satt comments on Some Thoughts Are Too Dangerous For Brains to Think - Less Wrong
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Comments (311)
A thousand times no. Really, this is a bad idea.
Yeah, some people don't value truth at any cost. And there's some sense to that. When you take a little bit of knowledge and it makes you a bad person, or an unhappy person, I can understand the argument that you'd have been better off without that knowledge.
But most of the time, I believe, if you keep thinking and learning, you'll come round right. (I.e.: when a teenager reads Ayn Rand and thinks that gives him license to be an asshole, his problem is not that he reads too much philosophy.)
You seem to be particularly worried about accidentally becoming a bigot. (I don't think most of us are in any danger of accidentally becoming supreme dictators.) I think you are safe. Think of it this way: you don't want to be a bigot. You don't want your future self to be a bigot either. So don't behave like one. No matter what you read. Commit your future self to not being an asshole.
I think fear of brainwashing is generally silly.* You will not become a Mormon from reading the Book of Mormon. You will not become a Nazi from reading Mein Kampf, or a Communist from reading Das Kapital. You will not become a racist from reading Steve Sailer. I don't think we are such fragile creatures. Just keep an even keel and behave like a decent person, and you're free to read whatever you like.
*Actual brainwashing -- overriding your own sanity and reason -- is possible, but I think it requires a total environment, like a cult compound or an interrogation room. It's not something that reading a book can do to you.
I will not, but...