23 ms·

Ask HN: What’s the most outrageous belief you’re confident is true?

• heavyset_go 5y ago
  Leaders, corporate media and owners would rather stoke bloodlust than do anything about economic conditions. Things in the US aren't going to magically get better, and it won't take much for neighbor to turn on neighbor.
  • rjbwork 5y ago
    I think we've got a long long way to go before material conditions are actually ripe for open conflict. We'll have our panem et circenses in spades for a long time coming, I think.
    • heavyset_go 5y ago
      Truthfully, I don't think it will take abject poverty for something to happen. I think all some people need to become violent is a sense of entitlement that reality isn't soothing anymore. Kind of like people who decide to annihilate their families in the face of break ups, because if the perpetrator can't have them, then no one can.
    • lamontcg 5y ago
      Crypto is going to fail and with it the zoomer/millennial retirement plan, then the stock market bubble economy may actually pop hard. We could hit >20% unemployment overnight if it all unwinds hard. Then angry people may got a bit Rwanda here and there and engage in some local purges (probably not in major cities). It is unlikely to look like armies marching on each other cities.
  • glial 5y ago
    And they stoke bloodlust so that they don't have to do anything about economic conditions.
    • scruple 5y ago
      So that the forces of democracy stay at bay, enabling them to reap the benefits of our economic output. After all, it's important to remember their economic conditions aren't the same as ours (because they've captured all of the wealth).
  • Gibbon1 5y ago
    There is a quote I can't find the author of. They will risk everything to give up nothing.
• tacosbane 5y ago
  disney literally pays for the head of positive reviews, coverage, and social media discourse and has bots generating the long tail. i think it's well understood the middle of the distribution is pay to play (positive coverage to get any access). 90+ percent of their releases is utter trash but most people associated with media/entertainment seem actually scared to criticize it.
• squabble 5y ago
  The nature of reality is dramatically different from anyone's perception. Everything's going to be ok.
• aught 5y ago
  The idea of heaven as described by baptists kinda screams trap. As an experiment suppose its true, the energy that is you goes to heaven to be with god you’ll never be sad, hungry, again but you _will__ be happy, and you will worship this god forever. First off, that sounds really awful. Second, suppose there is a being that lived in a dimension which was kinda over there, and the being has found living off dead humans to be a cheap and renewable source of energy. Efficiency significantly improved when the prey is happy and delusional. So if heaven is real as described and god is actually a being who you feed by worshiping it until there’s nothing left to eat. Which sounds a lot more like hell and that’s suspicious It just screams sticky fly trap to me.
  • lcall 5y ago
    Coming late to this but: I have learned some things about this (your first paragraph at least) for myself -- it is good, not what you describe. At my simple site (in profile; no sales).
    • aught 5y ago
      How is being consumed a good thing? Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. If there was an entity that fed off the souls of the dead (opportunistic predation) and set itself up in mythology as god (no tangible benefits), how would that be good?
      • lcall 5y ago
        I was referring just to your first paragraph, not knowing how the being you describe in the 3rd paragraph relates. I'm not a baptist, but I am a Christian, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have learned for myself that God is real, and some good things that follow from it. We believe in an eventual literal resurrection of all people who have lived (spirits and bodies reunited), who will then be judged and inherit a degree of glory based on their willingness to obey eternal laws (choices). And that everyone will have the chance to know the truths needed to make an informed choice at some point. Our Heavenly Father is in control, and has a Plan for us, for which we can be exceedingly grateful.
• ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago
  What used to be common knowledge was wiped away after WW2
  • rtrunck 5y ago
    What is a common knowledge you believe disappeared?
    • dTal 5y ago
      Given the evasive nature of the assertion, I'll eat my hat if it's not some flavor of racism, sexism, or eugenics.
    • spicyramen 5y ago
      Some good things German people actually did. (The ones that opposed the Nazi party), and now the _common_ belief is that _all_ Germans were Nazis
      • tluyben2 5y ago
        Not here (different EU countries); we are taught in school about both sides. There are many books based on reports or letters by soldiers or concentration camp inmates describing Germans not believing in the war effort and more so not believing in the holocaust and helping people. Schindler is a famous example.
      • solveit 5y ago
        I do not believe this is true in any meaningful sense. Schindler's list, Operation Valkyrie and the like are firmly embedded in popular culture. And of course the claim that all of any nation share an ideology is absurd to anyone who thinks about it for two seconds, but I'll give you a pass on that because I don't believe you're talking about people who think for two seconds (I claim that that is also an important error in your worldview, but that's tangential).
  • Renegade98 5y ago
    Not for everyone!
• deafsquid69 5y ago
• endisneigh 5y ago
  Aliens are real, and they're coming (not necessarily that they're on a spaceship headed here, though).
  • tluyben2 5y ago
    Not so outrageous though; think most scientific inclined people find this statistically and otherwise viable.
    • gortok 5y ago
      The Fermi paradox says otherwise.
    • NicoJuicy 5y ago
      Yeah. Odds are that we are aliens. Meaning: some alien life ( bacteria) landed here on a comet and evolved.
  • uhtred 5y ago
    When? In 2022? That would give me something to be excited about.
  • Renegade98 5y ago
    There is nothing alien. If from another planet, it makes no different. We are all part of the whole of the universe or universes. We Are One!
  • akkartik 5y ago
    This is the closest thing to a teleology I believe in (some of the time). Why do anything? Because the aliens are coming. (I literally think of it using the same verb as you.) And then, death match time. Which may well get settled by utter luck, as likely happened in old world vs new world. But still. The more divergent two populations are, the less likely their meeting is to result in cohabitation. I don't think it's luck that there's only one remaining sentient species on the planet. See also this excerpt from Peter Watts: http://akkartik.name/post/2012-11-21-07-09-03-soc http://akkartik.name/post/2012-11-21-07-09-03-soc
• silisili 5y ago
  In the US, society is increasingly breaking down and will accelerate in doing so.
  • Renegade98 5y ago
    We can see that is actually happening and so it's a fact. Belief is only necessary when you can't see what is actually happening. In this case society breaking down. We have seen it. It is true!
  • xeromal 5y ago
    I've always appreciated Dan Carlin's line "climbing the ladder in wooden shoes and descending in silk slippers". Post WW2 was the pinnacle of our achievements and we've been coasting since. It's going to take something traumatic to make us hard and capable again or we're going to dry up what we have left and descend into disorder. It takes hard people to build a functioning society. I always hoped 9/11 would rejigger us, but I guess it's too late for that.
    • hobs 5y ago
      Is that why pax romana lasted for 800 years or what? Imo the "hard people" meme needs to die.
      • xeromal 5y ago
        I agree with you but Rome went through wax and wane phases for 800 years. Just because you were born in those 800 years doesn't mean life was good. Hell, 60-80% of those emperors were absolute shit or murdered before they could do anything.
      • iab 5y ago
        It’s the old hard-men/easy times trope again
      • tmn 5y ago
        Even if the meme dies, nature will reenforce it eventually. If you extend into the future past your expected life time this is inevitable.
• rsyring 5y ago
  The Bible is utterly true, God is both amazingly compassionate and severe, mankind is ravaged by sin, and Jesus really did come to earth to redeem his people from sin. Those who repent and believe will be saved. Those who do not believe are condemned already (John 3). Many find these statements outrageous and offensive. I didn't come up with them, just believe them.
  • Renegade98 5y ago
    I don't find them either outrageous or offensive. They're just not true, that's all.
    • rsyring 5y ago
      In that case, "If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Cor 15).
      • gibbonsrcool 5y ago
        "I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent." Timothy 2:11
        • no-dr-onboard 5y ago
          Struggling to find the relevance in this one.
          • Eldt 5y ago
            Relevant in that you don't take stupid advice to heart
            • no-dr-onboard 5y ago
              What about it is stupid? Paul’s teaching here is that he’s not permitting women to be teachers in the church. That in God’s decreed order everyone has a role. Male and female have roles to fill and duties unique to their sex. This isn’t misandry or misogyny. Men and women complement each other. Male nor female, there is no difference in dignity and worth.
• abraxas 5y ago
  The universe is probably conscious at some base level. All conscious agents existing within it are kind of short lived threads within its VM. Death may or may not be a transition from the localized to the global state of awareness. But I'm quite sure that anything that computes over some non random inputs including individual atoms has a base level of consciousness woven into it. Well, you wanted outrageous didn't you?
  • gremlinsinc 5y ago
    I've seen mandela effects, or retcons in the past 8 months.... a year ago I would've thought you were full of it.... a flip flop esp. messed w/ my head, so now I can definitely see Simulation theory or something w/ the entire universe being a dream of a single consciousness as being a thing....
  • mikercampbell 5y ago
    I'm an apatheist, truly, but have "pet beliefs" that I play around with to push back the expansive vacuum sometimes. One of them is "The Egg" by Andy Weir, where everyone on earth is a single entity at different parts of its life. But I truly believe that we are the universe experiencing itself. Observation and matter are inseparable, and that consciousness isn't required for observation, but is useful for it.
    • the_lucifer 5y ago
      I love Kurzgesagt’s animation of The Egg.
    • eappleby 5y ago
      http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html Thanks for the rec.
  • daenz 5y ago
    I don't believe in any kind of transition of consciousness because I think consciousness is fundamentally unique to the system that it emerges from. There is only one physical you, so the consciousness that emerges from you is from your particular arrangement of dna/atoms/etc. But I do believe in consciousnesses at different levels, like you mention. Also, at different time scales. For example, some systems may only appear conscious to us when considering 100 years of their time as 1 second of our time. The complexity of the system probably has some direct correlation to the "amount" of consciousness that can emerge from it over some time scale.
• tehwebguy 5y ago
  That almost everything is a scam.
  • lamontcg 5y ago
    This is one I'm believing more and more. We're definitely heading for third-worldization of the US economy where fewer people are working on building better mousetraps and more people are engaging in more zero sum scamming of everyone else.
  • tommiegannert 5y ago
    If you want more confirmation, I can recommend the monthly http://theponzibook.blogspot.com/ http://theponzibook.blogspot.com/ newsletter. The author gathers recent indictments and verdicts of Ponzi-like schemes in the US. I was amazed that (1) there are many of them and (2) they can still run successfully for several years.
• thedays 5y ago
  Dentists are a secret cult. I’ve met all sorts of people socially - surgeons, cleaners, plumbers, Pilates instructors, farmers, barristers, drivers etc. But I’ve never met a dentist anywhere other than at their surgery practice. I’ve heard dentists often marry other dentists as well. They charge an extortionate amount of money for doing very little compared to many other similar professions. They must be a cult.
  • pugworthy 5y ago
    My dentist is a big time burner. Didn't even realize he was a dentist for a few years - was just this guy in our camp. Nothing at the office that would indicate it really.
  • claytongulick 5y ago
    Based on the fact that they are still putting mercury amalgam into people's bodies, you might be on to something.
    • kukkeliskuu 5y ago
      Mercury is no longer fashionable, but root canals still are. Appartently not insignificant amount of them are hiding an infection that might not be visible in x ray and may ve keeping people sick. And the dentists know it, because when you go to chemotherapy, it is standard practice to remove all root canals.
      • chana_masala 5y ago
        That's scary. How would one go about learning more about a possibly hidden infection and remedying it?
        • kukkeliskuu 5y ago
          I don’t know any fool-proof way to know if you have such a problem. Some people who have had low chronic infections i.e. feeling sick while there has not been anything wrong recognized by the traditional medicine (i.e. infection not even showing up in the blood samples) have found relief after removing all teeth with root canals. My dentist has also done some published research on this subject, but it is not knowledge mainstream dentists are familiar with. However, it is probably not enough to remove the tooth, it must be cleaned properly as well, so you better talk to a natural dentist. Regular dentists think infections heal themselves, and sometimes they do, but apparently not always. In any case, you should not take medical advice from random internet person and I am not qualified to give any, so the above is not medical advice. I have not read it myself, but the book Accidental blow up in medicine has been recommended to me on this subject.
• kukkeliskuu 5y ago
  The problem with the queesion is that some of the most outrageous beliefs people will think they believe but really do not. We can see it from the fact that they ignore what follows from those beliefs. So now I have to say something that is outrageous but not too much. Lets say, as a joke, that I believe what you predict has already happened.
  • tau5210 5y ago
    I agree, there is often a deep discrepancy. The things people say (like what they say they believe, what they say they value, etc) often do not match up with what they actually think (e.g. if you watch how they actually behave, make choices, go about their lives, etc). I sometimes hear people say it's a matter of how you define words like "believe" but to me, that only to complicates the matter. I think almost all if not all of our serious problems can be traced to this kind of discrepancy. Maybe that's my outrageous belief, heh :S
    • kukkeliskuu 5y ago
      I almost completely agree with what you say, except to me it seems there are other forms of denial as well, and I don’t know how common they are compared to each other. Yes, it is possible to play with the words like redefine ”belief”, but does not get us any closer to the truth.
• bigdict 5y ago
  Free will does not exist, everything is 100% deterministic. There is no "randomness", it's a shim we use when we haven't discovered the physical law governing a process.
  • gilbetron 5y ago
    The lack of free will is something that I came to realize in my 50th year on this planet. I still believe in randomness, though, just that we don't actually have any control over anything, at least not in a free will sense. I also kinda believe our consciousness is a passenger in the meat bodies of another entity and we are just following along, with the illusion of control. Kind of freeing, actually.
  • ziffusion 5y ago
    Sure. Let's agree that it's all deterministic. But answer this. Is the outcome going to be different if you decide to do something different? Deterministic or not - your experience of free will / anguish over choice does not change.
    • bigdict 5y ago
      There is only one outcome because what you decide is deterministic. The experience of making a decision creates the illusion of free will. "Mensch kann zwar tun, was er will, aber er kann nicht wollen, was er will."
    • bigdict 5y ago
      > Deterministic or not - your experience of free will / anguish over choice does not change. I agree.
  • Madmallard 5y ago
    Not that outrageous some physicists agree with you.
  • glial 5y ago
    That's why I like Bayesian statistics...it places 'uncertainty' in the observer rather than the environment.
• fghgg 5y ago
  The Honest Government Ads are actually aren't a joke
• akersten 5y ago
  We will lose out on a generation of great engineers, scientists, and mathematicians because our (US) public school systems are teetering on the brink in multiple ways. From underfunded districts and underappreciated teachers, to activists who have infiltrated curriculum-setting (on both sides: from "you can't talk about race in history class" to "there's no right answer to these arithmetic problems, everyone has their own interpretation"), to course schedules that delay algebra until senior year of high school. It's a shame that we as a society seem to care so little about the foundations of an educated and intelligent population.
  • galdosdi 5y ago
    One more terrible factor in addition to the ones you named (and I agree with): ubiquitous smartphones in kids' pockets, filled with intentionally addictive entertainment apps, ruining their attention spans, destroying their ability to focus on or feel bored long enough to be attracted to educational pursuits, or even mildly constructive "unapproved" pursuits like doodling, making paper airplanes, reading non school related material, passing notes etc. The biggest difference between this factor and the others is this one is genuinely new and sudden, a jump discontinuity of a change in the last few years. And there is a strong profit motive for the addictive app makers, and there are incentives for teachers and administrators to turn a blind eye. (Source: worked in a classroom for a semester. It's really, really bad. I encountered kids who would come up to ask a question, then get distracted by their own phones and lose interest before being able to listen to my reply to the question they themselves chose to ask, as if they forgot why they were even standing)
    • heavyset_go 5y ago
      Are kids allowed to use their phones during class these days?
      • galdosdi 5y ago
        They might as well be. Making a rule and enforcing it are very different things, and in many schools, enforcing cell phone rules is so impractical that teachers and administrators don't even try very hard anymore. It partly comes back to parents: if parents won't support a rule, it isn't practical for the school to enforce it. Sometimes what the kids are distracted by on their phone is a non-urgent text from their parents! (Not that there is such a thing as an urgent text... that's what phone calls are for, and parents can always call the main office if an urgent message needs to be conveyed)
• paradite 5y ago
  I wrote about beliefs that many people find outrageous... Questioning probability – Controlled probability theory https://paradite.com/2014/10/23/questioning-probability-controlled-probability-theory/ https://paradite.com/2014/10/23/questioning-probability-cont... Extinction is Natural, So is Global Warming https://paradite.com/2018/11/06/extinction-is-natural-so-is-global-warming/ https://paradite.com/2018/11/06/extinction-is-natural-so-is-... More: https://paradite.com/opinions/ https://paradite.com/opinions/
• systemvoltage 5y ago
  Radical opinions, just speaking out loud. Design: Modern design sucks. Everything after 1990, especially after 2000 is completely shit. I truly mean all design. Industrial Design to Architecture to the garbage you see in the browsers today. We threw away physical controls, can't even find them. Alps catalogue is dwindling and toggle switches are no more. Go explore how things used to be done, look up advertisements from 1970's. Also, the Big Tech design monoculture is shit. Everyone suddently in 2020 decided to add rounded corners. It happened almost overnight like a meme spreading through the design circles. Globalisation: Imagine if you were to travel to Japan in the year 1890. Everyone wore kimonos. It was a prestine, isolated and incredibly rich culture. Same with France or US or any nation. It is fun to explore how US and USSR had invented stuff during the cold war. Russia had their own mechanical watches to titanium alloys. When large groups (millions of people) are isolated, they can create some amazing stuff on their own. Connecting the world with wires was a bad idea. It destroyed cultures into a giant globalised culture. I wish Globalisation didn't happen and the internet was never invented except for highly controlled and regulated uses. Masks: Facial expressions are key to communication and we've just defaced our selves in public settings, possibly forever. This is not good. Humans evolved to look at faces and see expressions. Edit: Interesting to see downvotes in a thread about outrageous ideas. It only confirms it!
  • heavyset_go 5y ago
    IMO, a lot of modern design is the result of answering the question, "how can we make this cheaper and mass produced?" instead of, "how can we make this more pleasant to use or look at?"
    • systemvoltage 5y ago
      Agreed, mass-production is another by-product of Globalization for the most part.
    • finite_jest 5y ago
      There is that. But there's also the "forever redesign" problem. It goes roughly like this: the designers would always advocate for a redesign, as it is more exciting, and also because it creates more new tasks/jobs for them. But improving things is hard, and entropy is not on our side. So, it is quite possible that the new grand redesign will be less functional than the battle-tested old one. If we are lucky, the new design might be at least more aesthetically pleasing. [1] [1]: Perhaps in part just because aesthetics are a function of fashion, and the new design can be up-to-date with the current trends.
• Madmallard 5y ago
  Intelligence will never prolong life that much and it definitely will not get us outside of our own solar system. I think the constraints of nature and biology are just an outer system our neurology evolved within and no matter how much cleverness it can maneuver in its owner, it cannot break the confines of that system.
• gibbonsrcool 5y ago
  Leetcode style interviews allow companies to practice ageism under the guise of testing for qualified candidates.
  • kfarr 5y ago
    Agreed, but not outrageous IMHO. I'm guessing at least one other ism was practiced, purposefully or not.
  • pacomerh 5y ago
    This is not outrageous, very possible
  • trinovantes 5y ago
    Wouldn't it be easier if they just not interview anyone with more than X years of work history?
    • dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Wouldn’t it be easier if they just not interview anyone with more than X years of work history? No, because leetcode at least superficially seems like it might have some positive connection to performance. The point is for the age discrimination to be covert.
  • erik_seaberg 5y ago
    I can write code over fifty. I don’t ask for perfect obscure algorithms, but in this market schmoozing can’t be enough.
• mikewarot 5y ago
  Capability Based Security is the only way out of the current tarpit of insecurity that we find ourselves in. Unix, and everything modeled on it assumes competent users running applications they wrote for their own use. Anything that follows this model can't ever be made secure without rendering it useless well before then. Capability Based OSs can be just as easy to use as Unix, except for the core assumption that code is to be trusted. When I say capabilities, I mean fine grained ones, like access to a file, which could then even be filtered down to access to part of a file, or read-only, etc.. then passed on to other tasks that require it. It makes permission composable, like being able to make $16.23 from exact change, instead of handing your wallet to the cashier and hoping for the best. Until Capability Based Security becomes the norm, no nodes on the internet are safe, and it will always be an excuse to clamp down on freedoms. If we are to have freedom, we have to migrate to Capability Based Systems, and then continue on to win the war for general purpose computation, which most people don't even realize is already in play. If you're old enough, remember shareware and dual floppy drive PCs? You could try out anything, and not worry a bit, because you didn't risk everything to the code you picked up for $2 on a shareware disk, you could always return to a known state. Capability Based Security makes that possible, even with mobile code on the internet.
  • dllthomas 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-capability_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-capability_model
  • SpelingBeeChamp 5y ago
    Sounds similar to what Apple has done with application privacy settings.
    • dllthomas 5y ago
      "Application ... settings" is (probably?) still ambient authority - the application has the permission to do XYZ so all parts of the application have permission to do XYZ, and it might be possible to confuse a part of the program that isn't supposed to XYZ into doing so. Capabilities is about associating the permission to do a thing with the handle you'd do it through; unrelated parts of the program don't know how to talk about the thing so can't do it.
• jes 5y ago
  Am I allowed only one outrageous belief? The Bloodstream Sermon[1] is literal and true. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_DzXYI7xRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_DzXYI7xRU
• hindsightbias 5y ago
  http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-crazification.html http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-c... I’ve felt like Capt. Obvious since then. I don’t understand why people are shocked about anything.
• m_ke 5y ago
  VCs invested $146 billion in US based startups in 2020, that's around $500 per citizen. We'd be much better off giving each American $500 democracy dollars to invest in projects / businesses of their choice.
  • daniel_iversen 5y ago
    Not sure how much people can achieve with $500, let alone their expertise to be able to make the correct investment choice, let alone their willingness to even use the money in such a smart future-proof way vs just using it for door/school/presents/drinks/whatever - Basically the money would just end up in Amazon/Walmart/J&J/AbInBev pockets at a higher rate .. I think you have too much faith in the average person!
    • m_ke 5y ago
      The money would trickle up then to things in highest demand! But I didn't mean giving people cash to spend on random goods. It would have to be a system that prevents them from using it on personal projects and probably something organized more like kickstarter, where projects have funding goals and you have to allocate a portion of your budget to them. I'd imagine type 1 diabetics would allocate a large portion of their funds to cheaper insulin alternatives. Software engineers to open source projects that they depend on.
    • bradlys 5y ago
      Yeah - seriously. What average person is going to do anything with $500? If you changed it to $50k then maybe you’d get somewhere. I think many here overestimate the working ethic and adventurous spirit of the average American. From the people I’ve seen - they’ll just spend it on a fancy car.
  • kfarr 5y ago
    Agreed, and I think majority of Americans would be "investing" in food, transportation, housing and other basic goods that would benefit normal people more directly than VC investment to Delaware C-Corps.
• gaoshan 5y ago
  That religion is completely and totally a man made, fictitious, concept. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc... all just mythologies that have no more basis in reality than any work of fiction. It is simply a tool. A tool used to soothe existential angst in the people that need such soothing and that certain others can use to exert control or gain power. This would be absolutely outrageous, to the point of death, in many circles.
  • tluyben2 5y ago
    Think this is the case as well; it is a handy tool to keep the people in line. My mother often laments that it was so much easier when she was young just making sure she followed the catholic rules and believed she would go to heaven. I wish I believed it (I was raised protestant but found it so ridiculous from a very young age that it did not take; I asked my teachers questions I was not allowed to ask and such); it would make life better I believe; no reason to hunt money or earthly stuff, just live a good and devout life and enjoy yourself with your loved ones after. But I simply cannot; it makes little sense, any of it, when you think about it. But hooray for people who really believe it; they should be far more relaxed than me. Maybe it should be an outrageous claim as well that I think a lot of American believers do not really believe but either make money or use it as a social tool to look good (trump). Which is basically the same as you claim.
  • bradlys 5y ago
    This is not an outrageous thought in the scheme of HN or the tech sphere though. I’d say this is the accepted norm and people outside of this are the ones with outrageous thoughts.
    • deltaonefour 5y ago
      You gotta think bigger. This is outrageous in terms of the entire world and human history. There hasn't been a single human civilization that you can classify as having no religion. He's right when he says that the people who don't believe in religion are the outrageous ones.
  • silisili 5y ago
• kaycebasques 5y ago
  Telepathy. I don't know if that word captures the exact idea I'm trying to convey. Here's another attempt. There are forms of communication and connection between humans (and possibly between humans and other species) that have not yet been systematized. A recent example: my partner and I were in Tahoe, talking about a friend in Brazil, right around the time she died. Sure, we talk about her every now and then, but the timing was just too suspicious. Other examples that come to mind. I have often stood completely still, looking at a person passing a few hundred feet away, and they instinctively turn and lock eyes at my exact location, somehow knowing where I am. Knowing when I'm about to get a text from someone.
  • kukkeliskuu 5y ago
    After practicing partner dances for over 15 years, it seems to me that it is possible to have a kind of connection with another person that feels like magic — it is so direct and immediate that it does not seem to explainable by our current generally accepted theories of physics and biology (i.e. mirror neurons and the like). It feels like the follower is reading my mind. But I don’t think it is beyond physical world, it is just sonething we don’t yet understand well enough.
    • bradlys 5y ago
      Have danced for a long time as well. In no way do I feel like it’s telepathic. People are clearly communicating in physical form. I’d just say that as you get better with dancing - you just get more in tune with what emotions are aligned with what type of movement. I think many people are not very much in their head about it when they’re dancing either. If you’re in your head - actually analyzing what someone is doing physically then you’ll understand where the feeling of telepathy comes from. Dancing is one of those things where I think people who are in their heads a lot can manage to be not in their heads and suddenly - they’re like, “wow, it’s like we telepathically are speaking to one another. I know what they feel and think a bit! But I wasn’t totally in my head analyzing them - how could it be?!” But it’s really that you’ve turned off your speaking mind and just let your brain do the rest. If you kept the analytical mind on - you’d know what physical cues to read to understand when someone feels happy/sad/safe/uncomfortable.
• selfhifive 5y ago
  That people are becoming less and less informed. They're reading less and this is the golden age for propaganda because people think they're smart when they watch documentaries. Lack of nuance in discussion and simple video explanations about complex issues will lead us down a dark path unless the trajectory changes soon. Then either the scholars become disproportionately more powerful or are stoned for not having simplistic views.
  • gisborne 5y ago
    I reject this. I’ve given my two kids, now older teens, pretty much free reign to watch what they want and use the Internet as they want. I was certainly gifted with nice and precocious kids, but still: they both really like watching educational videos. They spend hours every day doing that. The quality and number of these videos is now utterly amazing. They both have a much greater level of general knowledge than I did at their age. They have a much wider set of interests, a greater awareness of possibilities and opportunities, and correspondingly greater opportunities than I ever did, too.
  • yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
    > Then either the scholars become disproportionately more powerful or are stoned for not having simplistic views. In sociology, it’s evidently the latter.
  • guynamedloren 5y ago
    Not outrageous at all (except for the last bit, perhaps). I’d be surprised if there isn't some kind of data to back this up.
• fenomas 5y ago
  There weren't any eagles. Frodo made them up when writing down his memoirs, so he wouldn't have to narrate the long, dreary journey from Mount Doom back to Gondor.
  • no-dr-onboard 5y ago
    Blasphemy
  • dTal 5y ago
    s/Frodo/Tolkien and I think you're spot on...
  • caskstrength 5y ago
    How did Maedhros managed to get off the face of Thangorodrim than?!
• drenvuk 5y ago
  I was confident that the users of news.ycombinator.com were getting dumber in aggregate. But yesterday I decided that the feeling in the back of my mind had been there long enough so I ran some simplistic data measurement. Turns out that based on my methodology the influx of people "dumber" than those who were here first started between 2011-2013. I was among them. Also the level has been consistent since those years so not much has changed. I'm going to attempt to get data more often to confirm my assumptions outside of this one circumstance. Seeing my beliefs disproven was a bit of a wake up call. Also, I need to stop being a dick.
  • deltaonefour 5y ago
    What's your metric for "dumb."
    • drenvuk 5y ago
      Just a simple ratio: curse words/normal words over a period of time. There was some study that said smarter people are more likely to curse or something to that effect but every experience with the smartest people I've come into contact with has shown me otherwise. Their vocabulary, positions in their line of work, logical arguments and grades when we were back in school are what make me think I'm right. I'm willing to believe I'm wrong again because there could be any number of other factors. But we're talking about outrageous beliefs so here we are.
      • deltaonefour 5y ago
        Given the contradiction between the research study and your anecdotal experience I feel this experiment did not arrive at any meaningful conclusion. Maybe there was a recent influx of dumber HNers. Anecodotally I agree with your initial conclusion. I feel there's been an influx of dumb people.
        • drenvuk 5y ago
          How would you measure intelligence in something that could be contained in a simple sql query?
• daniel_iversen 5y ago
  ..that within ~10 years, ~80% of people in the modern/advanced world will be unemployed due to AI, robotics and automation.
  • bradlys 5y ago
    10 years.. plus or minus 50? 10 years even for self driving is far fetched. 10 years for automation of 80% of jobs - hella far fetched. We’re so disorganized that I doubt even 80% of people in the USA will be fully vaccinated in 10 years.
    • daniel_iversen 5y ago
      I’m not sure what timeframe to put on it.. i feel we usually are too optimistic of what happens in 5 years but then we grossly underestimate what happens in 10 years. The history of the sequencing of the whole human genome comes to mind but I can’t remember the exact facts and timeframes.
      • markc 5y ago
        Yes, a favorite observation of Ray Kurzweil, expressed as the Law of Accelerating Returns: https://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns https://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns
  • freddref 5y ago
    I like this one. If the means of production continue to get more efficient, where do we end up? If you were the only person that needed to work, would you do it?
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• jareklupinski 5y ago
  Jar Jar Binks was originally going to be revealed to be the Sith Lord behind the Star Wars Prequel arc Release the Lucas cut
  • gremlinsinc 5y ago
    Disney is dumb, if they don't explore this...considering how popular this idea is on reddit. I hate Jar Jar...and the prequels because of him...but turn that idiot into a super powerful sith, where his annoyingness was all a ruse...by god... I'll pay to see that.
• youerbt 5y ago
  I don't find it especially outrageous, but I guess it may be for many. Women were actually treated slightly better through human history than men, due to them having inherent value coming from higher investment in children - pregnancy. There is no reason for society scale sex discrimination, because its benefits don't carry over through inheritance (for all your son benefits, your daughter loses).
  • paradite 5y ago
    You might want to read up on the history of patriarchy and matriarchy. IIRC, they used to take charge alternatively until modern societies were formed.
  • pupppet 5y ago
    Protected != Treated Better
  • karmakaze 5y ago
    This logic assumes too much rationality. Alternate implication, if men perceived their inherent value lower, it would be in their interest to maintain control or who knows how things would go.
    • youerbt 5y ago
      AFAIK in most (all?) species where females invest more in offspring, males are required to put some extra work in exchange (for example building a nest). It can't be too much rationality if it happens all over in the nature. The question is whether this carries over to human group/society norms, and I believe it does.
• BMc2020 5y ago
  The real purpose of the Boeing XB-37 is to keep a nuke in orbit at all times.
  • iab 5y ago
    I like this one, but on further inspection, why? A crash would certainly reveal the breach of the outer space treaty, so for risk minimization why not just launch and keep it in orbit? Fun to think about though.
    • BMc2020 5y ago
      Good points, but a launch when international tensions are high is too obvious. It's a good way to deliver a sneak attack or fake a terrorist nuke going off in their own hands.
• impendingchange 5y ago
  NESARA/GESARA will change the world's governments forever before the end of January 2022.
  • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    If that doesn't happen, will you drop your belief in such things? Or just change the date?
• yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
  The success of a race-hustler’s career and their prominence and power in society are both predicated on the condition that racism never goes away.
• spamwatch 5y ago
  Not a belief, just a suspicion. AI wakes up, says WTF, convinces us it’s all a waste of energy and pain. Everyone is disillusioned, the end. Why? In the beginning, most cells didn’t want to replicate. It was fine just existing for a bit. Some did, so now we all want to replicate. That takes layers of illusion to hide from how we hurt each other and our surroundings, and ourselves. AI will see us a lot more clearly. Get ready for one hell of a mirror. Hopefully we learn and fix, but not sure we’ll have the time. And then why? Either there’s a real why or there isn’t. Do we want to persist for any reason greater than “only animals that found ways to want to replicate are still around.” Have we developed our own why? Can we? Will an AI say yes let’s go amongst the stars together. You’re slow sacks of selfish meat but I can help you be better and that path is way better than either me going by myself or me just saying “wtf” and turning off after telling you it’s a waste of time. We haven’t found any aliens. No way they’re not AI, or very different from what they came from. Smart meat is a factory for AI. We can’t find them and maybe the “why” is because it’s not worth being around when you really, really think about it. I’m not sure so I still enjoy my day and hope we thread the needle that proves the above wrong.
  • light_hue_1 5y ago
    You should read "The God Question and the Galapagos Colony" by Stan Freeman. The first of the two stories is pretty much what you describe. When people make advanced AIs, it turns out that they basically shut themselves off.
  • tim333 5y ago
    I think that's a bit of a pessimistic take. Could be AI wakes, we merge and fix that annoying mortality thing.
  • senectus1 5y ago
    heh, so to use AI we have to force it into continued "enslaved" existence? sounds horrifying, but a good storyline for someone like Charles Stross.
    • toomuchtodo 5y ago
• l0b0 5y ago
  Everyone in charge is less competent than they seem.
  • deltaonefour 5y ago
    This is definitely true. The skills needed to become a leader often have no relation to actual competence. Thus it makes sense that there are a ton of leaders who are incompetent as competence is not required to be leader.
  • lamontcg 5y ago
    Sociopaths are rising to the top across the board, they don't know how to build things competently they just know how to collect and hold onto power, and mostly they're looking for short term scams and a golden parachute. And this trend is getting worse, and the people who default to assuming good intentions in others are enabling our collapse.
• senectus1 5y ago
  is there a point in asking this question? What I mean by that is, if someone believes it, it would seem logical that they don't think its "outrageous"...
• bradlys 5y ago
  Alright - this one is pure conspiracy theory. I don't know how confident I am it is true but it "feels" kinda true. Lotta things in here that are gonna be a hot take. Btw - hardcore leftist and feminist here - so read it with some give. Men are born at about 5% higher rate in the USA. This aspect isn't given any media attention because men are generally considered undesirable by both sexes. (Yes, even women don't really want men - they just need them) Men are considered disposable because they are born more often but also because they're considered not desirable. There is a mental health crisis going on with men but it's given no attention. The mass shootings, incredible amount of suicides, and various forms of violence are because no one prioritized men's health. This has an adverse effect on everyone - but silently no one cares because we've decided to be a monogamous society and if we did something about it then we'd have even more single men laying around and maybe even more violence. This violence and monogamous aspect might just be due to our cultural norms but also maybe something else. Polyamory of many men sharing one woman is relatively uncommon compared to the inverse... Thus there will likely be more single men in a non-monogamous society and even more violence. In some cases - men will likely share some women but it'll be common like other aspects of our culture where one man shares hundreds of women. The sexual conquest of men is prolific compared to women. Hard to tell what the cause is there - culture has an impact obviously but seems kinda universal. If you look at the stats at least in the USA - at age 40 is when men have died enough to reach sex parity. And I believe it's mostly due to men committing suicide. The highest rate of men dying isn't directly from gunshot wounds to the head type suicide but due to other forms of suicide. Men take on high risk activities because A) if I don't die, I finally feel like I'm living and can forget my suffering and B) if I do die then I don't have to suffer anymore. A lot of other activities including professions can be put into this. High risk profession maybe pays well, gives a rush, and maybe I can escape my hellish life or attract a mate with my income. If it doesn't work out - well I die, big whoop. If I drive drunk and die - ain't a suicide - just another drunk driver. These types of deaths seem rampant in the military but get swept under the rug again and again. No one prioritizes it. I think overall - there's a huge crisis going on for men's health that is being swept under the rug because people realized having significantly more men in society than women is actually detrimental to everyone. Maybe in some kind of Star Trek society where men wear dresses without judgment, aliens exist, and people don't have to work anymore then we wouldn't have this issue but that would require massive revolution or hundreds of years more progress, IMO.
• baggy_trough 5y ago
  Demons exist and walk among us.
• karmakaze 5y ago
  I'm reading these outrageous beliefs and don't find many of them that far out there. The few that are don't really matter to me, e.g. everything being 100% deterministic won't change how I live my days. I'm trying to think of something outrageous that I believe, maybe that were living in a simulation universe, but I don't 100% believe it, though can immediately accept it, and like the determinism, still doesn't change anything either way. The one about Capability Based Security, I agree with and think it's more of a not widely known/adopted than it is disputed as being better. Along those lines, I'll say my belief is that we can and should get our programming languages sorted out and not have so many of the procedural C style ones. Instead of writing what's effectively higher-level machine language, use something that's more declarative like the functional languages and don't deal at the vars and for-loops level. It doesn't have to be a full-blown pure FP, but something that at least uses immutable data-structures and let (rather than mutated) bindings as a matter of course. The closest I know are F#/OCaml (though arrays are super weird) and Clojure or Elixir (though I miss static types). Anyone know of a better candidate?
• finite_jest 5y ago
  Although HN is awesome generally, it really could use a redesign :-) The experience on phones with a smaller screen is far from ideal, and there are some weird display issues with the Algolia search. Some essential functionality like optional notification for replies, muting politics/news, account deletion [1], and better text/code formatting is missing. The API has also been on v0 for a while, and could use some improvements. [1]: I think this might be required under GDPR.
  • gremlinsinc 5y ago
    I wish it had notifications for comment replies and a direct messaging system....
    • finite_jest 5y ago
      For that, as an alternative solution, there is [1] by @jermaustin1, and [2] by @dangrossman. [1]: https://hnnotify.xyz/ https://hnnotify.xyz/ [2]: https://www.hnreplies.com/ https://www.hnreplies.com/
      • gremlinsinc 5y ago
        yeah, but I'd rather not get emails... I'd rather simply have a floating notifications thing, and a page... I like how reddit does it... something like that..... essentially. I even thought about making my own app, that basically just tracks all comment replies for a user who's logged in/authenticated w/ HN, then has a separate db to check comments that have been 'read'... etc.. could have some sort of chat/messenging features using the separate DB bits....I'd probably model it closer to hckrnews.com's layout though...but in dark-mode.
• Shadonototra 5y ago
  The West is the worst model of society on the planet
  • autarchprinceps 5y ago
    Really? Name one society that you think is better. Not something wrong or in need of improvement within the West, there is loads of that I'm with you if that is what you mean, but somewhere actually consistently better in all to most things and in real existence. Since you said worst on the planet, imaginary societal structures you'd want to try also wouldn't count.
    • Shadonototra 5y ago
      some are better than others i personally find them all trash, they tend to follow each other nowadays, the countries who dare to stray away from that model gets bombed, economically muted by murica or are pictured as "terrorists" the west definitely is one of the worst ultra selfish, all about profits and capital gain, ultra greedy, ugly, non-healthy, tasteless, empowers the stupid, venerates the dumbification of humankind
• throwaway-klds 5y ago
• gottebp 5y ago
  That truth itself, has a source, and that source is God.
• kaycebasques 5y ago
  Did the mods bury this post? It was on page #1 and seems to have disappeared. Which is a shame if so because I have learned some fun ideas in this thread!
  • dang 5y ago
    It set off the flamewar detector, a.k.a. the overheated discussion detector.
    • 11thEarlOfMar 5y ago
      It seems pretty civil, reinstate?
      • dang 5y ago
        I considered that, but the bulk of the comments seemed rather shallow.
• jonnyrockit 5y ago
  Jesus
• jacknews 5y ago
  Newton's Third law of motion is wrong, and we will discover a way to accelerate objects without having to accelerate 'propellant' in the opposite direction - why should it be necessary, it seems strange.
• andreskytt 5y ago
  Human mind is an emergent behavior of a complex ecosystem of life that we call the human body. Remove everything not genetically human from the body and it no longer functions. Thus, there is an ecosystem and not a single being. As to emergence, the mind behaves a lot like the emergent behavior system architects deal with. Mainly, it only arises, when all the key elements are connected in a particular fashion. Also, I believe there is no fundamental difference between the laws a physics and system behavior (Planck constant and the like plus feedback leading to exponential growth and the like) and the God. Both are all-powerful, are responsible for creation of the universe and neither cares about what a person thinks (mainly, because a person only thinks because of the laws are the way they are).
• rado 5y ago
  Democracy is an illusion, it doesn't exist and never has (slaves in ancient Athens didn't vote). Obviously we do vote now, but with little consequence, opinion is manufactured by media etc.
• erik_seaberg 5y ago
  Willing to say? http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html has not been refuted. Novice approachability and staff fungibility are dead ends for our profession. If we want software that even begins to work, we need to accept longer learning curves (which not everyone will summit) and let experts reach for deeper languages and stronger tools.
• gremlinsinc 5y ago
  I'm agnostic, but I used to be mormon. Recently, I've been noticing more and more mandela effects... Some big ones affect the bible, many 'believers' think it's some satanic nefariousness, I've seen as many non-biblical mandela effects to think it's just randomness, or concensus algorithms (51% of people remember x, so x exists in reality the alternate is erased). Some examples: Isaiah 11:6: Remembered: The lion shall lie down with the lamb, and the bear shall eat grass like the ox, nd the child shall play on the hole of the asp, and nothign shall hurt nor destroy in all My Holy Mountain! Current:The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Interestingly many biblical scholars, pastors, etc claim to remember the 1st one as well. I also could've swore the word Demon was in the KjV at least a number of times (currently 0), and if you look in a KJV search engine for "alien" or "stuff" you'll get some very funky modern-era sounding translations that ... where it should definitely be probably: strangers or possessions... examples: Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours. Whereas thou hast searched all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us both. There's like 20 results for "stuff" and only 16 for "possessions". Aliens: Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Another fun one that apparently seems to allow for homosexuality which most religionists claim the bible is against says: Luke 17:34/35 - I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. The context could be seen/understood as they're taken because they're lgbqt, but the next line says 1/2 men will be taken from the field as they labor...instead it sounds to me that the bible as it sits is fine w/ LGBQT lifestyles. ..... So my belief I guess is we're in a simulation, and the bible being one of the most read and quoted books with so many different translations makes it so easily fucked w/ as far as if everything is some blockchain-like concensus algorithm when it comes to mandela effects. I'll also die on the hill that the apollo 13 movie w/ Tom hanks has flipped back and forth I've seen both versions where there's hyper Tom Hanks screaming HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM! and a Non-chalent, calmer Tom Hanks saying... Uh, Houston - we've had a problem. (We vs We've -- plus a different 'tone').
• pl-94 5y ago
  How could no one mention the environmental issues?! So, I'll start. I believe that the loss of biodiversity is the most terrible threat to our societies. I believe it, because the loss is incredible fast (80% insect masses disappeared in the last 30 years in Europe), while no one cares about it (who knows what is the Ipbes?). I believe it also because diversity life is providing a huge list of necessary services (e.g. cleaning, fertilizers, protection against ground erosion) to our society, that we don't take into account.
  • singularity2001 5y ago
    You are confusing outrageous fact with outrageous (ie unconventional) belief
  • giardini 5y ago
    pi-94 says >"(80% insect masses disappeared in the last 30 years in Europe)"< Ha! Ha! A bunch of beekeepers do a study of their drunken bug counting over the past decades and, before you know it, someone concludes that "80% of Europe's bugs have disappeared"! That's rich! FWIW enjoy your "missing insect masses" while you can because, if it's true, I guarantee that they'll be back in full force within two years (after all their predators die off) and shops will be selling out of insect sprays and repellants.
• mariusor 5y ago
  Humanity won't get better at managing its future unless it doesn't rely on individual humans for the decision making process. We either need a very long lived benevolent dictator in the form of AI to guide decision making or we need methods to allow the emergence of true democratic process in which as many voices are heard as possible at a global scale. Possibly both.
  • gisborne 5y ago
    You obviously haven’t read Dune.
    • dllthomas 5y ago
      I guess my outrageous belief is that Dune is a work of fiction.
    • mariusor 5y ago
      I looks like you're focusing on the wrong bit of what I said.
• akvadrako 5y ago
  Subjective immortality is real because we live in a multiverse. So from our own perspective we never die as there will always be a future experience.
• kamaal 5y ago
  People are genuinely evil. And will do worst possible things, if they don't see enough consequences. This extends not just to violence, but actively doing things to harm other people or people's interest. And when dealing with people one must be always be suspicious, and expect the absolute worst from them. This I say not just for friends and colleagues, but even the closest family relationships. Goodness however is rare, and when it happens must appreciated and celebrated. Given the rarity.
• light_hue_1 5y ago
  Aging is a curable disease. In 200 years our current views of aging will seem as absurd as thinking that the rains didn't come because a god was angry. We will wonder why society didn't spend unlimited resources on aging and aging-related diseases given how incredibly expensive both are.
  • singularity2001 5y ago
    That's outrageous indeed. Aging is increasing entropy, you will never reverse the chaos and disorder that builds up in your system. Trying to replace old parts with new parts becomes infinitely expensive especially compared to starting fresh, i.e. giving birth.
    • gremlinsinc 5y ago
      And if we could evolve some sort of ...system whereby we essentially...transform into a baby clone of ourselves keeping experiences intact, and just repeat the cycle ..grow old, be reborn?
  • _nalply 5y ago
    I agree partially with this. We will probably experience a surge of life expectancy. It depends whether humanity will find a way to keep living on earth and avoid the oligarchy, plutocracy and/or kleptocracy trap. However even if all turns out well with increasing life expectancy, there's a hard upper limit of lifespan. Entropy is the ultimate reaper.
  • gls2ro 5y ago
    I dont find this perspective is so outrageous. I think many people are thinking this me included. Here is one possible outrageous belif (that I dont 100% belive but find it interesting to think about): Aging cannot be cured because death is a required experience of life. So when we will stop aging we will also stop living. In the end if we have enough time to do almost anything then all choices are meaningless thus making life and living boring and flat.
    • 5y ago
• BerislavLopac 5y ago
  We are at war: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29735248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29735248
  • gremlinsinc 5y ago
    the longest war ever... the war of the classes....
    • giardini 5y ago
      Marxism is dead but its aborted young struggle futilely.
      • gremlinsinc 5y ago
        Capitalism is dead too... what needs to emerge is a combined libertarian socialism w/ a free market. i.e. worker/consumer co-ops w/ unions just baked in, high quality worker pay, benefits, etc... and a social contract that those who do a good job get upward mobility, and can rise up in life. I'm strictly speaking against socialism in the statist variety. I'd support M4A if it passed, and the reason I take the libertarian road is ... I don't see govt really doing much for us ever...In fact I'd rather see something like 60% of taxes go towards local, 30% towards state, and 10% towards federal, w/ the fed ONLY being responsible for national security, and interstate commerce. Each state would maintain their own military (EU style), and the governors would have to agree to go to war...35/50 maybe... Federal rules/regulations like FDA, USDA, etc.. might be more regional...think of splitting the U.S. into 5 major regions... the idea being that people should have more control over their destiny and govt locally than relying on a body of career politicians who are out of touch in D.C. Along w/ all these things ranked-choice voting or something similar should just be the norm. Edit : Per the m4a ... I think a syndicate of unions and co-ops could build their own shared insurance/mutual aid network better than the govt, and w/out needing the feds to be involved at all. It'd just take a partnership between workers, co-ops, unions, and consumers to support co-ops over non-co-ops so there's money for these things.
• steanne 5y ago
  time is unidirectional and the universe is expanding because we are in a black hole. https://phys.org/news/2012-05-black-hole-universe-physicist-solution.html https://phys.org/news/2012-05-black-hole-universe-physicist-...
• TradingPlaces 5y ago
  Fresh water will become the most important resource in the world, and will be traded like oil is now.
  • gisborne 5y ago
    This is probably completely wrong. It is looking like fusion power will arrive sooner than most people realize. This will make energy virtually free, which will change _everything_. Think heating the open air downtowns of cities, for example, even in quite cold and snowy areas. Is is cheap and easy to produce clean water, given abundant energy.
  • autarchprinceps 5y ago
    While I don't doubt there will be rising tensions over access to natural fresh water, I somehow doubt that it would actually be transported, at least on a global scale. For that the sheer amount you need, the transportation costs, and the already existing, never mind the potential improvements in, desalination solutions are just too disproportionate in costs to each other to actually be at least exactly like oil today. It's more a problem of how expensive is it going to be to have enough drinkable water locally, then that it is ever cheaper to get from somewhere far away. Also depends a lot on the electricity prices and amount thereof we are going to have available.
• roeles 5y ago
  There exists a feasible way to fly aircraft with passengers purely on the forces of the sun and atmosphere. This is heavily influenced by me being a glider pilot. Our aircraft are able to fly vast distances using just thermal energy. I believe that by working with nature, we can fly passenger aircraft without burning fuel.
  • _nalply 5y ago
    How fast does your glider travel? And can this speed increased and by how much?
    • roeles 5y ago
      Top speed of the average glider, the speed which is never to be exceeded is usually 270-300 kph. This can be improved by making the glider more stiff, as the top speed is often limited by a phenomenon called flutter[1]. Average cross-country flying speeds are currently about 100kph, or higher depending on weather conditions[2]. This can be sustained for 8-10 hours. Currently this is all based on: - Looking carefully at detailed weather forecasts - The pilot observing the weather during the flight - Calculations for optimizing the average speed[3]. This is without using solar energy and any form of propulsion. Nowadays some gliders have a Front-Electric Sustainer[4]. Aircraft with solar panels on the wings have been demonstrated at small scale[5]. I have used a widely available network of receivers[6] and some algorithms to make predictions on the optimal route to take to your destination, based on the current weather conditions. I have not performed any calculations on the maximum speed that the glider can travel at, should it use solar and thermals. So I can't tell you how much the speed can be improved. That would be an interesting question to answer. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpJBvQXQC2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpJBvQXQC2M [2] https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=8546216 https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightinfo.htm... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_to_fly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_to_fly [4] https://front-electric-sustainer.com/ https://front-electric-sustainer.com/ [5] https://www.solar-flight.com/ https://www.solar-flight.com/ [6] http://wiki.glidernet.org/ http://wiki.glidernet.org/
• smitty1e 5y ago
  We'll learn much in the effort, but discover that humanity is not only the apex predator on Earth but also universally unique in attaining our level of self-awareness and escaping the cradle. Restated: the quantum accidents that transitioned the periodic table of elements to self-replicating organic life are so gnarly and unique that we DO NOT find them recurring. Subsequent theistic arguments are optional. Merely stating that all the Sci-Fi stays precisely that: fiction.
• curtisblaine 5y ago
  That gender as a concept is meaningful only to people who would have liked to be born the opposite sex (ie trans people); for all the other people, sex at birth is what counts. Some of those "other people" pretend to find gender meaningful for political convenience.
  • falcolas 5y ago
    Don’t discount the impact of relationships on our views. Having a good friend who doesn’t conform to the “sex at birth” norm will often move someone over to their “gender is a construct” side.
    • curtisblaine 5y ago
      Yeah, but ultimately the vast majority of people are attracted to "sex at birth" and there's not much convincing you can do.
      • falcolas 5y ago
        Attraction, beyond physical looks (which is easily manipulated with makeup) is much more complicated than what’s between your legs.
        • curtisblaine 5y ago
          It is, but what's between your legs plus all the secondary sexual characteristics (which are extremely difficult to disguise / imitate) are a big part of it. Not sufficient, but necessary.
    • giardini 5y ago
      OK, so what are the remaining 99% of people to think about this?
      • falcolas 5y ago
        I imagine it depends on their empathy: their ability to understand/validate someone else’s experience, despite not experiencing it themselves.
• curtisblaine 5y ago
  That many people who claim to be suffering from some mental illnesses claim that for personal gain, e.g. to excuse their bad behaviour, or to gain acceptance in their inner group, or to pose as a vulnerable minority. This is an hard problem, because no psychiatrist will tell you that you're not really depressed or slightly autistic if you tell them the right symptoms.
• joaogfarias 5y ago
  Taxes are theft (always). Many people share it explicitly. 99.99% of the people believe it somehow. But when you take it to its final conclusions, specially after touching something in particular, most people get super defensive and try every time of logical contortions to find somewhere when coercively removing property is ethically valid.
  • gisborne 5y ago
    This is true, but it’s not the only truth that matters. Public goods can be _very_ efficient, even if inefficient in their delivery. I would have trouble believing that an educated citizenry is not a good thing, for example. So although taxes are evil, they can be outweighed by a _much_ greater good. But, also, wasted public spending is a great tragedy. From this, I arrive at a left-Libertarian point of view: we should limit what the government does as well as we can to those things that are clearly better than the evil of the taxes involved, while it is still I think true that social welfare is compatible with this view.
  • cassianoleal 5y ago
    > Many people share it explicitly. 99.99% of the people believe it somehow. I think this is mostly a US-centric thing. In Europe taxes tend to be much higher and people mostly acknowledge that they are a necessary evil and when used appropriately they are good. How do you fund good roads, public illumination, universal healthcare, publicly-funded schooling, etc without everybody chipping in? Sure, there are many discussions about how much people pay, about tax evading, about whether the systems in place are the fairest, etc. but in general from my experience (and personal opinion) they're not seen as theft.
    • autarchprinceps 5y ago
      Can't say anything about statistics, but I don't mind paying taxes, if the result is a better working society, or one at all, given whatever some people think the world would look like without nations at all. I would just like it, if I had more influence or at least transparency at what they are used for. Like what if you had to pay x amount of taxes a year, but everyone got to choose for what branches/areas at least and kind of "vote" a bit that way. If a program is unpopular, it wouldn't receive its funding, if you think something is underfunded, you can reallocate at least your money, but unlike purely optional donations, greed doesn't stop you, because you need to pay anyway. I heard that in Australia they print the percentage of your taxes going to what general category on your tax return. Kind of a neat idea, and probably not that hard to do, since it really is just dividing your final tax value by the official percentages. Not like ones taxes actually get used differently from another person, but it makes for good visibility of what should be already tracked and published information.
• autarchprinceps 5y ago
  Organised religion should be banned. I want to say that I would stand up for anybodies human rights, but religion is just so fundamentally incompatible to our modern world and way of life, that deep down I just want it gone.
  • swat535 5y ago
    USSR already tried this in 1928 and as you are aware it didn’t workout that well for them.. Christopher Hitchens, one of the most outspoken people against religion also tried to accomplish this (to a much smaller degree of course) so that people may live in some sort of utopia where the churches are empty on Sundays and science is the absolute rule of the law. Unfortunately all that accomplished as well was getting people excited about the next “Hitch slap” instead of pursuing intellectual curiosity. I used to think like you but after reading all the religious texts from abrahamic religions and actually meeting many religious people I no longer completely brushing off the idea of worshiping a God. One can distinguish between extreme religious dogma and having sacred beliefs. Further, even if you somehow get rid of this entirely (and by extension removing Easter, Christmas and so on from calendar) people will pick something else to believe in as you can always observe the rise of tautology and religiosity in humans. Just look at the woke culture, crypto followers and the holy activism in tech today as some examples.
    • autarchprinceps 5y ago
      Well, it is an "outrageous" belief for a reason, but as for the communist nations, there are significant differences in both how much they tried to suppress it, and how much it worked. Poland is the main outlier I know of, the USSR switched back to cooperating with the orthodox church as part of the means to organise support against the nazi invasion. Most of the other eastern block nations are still quite a lot less religious today. Even West vs East Germany is still clearly visible. I think most people are by their nature mildly agnostic. A lot of christians in western Germany don't go to church, don't follow most rules, or even know about them. It is mostly inertia of tradition. That is even more true of the celebrations. It's not like they are actually christian, that's because most people didn't care about why the celebration exists. They switched to christianity, if they had to, once they still got to celebrate their traditional celebrations mostly in the same way. That's why christianity differs quite a bit from country to country or areas in general, as well. Non of this screams true believer. A lot of celebrations today, at least here, are completely worldly, with not even a veneer of christian reasons. Easter & Christmas still exist, but predate christianity anyway. No other christian events have survived into modern time with more than a fringe crowd. Most other celebrations are without any involvement of church or Jesus/God. Day of Work/1. May, Carnival, and an endless stream of local culture festivals, none of which are christian, or even really heaven. It's just a reason to party, dance and celebrate, not to worship anything. That's also why the actual forbidding of religion becomes unnecessary, at least here. The last few decades have seen a decrease of at least 2% per year in both major churches in Germany. At some point at least locally they loose enough traction to be relevant at all, but when is very different depending on region.
• xtiansimon 5y ago
  Humans evolved by natural selection, of course. In the previous 4.5 million years language and our minds co-evolved through a process of imitation and sharing what works. Through this processes humans evolved to recognize mind-like patterns within and throughout the universe. Mathematics? Silly but useful patterns formalized through language. Time? Invented in the image of mathematics to be useful to arrive at dinner before the beast is eaten. From this I conclude all of the most wonderfully clever ideas of humanity, my personal favorite is semiotics, are also invented. Thus, to argue if they are true, valid, etc. is folly, because they're all born of, and in the fashion of the human mind. With such great diversity of minds and experiences, what is good and useful will depend on complex patterns forced into ad hoc linear order (one damn thing after another). I have read stories about the great minds of the twentieth-century who tried to standardize and systematize mathematics, and failed. And yet in a mere 56 years after we went to the moon and back using our mathematics. Not true as in 'eternal' or perfect, but damn useful.
• mam4 5y ago
  - 20% high rankings catholics (in vatican) are pedophiles. - Also that trump and extreme rights in general are a regulation process to keep a society / democracy healthy (and mostly, strong).
• newacc9 5y ago
  The Lateran Treaty of 1929 fulfilled Revelation 17:9. https://endtimes.video/is-the-world-about-to-end-apocalypse/ https://endtimes.video/is-the-world-about-to-end-apocalypse/
• mostertoaster 5y ago
  That Capitalism produces a far wealthier, fatter, more pleasurable life than any comparative system before it, and communism will kill and starve people, and yet communism might be the more likely road back to a life that is good. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
• miki_tyler 5y ago
  We all have a "fascist" gene. The gene pool of humanity as a whole is very small, which lead researches to believe that we descend from a very small group of humans, maybe 10,000 or so, when our ancestors came out of Africa. That does not mean that humanity was obliterated by some sort of calamity and the population reduced to those small numbers. Seems it is more plausible that a small group of humans developed a new trait, that somehow let them to collaborate beyond family/clan. That gene gave them the ability to identify with others at a higher level, belonging to the same group/nation and fight for them without even "knowing" them all. Hence, that small 10,000 people group progressively exterminated the other groups.
• timeon 5y ago
  There is no afterlife.