Actually, scarier yet is whatever conclusions you seem to arrive at (or, more likely, those which you seem to asymptotically approach) will be baseless and unim

Actually, scarier yet is whatever conclusions you seem to arrive at (or, more likely, those which you seem to asymptotically approach) will be baseless and unimportant on an absolute scale: you have to measure the worth of what you create against a scale you do not control. When you can point to an ought that logically follows from an is, that'll be the most important day in anyone's lives. In the meantime, I'm philosophically opposed to stamping any sort of judgement on the way people lead their lives. There's no reason to condemn anyone for not desiring to learn or to think critically; whatever axiomatic value you try to use as a measuring stick will twist and turn and fail on close inspection: it'll be a subjective measure. Humans are animals, and going about our business in a frictionless manner is a natural thing to do. Some people detect friction where others see no problem, and from them we see improvement in the sciences and in thought—improvement in the sense that we seem to know more—and those are the people we on HN generally praise. Lest I come off as a total weirdo, I am for "progress" and "knowledge" and "health" and all that jazz, but I try to keep my pragmatic life as separate from my philosophical life as possible. It's safer that way.