michael_vassar3 comments on Belief as Attire - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 August 2007 05:13PM

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Comment author: michael_vassar3 03 August 2007 04:50:51AM 9 points [-]

Empathy is hard. Cultures differ. We Americans (especially secular Americans?) really don't have a clue what it feels like to (for instance) feel an obligation to kill our daughters or our sisters in order to preserve our family honor. Some actions in the name of causes may be psychologically modular, but some really aren't. What's the parallel for honor killing? Pressuring one's schizophrenic philosophy post-doc son to go to law school where he thinks he'll be miserable for the bragging rights? Sending your kids to Hebrew School or Day Camps they hate because your parents made you do it? It just doesn't work. Even within a culture, I have no idea what it's like to identify with a sports team and very few people can relate to the horror that I feel at some Psychological data or philosophical ideas. You once pointed out that most of us can no longer even understand why the Psycho shower scene was once considered terrifying. I would recommend Silvia Plath's diary for what are to me stranger attitudes than those.

Comment author: TobyBartels 11 April 2012 03:02:39AM 3 points [-]

You once pointed out that most of us can no longer even understand why the Psycho shower scene was once considered terrifying.

Why was that? I can't find it with a search.