Great post Anna, thanks for writing—it makes for good thinking.
It reminds me of The Use and Abuse of Witchdoctors for Life by Sam[]zdat, in the Uruk Series (which I highly recommend). To summarize, our modern way of thinking denies us the benefits of being able to rally around ideas that would get us to better equilibria. By looking at the priest calling for spending time in devoted prayer with other community members and asking, “What for?” we end up losing the benefits of community, quiet time, and meditation. While we are closer to truth (in territory sense), we lost something, and it takes conscious effort to realize it is missing and replace it. It is describing the community version of the local problem of a LessWronger not committing to a friendship because it is not “true”—in marginal cases, believing in it can make it true!
(I recommend reading the whole series, or at least the article above, but the example it gives is “Gri-gri.” “In 2012, the recipe for gri-gri was revealed to an elder in a dream. If you ingest it and follow certain ritual commandments, then bullets cannot harm you.”—before reading the article, think about how belief in elders helps with fighting neighboring well-armed villages)
Great post Anna, thanks for writing—it makes for good thinking.
It reminds me of The Use and Abuse of Witchdoctors for Life by Sam[]zdat, in the Uruk Series (which I highly recommend). To summarize, our modern way of thinking denies us the benefits of being able to rally around ideas that would get us to better equilibria. By looking at the priest calling for spending time in devoted prayer with other community members and asking, “What for?” we end up losing the benefits of community, quiet time, and meditation. While we are closer to truth (in territory sense), we lost something, and it takes conscious effort to realize it is missing and replace it. It is describing the community version of the local problem of a LessWronger not committing to a friendship because it is not “true”—in marginal cases, believing in it can make it true!
(I recommend reading the whole series, or at least the article above, but the example it gives is “Gri-gri.” “In 2012, the recipe for gri-gri was revealed to an elder in a dream. If you ingest it and follow certain ritual commandments, then bullets cannot harm you.”—before reading the article, think about how belief in elders helps with fighting neighboring well-armed villages)