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elharo comments on Bad Concepts Repository - Less Wrong
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Within my lifetime, a magic genie will appear that grants all our wishes and solves all our problems.
For example, many Christians hold this belief under the names the Kingdom, the Rapture, and/or the second coming (details depend on sect). It leads to excessive discounting of the future, and consequent poor choices. In Collapse Jared Diamond writes about how apocalyptic Christians who control a mining company cause environmental problems in the United States.
Belief in a magic problem solving genie also causes people to fail to take effective action to improve their lives and help others, because they can just wait for the genie to do it for them.
I think this would probably be a pretty destructive idea were it not for the fact that for most people who hold it, it seems to be such a far belief that they scarcely consider the consequences.
If I believe the world will be destroyed during the next year, the near reaction would be to quit the job, sell everything I can, and enjoy the money while I can. Luckily, most people who share this belief don't do that.
But there are also long-term plans, such as getting more education, protecting the nature, planning for retirement... and those need to be done in far mode, where "but the world will be destroyed this year" can be used as an excuse. -- I wonder how often people do this. Probably more often than the previous example.
Or that we will create a magic genie to grant all our wishes and solve our problems?