I suspect that there are many people in this world who are, by their own standards, better off remaining deluded. I am not one if them; but I think you should qualify statements like “if a belief is false, you are better off knowing that it is false”.
It is even possible that some overoptimistic transhumanists/singularitarians are better off, by their own standards, remaining deluded about the potential dangers of technology. You have the luxury of being intelligent enough to be able to utilize your correct belief about how precarious our continued existence is becoming. For many people, such a belief is of no practical benefit yet is psychologically detrimental.
This creates a “tradgedy of the commons” type problem in global catastrophic risks: each individual is better off living in a fool’s paradise, but we’d all be much better off if everyone faced up to the dangers of future technology.
I suspect that there are many people in this world who are, by their own standards, better off remaining deluded. I am not one if them; but I think you should qualify statements like “if a belief is false, you are better off knowing that it is false”.
It is even possible that some overoptimistic transhumanists/singularitarians are better off, by their own standards, remaining deluded about the potential dangers of technology. You have the luxury of being intelligent enough to be able to utilize your correct belief about how precarious our continued existence is becoming. For many people, such a belief is of no practical benefit yet is psychologically detrimental.
This creates a “tradgedy of the commons” type problem in global catastrophic risks: each individual is better off living in a fool’s paradise, but we’d all be much better off if everyone faced up to the dangers of future technology.