RichardKennaway comments on Human Evil and Muddled Thinking - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 September 2007 11:43PM

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Comment author: Ferro 24 May 2012 09:48:07AM 1 point [-]

Most religions do not dictate that heretics be burned at the stake. And if all religious people were non-hypocritical to the basic tenets of a religion (see Ten Commandments, Five Pillars of Islam, etcetera) rather than to specific instructions that are open to interpretation, the world would probably be a much better place.

Comment author: AlexanderRM 04 August 2015 04:09:34AM 0 points [-]

Worth elaborating: If all religious people were non-hypocritical and do exactly what the religion they claim to follow commands, there would probably be an enormous initial drop in violence, followed by any religions that follow commandments like "thou shalt not kill" without exception being wiped out, with religions advocating holy war and the persecution of heretics getting the eventual upper hand (although imperfectly adapted religions might potentially be able to hold off the better-adapted ones through strength of numbers- for instance, if a large area was controlled by a religion with the burning of heretics and defensive, cooperative religious wars, they could hold off smaller nations with religions advocating offensive wars).

One good thing about hypocrisy is that it makes a massive buffer against certain types of virulent memes. On the other hand, a world where everyone took a burn-the-heretics interpretation of Christianity or Islam 100% seriously would certainly have some advantages over ours, and especially over our middle ages- things like no un-sanctioned killing, most notably, no wars against others of the same religion, etc. Probably lots of things that would be decent ideas if you could get everyone to follow them, at the cost of an occasional burnt heretic (and possibly constant holy wars, until one religion gains the upper hand and overwhelms the others).

Comment author: RichardKennaway 04 August 2015 12:24:26PM 1 point [-]

On the other hand, a world where everyone took a burn-the-heretics interpretation of Christianity or Islam 100% seriously would certainly have some advantages over ours, and especially over our middle ages- things like no un-sanctioned killing, most notably, no wars against others of the same religion, etc. Probably lots of things that would be decent ideas if you could get everyone to follow them, at the cost of an occasional burnt heretic (and possibly constant holy wars, until one religion gains the upper hand and overwhelms the others).

Sounds like the history of Europe and the Islamic world. Except that no-one ever did get the upper hand, neither for Christianity vs. Islam, nor the splits within those faiths.

Anyone want to go back to the time of the Crusades?

Probably lots of things that would be decent ideas if you could get everyone to follow them

If the only thing in favour of an idea is how wonderful the world would be if everyone followed it, it's a bad idea.

Comment author: soreff 05 August 2015 04:04:47AM 0 points [-]

If the only thing in favour of an idea is how wonderful the world would be if everyone followed it, it's a bad idea.

Almost entirely agreed. The one class of exceptions are cases where a single standard avoids some severe problem with a mix. "Elbonia will switch from driving on the left to driving on the right. The change will be made gradually."

Comment author: Lumifer 05 August 2015 04:25:55AM *  1 point [-]

a single standard avoids some severe problem with a mix

In a bit more general case, you would like to standardise things with a huge network effect. Like TCP/IP, for example.