Everything has its limits, and you need to burn a lot of calories to hunt for Big-T Truths.
This makes me think we’re talking about different things. I’m talking about existential truths, truths that threaten our sense of meaning and belonging and purpose. Truths like we are all going to die or that we live in a fundamentally unjust world. The only caloric cost of “discovering” these truths is the increase in anxiety.
Individuals don’t all value abstract notions of justices equally highly.
Yup. And we have no control over what our values are, and its good to know when your difference of opinion with someone is based on values or facts. But the reality is most people value group loyalty, belonging, and existential comfort over everything else. People who value truth over existential comfort are relatively rarer. And maybe this is necessarily so.
Sometimes you need to be a bit naive, delusional, and straight up stupid to do the Right Thing or to blaze a trail into the wilderness or to go down a rabbit hole of scientific inquiry that - 9 times out of 10 - wastes a career when it terminates at a dead end.
Do you have an example?
I don’t think we’re disagreeing. Do you think we’re disagreeing? I think you’re trying to argue me out of a pessimistic frame of mind, but that is based on averages and you’re discussing exceptions; like I’m saying, “on a long enough time line, the average of 2d6 rolls is 7” and you’re saying, “but you can get a bunch of 12s in a row!”
I’m talking about existential truths, truths that threaten our sense of meaning and belonging and purpose. Truths like we are all going to die or that we live in a fundamentally unjust world.
None of that is immediately intuitive. It takes a long time for an individual to have a full sense of the world and a coherent view of Justice as a concept. And there’s no firm consensus on any of it, anyway. Sitting around and pondering the clockwork mechanisms of the world and how to improve upon them is a luxury at the best of times.
But the reality is most people value group loyalty, belonging, and existential comfort over everything else.
These things are real, tangible, and approachable by the vast majority of people. Even past that, I think there’s a certain nihilism in dismissing the fate of an entire species, because you look around in disgust at a lot of young people who desire something as crass and fleeting as Love. Much less older people who still cling to or covet it. “Ah, well, fuck all of you! Lazing around naked in bed with a full belly and another warm body and a bit of free time?! Don’t you realize death still exists? Don’t you realize that someone, somewhere is being treated unjustily?! You’ll doom us all!” Its just a bleak attitude to carry as you go through your life.
Do you have an example?
Any college student who aspires to be a daycare teacher rather than an office manager or a civil engineer rather than a petroleum engineer, just for starters. Anyone who studies Pure Math, without an eye towards joining the Quant pool at a hedge fund. Or a physical therapist instead of a supplements salesperson. Or a mechanic rather than a used car salesman. Or a plumber rather than a real estate agent. Anyone who chooses to be a parent and to give it their full time and attention.
That’s just career level. You can find a thousand examples of individuals who sacrifice their own personal comfort or future prosperity for some higher goal or passion or personal sense of duty. We’re not all just getting dragged around life by our genitals when we’re young and our aching backs when we get older.
This makes me think we’re talking about different things. I’m talking about existential truths, truths that threaten our sense of meaning and belonging and purpose. Truths like we are all going to die or that we live in a fundamentally unjust world. The only caloric cost of “discovering” these truths is the increase in anxiety.
Yup. And we have no control over what our values are, and its good to know when your difference of opinion with someone is based on values or facts. But the reality is most people value group loyalty, belonging, and existential comfort over everything else. People who value truth over existential comfort are relatively rarer. And maybe this is necessarily so.
Do you have an example?
I don’t think we’re disagreeing. Do you think we’re disagreeing? I think you’re trying to argue me out of a pessimistic frame of mind, but that is based on averages and you’re discussing exceptions; like I’m saying, “on a long enough time line, the average of 2d6 rolls is 7” and you’re saying, “but you can get a bunch of 12s in a row!”
None of that is immediately intuitive. It takes a long time for an individual to have a full sense of the world and a coherent view of Justice as a concept. And there’s no firm consensus on any of it, anyway. Sitting around and pondering the clockwork mechanisms of the world and how to improve upon them is a luxury at the best of times.
These things are real, tangible, and approachable by the vast majority of people. Even past that, I think there’s a certain nihilism in dismissing the fate of an entire species, because you look around in disgust at a lot of young people who desire something as crass and fleeting as Love. Much less older people who still cling to or covet it. “Ah, well, fuck all of you! Lazing around naked in bed with a full belly and another warm body and a bit of free time?! Don’t you realize death still exists? Don’t you realize that someone, somewhere is being treated unjustily?! You’ll doom us all!” Its just a bleak attitude to carry as you go through your life.
Any college student who aspires to be a daycare teacher rather than an office manager or a civil engineer rather than a petroleum engineer, just for starters. Anyone who studies Pure Math, without an eye towards joining the Quant pool at a hedge fund. Or a physical therapist instead of a supplements salesperson. Or a mechanic rather than a used car salesman. Or a plumber rather than a real estate agent. Anyone who chooses to be a parent and to give it their full time and attention.
That’s just career level. You can find a thousand examples of individuals who sacrifice their own personal comfort or future prosperity for some higher goal or passion or personal sense of duty. We’re not all just getting dragged around life by our genitals when we’re young and our aching backs when we get older.