Religion [in Italy] has still his enormous political and social weight, of course, but it's mostly inertia.
No, it's more than inertia. Think about lobbies instead.
No, it's more than inertia. Think about lobbies instead. Sure, the whole picture is rather complicate, and my purpose wasn't to fully analyze it. I was mostly focusing on the bottom view, i.e. most people without any specific economical/political interest in supporting religion. For them it's mostly inertia.
At the higher levels, for sure, there's an intricate web of relationships that has to be balanced, and religion is still a powerful instrument for some power groups.
Disclaimer: I'm still fairly new here, and though I did use the search bar it's entirely possible this has been discussed before. Just point me in the right direction if this is so.
While reading about 4chan's Japanese progenitor website, it occurred to me that I know nothing about the state of rationality in the non-English-speaking world, and more specifically the non-English-speaking internet. Is there a Russian version of SIAI? A Japanese Less Wrong? What about Korean Robin Hansons and Eliezer Yudkowskys?
If we take Religion as any indication of irrationality then America should be one of the least rational countries in the world. So if there are like-minded individuals out there speaking in languages we don't know, are we doing anything to collaborate with them? Do they have their own sequences and their own HPMORs which we could be reading?
And if there are no Singularitarian, Cryonics-Supporting, Utilitarianism-Advocating websites for the majority of the human race, isn't that a huge deal? Aren't Europeans and Asians more likely to be open to rationality, if only because of their atheism? If we want Friendly-AI to be developed, should we be translating the sequences into Chinese and Hindu as quickly as possible?