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HN is not a safe space by this definition.
by ganzuul 7y ago
HN is not a safe space by this definition.
- dang 7y agoHN is certainly not a safe space. No large anonymous internet community can be.
- ganzuul 7y agoIt annoys me. Smart people should be able to deal with subjects outside their comfort zone but what I see here is the intellectual version of footguns employed more as a rule than an exception. - People downvote things they don't understand. - It's crazy. They can't even stand up for their opinions but do it anonymously, like cowards.
- dang 7y agoI think there's a confusion here: Smart people should be able to deal with subjects outside their comfort zone "Smart" is a cognitive trait; dealing with what is outside one's comfort zone is a different developmental axis altogether. Smart people are no better able to do this than anyone else, and may even have a harder time.
- ganzuul 7y agoI see. I mean a different smart. General intelligence. It implies you learn the traits required to solve a hard problem. It's a habit of self-optimization.
- SolaceQuantum 7y agoI don't actually know if general intelligence is a thing the way you're describing it. There's no reason why an insanely smart algo PhD-from-MIT person could take their algo smarts and intuitively apply it to being a compassionate human being dealing with others whose existence and experiences may be drastically different from themselves for practically no feasible reason (fate/gods/random chance).
- ganzuul 7y agoA lot of traits commonly seen as benevolent can be attributed to evolutionary pressure. Healthy human emotions associated with these are not necessary for them to work, although they are important for living a fulfilling life. Cooperation and diversity are both optimal so being complex social creatures we go to lenghts to communicate as widely as we may. I think it all works out quite nicely, thankfully.
- awayfromhomenow 7y agoI tend to agree with you: sometimes smarter just means better at rationalizing your current ideology.
- awayfromhomenow 7y agodefinitely not if your opinion diverges from the hive.