= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
John_Maxwell_IV comments on "Stupid" questions thread - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (850)
My admittedly very cynical point of view is to assume that, to a first-order approximation, most people don't have beliefs in the sense that LW uses the word. People just say words, mostly words that they've heard people they like say. You should be careful not to ascribe too much meaning to the words most people say.
In general, I think it's a mistake to view other people through an epistemic filter. View them through an instrumental filter instead: don't ask "what do these people believe?" but "what do these people do?" The first question might lead you to conclude that religious people are dumb. The second question might lead you to explore the various instrumental ways in which religious communities are winning relative to atheist communities, e.g. strong communal support networks, a large cached database of convenient heuristics for dealing with life situations, etc.
Hm?
In the form of religious stories or perhaps advice from a religious leader. I should've been more specific than "life situations": my guess is that religious people acquire from their religion ways of dealing with, for example, grief and that atheists may not have cached any such procedures, so they have to figure out how to deal with things like grief.
Finding an appropriate cached procedure for grief for atheists may not be a bad idea. Right after a family death, say, is a bad time to have to work out how you should react to a loved one being suddenly gone forever.
Of course that is not necessarily winning, insofar as it promotes failing to take responsibility for working out solutions that are well fitted to your particular situation (and the associated failure mode where if you can't find a cached entry at all then you just revert to form and either act helpless or act out.). The best I'm willing to regard that as is 'maintaining the status quo' (as with having a lifejacket vs. being able to swim)
I would regard it as unambiguously winning if they had a good database AND succeeded at getting people to take responsibility for developing real problem solving skills. (I think the database would have to be much smaller in this case -- consider something like the GROW Blue Book as an example of such a reasonably-sized database, but note that GROW groups are much smaller (max 15 people) than church congregations)
I think you underestimate how difficult thinking is for most people.
That's true (Dunning-Kruger effect etc.).
Although, isn't the question not about difficulty, but about whether you really believe you should have, and deserve to have, a good life? I mean, if the responsibility is yours, then it's yours, no matter whether it's the responsibility to move a wheelbarrow full of pebbles or to move every stone in the Pyramids. And your life can't really genuinely improve until you accept that responsibility, no matter what hell you have to go through to become such a person, and no matter how comfortable/'workable' your current situation may seem.
(of course, there's a separate argument to be made here, that 'people don't really believe they should have, or deserve to have a good life'. And I would agree that 99% or more don't. But I think believing in people's need and ability to take responsibility for their life, is part of believing that they can HAVE a good life, or that they are even worthwhile at all.)
In case this seems like it's wandered off topic, the general problem of religion I'm trying to point at is 'disabling help': Having solutions and support too readily/abundantly available discourages people from owning their own life and their own problems, developing skills that are necessary to a good life. They probably won't become great at thinking, but they could become better if , and only if, circumstances pressed them to.