In any case the baseline seems to have been within the same order of magnitude, while the everyday threat of violence or theft would have been multiple orders of magnitude higher in medieval society.
Yeah, that’s exactly what struck me as unbelievable about Dave’s assertion.
Just to make sure I understand… the “assertion” we’re talking about is the possibility that “any significant further reduction in our suffering that wasn’t visibly our own doing would bring us over a tipping point where that willingness [to behave as though we were being taken care of by an all-powerful supernatural force] became a literally irresistable temptation”… yes?
And what you find unbelievable about this is that when you compare modern willingness to behave that way to medieval willingness to behave that way, you find that they’re roughly the same, but that when you compare modern threat level to medieval threat level, you find the medieval threat level is significantly higher. Yes?
If I got both of those right, I am confused. Can you unpack the relationship between those two assertions more precisely?
Yeah, that’s exactly what struck me as unbelievable about Dave’s assertion.
Just to make sure I understand… the “assertion” we’re talking about is the possibility that “any significant further reduction in our suffering that wasn’t visibly our own doing would bring us over a tipping point where that willingness [to behave as though we were being taken care of by an all-powerful supernatural force] became a literally irresistable temptation”… yes?
And what you find unbelievable about this is that when you compare modern willingness to behave that way to medieval willingness to behave that way, you find that they’re roughly the same, but that when you compare modern threat level to medieval threat level, you find the medieval threat level is significantly higher. Yes?
If I got both of those right, I am confused. Can you unpack the relationship between those two assertions more precisely?