I love your thesis and metaphor, that the goal is for us all jointly to become rational, seek, and find truth. But I do not “respect the opinions of enough others.” I have political/scientific disagreements so deep and frequent that I frequently just hide them and. worry. I resonated best with your penultimate sentence: “humanity’s vast stunning cluelessness” does seem to be the problem. Has someone written on the consequences of taking over the world? The human genome, presumptively adapted to forward it’s best interests in a competitive world, may have only limited rationality, inadequate to the tasks of altruism, global thinking, and numerical analysis. By this last phrase I refer to our overreaction to a burning skyscraper, when an equal number of deaths monthly on freeways, by being less spectacular or poignant, motivates a disproportionately low response. Surely the difference there is a “gut” reaction, not a cogent one. We need to change what we care about, but we’re hardwired to worry about spectacle, perhaps?
We need to change what we care about, but we’re hardwired to worry about spectacle, perhaps?
Unusual threat by a rival tribe. Retaliation necessary. Excuse to take politically self serving moves by surfing a tide of patriotic sentiment. That sort of thing. What you would expect monkeys to care about.
I love your thesis and metaphor, that the goal is for us all jointly to become rational, seek, and find truth. But I do not “respect the opinions of enough others.” I have political/scientific disagreements so deep and frequent that I frequently just hide them and. worry. I resonated best with your penultimate sentence: “humanity’s vast stunning cluelessness” does seem to be the problem. Has someone written on the consequences of taking over the world? The human genome, presumptively adapted to forward it’s best interests in a competitive world, may have only limited rationality, inadequate to the tasks of altruism, global thinking, and numerical analysis. By this last phrase I refer to our overreaction to a burning skyscraper, when an equal number of deaths monthly on freeways, by being less spectacular or poignant, motivates a disproportionately low response. Surely the difference there is a “gut” reaction, not a cogent one. We need to change what we care about, but we’re hardwired to worry about spectacle, perhaps?
Unusual threat by a rival tribe. Retaliation necessary. Excuse to take politically self serving moves by surfing a tide of patriotic sentiment. That sort of thing. What you would expect monkeys to care about.