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This truth v. fiction binary is common thinking but far too simplistic. The idea that there is just a set of facts on one side of the fence and on the other is

This truth v. fiction binary is common thinking but far too simplistic. The idea that there is just a set of facts on one side of the fence and on the other is all the lies -- and the dumb hoi polloi just tends to always go for the "bad side"... This is just simplistic, unimaginative, unrealistic thinking. Even a cluster of the most brutally "true" of facts can be so readily misconstrued and misapplied and result and motivate terrible consequences. Anyone who claims to have the truth might be holding on to a few axioms resembling facts -- but they will always be applying their own visceral interpretation of what should be done with those facts. So when the hoi polloi favors fiction over facts, it's less for any of the reasons mentioned here which incidentally are all rooted in the (frankly, dumb) idea that the hoi polloi is dumb. They're not. They look past the trivial truth of small, static 'facts' and are looking at the bigger picture which requires metaphor and right-hemispheric perception, etc.

pojzon 7y ago
Like you mention, reality is rather painted in shades of gray. Nothing beside "axioms" is really true.
lostjohnny 7y ago
It is also simplistic to think that since people can't handle the truth, lies are better. narrative per se is not bad, but lies are. Of course we can resort to Gödel and his incompleteness theorem to reject axioms validity, but try that argument at the bar, with the first stranger you meet. The bigger picture requires profound knowledge of the current laws to imagine how they could break under a new, different paradigm. Think about Asimov's work, he was writing fiction, but was writing something that could happen, not something just because it could bond people together. TL;DR: saying "we need to switch to renewable sources of energy or we'll all die" is fiction, we don't know for sure if we'll all die, but it's good to switch to renewables. "If you do this or that God will punish you" is a lie that nobody should tell and nobody should believe in, even when it sounds good (thou shalt not kill), you shouldn't do it because it's bad, not because God told you.
dctoedt 7y ago
> the hoi polloi Pedantry: "The hoi polloi* is redundant — in Greek, hoi is a definite article equivalent to "the," so "the hoi polloi" is "the the many." [0] But yes, that's how the term has passed into common parlance, just as "ATM machine" is similarly redundant. [0] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hoi_polloi https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hoi_polloi

pojzon 7y ago

Like you mention, reality is rather painted in shades of gray. Nothing beside "axioms" is really true.

lostjohnny 7y ago

It is also simplistic to think that since people can't handle the truth, lies are better. narrative per se is not bad, but lies are. Of course we can resort to Gödel and his incompleteness theorem to reject axioms validity, but try that argument at the bar, with the first stranger you meet. The bigger picture requires profound knowledge of the current laws to imagine how they could break under a new, different paradigm. Think about Asimov's work, he was writing fiction, but was writing something that could happen, not something just because it could bond people together. TL;DR: saying "we need to switch to renewable sources of energy or we'll all die" is fiction, we don't know for sure if we'll all die, but it's good to switch to renewables. "If you do this or that God will punish you" is a lie that nobody should tell and nobody should believe in, even when it sounds good (thou shalt not kill), you shouldn't do it because it's bad, not because God told you.

dctoedt 7y ago

> the hoi polloi Pedantry: "The hoi polloi* is redundant — in Greek, hoi is a definite article equivalent to "the," so "the hoi polloi" is "the the many." [0] But yes, that's how the term has passed into common parlance, just as "ATM machine" is similarly redundant. [0] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hoi_polloi https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hoi_polloi