only made sense to make rules against eating shrimp, regardless of the reason behind it making people sick. A lot of the old testament is pretty much a survival guide.
That link is however a church, and as far as I can tell does not represent the Jewish faith. From what I know, it’s not that shrimp were bad, and hated by God, but that since people got sick, it was not a great idea to eat it. Same logic that founded rules about washing your hands before dinner—they didn’t think God hated your hands, they just figured out some correlation between sickness, and filth.
That said, it’s not all good, but it seems to me that at least SOME rules were based on logic. And that whoever had the worse rules DID die more frequently.
Interesting. I’ve not thought of it like that, but it would make sense—groups would drop their weird rules if they didn’t fit the larger group which they were integrated into.
However, in this case at least, it IS so that the weird rules increased survival. Rules about keeping clean were seen as weird, but were generally beneficial for the individual. Example linked to the discussion: During the Black Plague fewer Jews got infected, mainly due to the weird rules. Only negative was that this was suspicious, and these Jews were believed to be the cause… A bit of a lose-lose situation, with good intentions.
True. In this case, it most likely did harm in the long run, but the intentions behind were good, and logical. It’s not always rational to generalize, but you make a good argument. Though I’m not sure - for the most part, weird rules in religion seem to be based on public opinion as much as group identity or logic. In short: Can be good or bad depending on circumstances, no matter what it is based on.
But it’s late and I’m beginning to fear for my mind. I’ll stop before I embarrass myself too much.
When learning, you must know how to make the clear distinction between what is ideology and what is genuine knowledge.
There is no such thing as good and evil. There is what is right and what is bad, what is consistent and what is wrong.
-- “Behaviour Guide (in order to avoid mere survival)”, Jean Touitou
BEHAVIOR GUIDE (in order to avoid mere survival) Intended for younger generations by JEAN TOUITOU
Although appearance shows quite the reverse the natural trend of the system is to turn you into a slave. Your mission is to remain erect and never crawl.
when learning, you must know how to make the clear distinction between what is ideology and what is genuine knowledge.
Be fully aware of the difference between making a compromise and compromising yourself.
Whatever happens, heart break hotel is sure to be your dwelling place, for one or several stays. This is no reason to overindulge in the pangs of love for too long.
Learn how to make simple and excellent meals.
Fear no gods, whatever appearance they may have.
For girls: all boys are more or less the same. For boys: all girls are different.
Keep well away from competitive sport that will only cause wounds that will make you suffer when you are over forty.
There is no such thing as good and evil. There is what is right and what is bad, what is consistent and what is wrong.
That is the entire original quote, but not all felt like it belonged here. It’s all part of the same, I think.
True, however if I recall correctly, one of the lessons in The Teacher’s Password not everything is about the answer. A lot of the time I gain more from the question than being served the answer directly. We need more insights anyway, so how DO we distinguish fact from ideology? People claim that the earth was created by God in 6 days, and others claim The Big Bang caused the creation of what we know as the universe, but since I haven’t discovered either of these on my own, how can I be sure that either is true?
Ouch. Now my head hurts. It’s things like these that make me realize how much I still have to learn, even with such simple applied mathematics. But I think that’s a good thing. However, at times I find myself wondering what the best way to learn the necessary things here.
None the less, the little I can understand is an interesting read.
Counter-irrationality
That’s really insightful. Lately I have been getting into a few more debates, religious and not, because of decreased tolerance to flawed ideas. I got stuck on “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” loop, convinced I was right in a discussion with my mother, actually.
Still trying to figure out how to become more truth-seeking, but it’s hard since I’m not nearly rational enough. I wonder what the best way to act is, if I don’t want debates, or discussions, but feel compelled to give a hint at my own opinions. For example, a friend thought the best way to make things better was to pray for me, which sparked a pretty heated argument, something I didn’t want.
I’ll just try to get my head out of my arse, but I still find it frustrating how obviously wrong people (including me) can be.
What sequence would you recommend if I repeatedly approach this from the wrong angle?
Of course I’m not changing my mind, I’m right!
All sarcasm aside, thank you, this is a, for me, much needed change in perspective. I’ll consider this more next time I’m tempted into an argument, rather than getting rational. I still don’t like the idea of flawed arguments, but I’ll need to consider things further before I form a reply, I guess, for maximum benefit and rationality in the longer run. Your preaching’s appreciated.
Definitely helpful, much appreciated!
An attempt to be more rational, then? Thanks, I think I need to reread that, anyway. That and a few others. It’ll require some work, sure, but few things in life are easy. It’s a start anyway, cheers! Think I’ll do a bit better in… A few weeks, once I’ve mulled it over.
This rings so true. For years I’ve celebrated passover, without really considering what happened, or even if it was true. I’m glad my family is liberal enough, and I didn’t ONLY rehearse the strong points, but it was interesting for me at the time how the creation myth uncannily fit in with the Big Bang theory.
That said, I was permitted to not only doubt, but not even have to defend. I just didn’t follow my thoughts through. “Considering all this, is there any reason to actually worship a God, if that exists, which is unlikely? Moreso- oooh, youtube video giving a simple enough explanation to quantum physics that even I can understand it! I’ll think things through later.” and never actually arriving at the conclusion.
Judaism has, to me, still seemed most open and accepting of questioning. The philosophies are certainly interesting, and continue to affect me now—the core of “question everything” that I strive to follow originated from Judaism. Well, for me anyway. The lesswrong community has helped me even further, though. I still consider, if you are to believe in something before you become atheist—as in, a logical threshold you need to cross to become logical, Judaism has the lowest.
I’m not quite sure what there is to add to this, though. There is nothing more to add, in my opinion. Insightful.
Yes, as human beings we’re great at compensating. When anti-lock brakes were introduced, it made it safer to drive. Accidents stayed the same, since people drove more recklessly—they were after all safer now, weren’t they?
Next time around, I’d be more careful to link to tvtropes—that site is even more addictive than lesswrong! Ah, Eliezer, you continue to find new ways to steal time from me.
Is there any deepness, though, that you can just figure out without previously contemplating it, or is nearly all philosophy something that needs to just be explained later? And isn’t then anything deep just regurgitating what we’ve already thought?
Hello! I came here researching free will for a school project. I’m currently 18, studying science at a fairly basic level in a small town in Sweden. I’ve so far read a few articles and the sheer amount of interesting thoughts in the articles made me want to stay. When I read what Lesswrong stands for, I knew I wanted to be a part of it, to try to become a better, hopefully wiser person.
I’ve liked philosophy for a long time, and don’t usually like “because” as an answer for anything. I want to find out reasons behind everything. I’m so far not as good as I wish, due to limited time and wanting to read a lot of the articles, but not having enough time. However, I find it difficult to abandon half-read articles, even though they can be a bit of a long read compared to what I’m used to, excluding books.
Since I’m easily influenced by new ideas, too, as long as they make sense, I’m expecting myself to switch a lot. Lesswrong seems interesting, anyway, and I want to know more. I want more perspectives and thoughts. So far Lesswrong seems wonderful, and I think I’ll like it. Hoping the community can oversee shortcomings when needed, but I’m expecting you all to be a nice bunch.
For science, and a greater understanding. Hopefully I’ll be able to learn from you. But it’s late now, and I’ll be going now. Just thought I’d say hi.