Konkvistador comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong Discussion
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Oh you mean our very own escaped basilisk made by [he who must not be named]?
Edit: Removed name.
innocent comment
It's not like it's terribly difficult to find, even without the name.
I didn't find the idea that scary or dangerous at least any more than Pascal's wager. But I also have this creepy meta-feeling that I really desperately want to believe that so I'm risking less than I would be if I did find it dangerous/plausible/scary.
I did find the idea scary, not because the basilisk itself was scary but because its existence suggests a significant class of equally scary or scarier ideas.
Exactly.
Like what? (Reply by private message if you want.)
I found it isomorphic to Pascal's wager, at least assuming that people who fail to be Christian solely because they've never heard of (or seriously thought about) Christianity in the first place won't go to hell.
I've thought about the idea enough to realize that (assuming one takes it seriously at all) the above is not guaranteed.
Well, people who failed to be Christian because they lived before Jesus ended up in limbo, according to Dante. I'm not sure if that's based on any actual theology.
IIRC, the current stance of the Church is the reverse of that: atheism is a sin if you've heard of the idea of God but you refuse to think seriously about it, but not if despite thinking it through you still can't believe it.
Can you source that?
I think I read that in Youcat where it talks about the first commandment, but neither the Google Books nor the Amazon previews contain that part of the book.
I was actually referring to the basilisk.
You mean that gung onq guvat zvtug unccra rira gb gubfr jub unira'g urneq be gubhtug nobhg gung fpranevb?
Yes.
That doesn't sound plausible to me, but if you're right, the right thing to do would be letting as many people as possible know about the issue, so that it's more likely to be averted.
Consider using the term "Roko's Basilisk" for clarity.
Do you mean “not guaranteed that, given that hell exists, people who have never heard of it won't go there”, or “not guaranteed that, given that hell exists and that people who have never heard of it won't go there, it is equivalent to [the thing that should not be mentioned]”?
irrelevent comment