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> Believing that the greater social structure of your society is controlled by conspiring entities who tend to work in their mutual self interest and to support

> Believing that the greater social structure of your society is controlled by conspiring entities who tend to work in their mutual self interest and to support the status quo will almost necessarily be seen negatively by those who merely support the status quo, which is basically everybody. Lol… the founding documents of the United States are pretty explicit about not trusting government. Something like 80% of people don’t trust news media today. I wouldn’t say everyone supports the status quo. In fact I think the vast majority of people don’t like the status quo. The discussion is always how to make it better. All that said, “conspiracies” are real and everywhere. I have multiple active conspiracies with my friends to go on a trip this fall, wife doesn’t know yet. Lol My point was actually that conspiracies are all around us. Being apart of them is common. That makes us apart of something and makes us happy. Social cohesion wasn’t exactly what I was discussing, but I don’t think cohesion is actually necessary - so long as everyone tolerates one another. That said I do see your point. The search for truth is definitely key. But truth isn’t much different than faith. Imo believing truth is a willingness to accept constantly being wrong. You much always change your opinions.

etherael 4y ago
> Lol… the founding documents of the United States are pretty explicit about not trusting government. Something like 80% of people don’t trust news media today. Sure, but that's not what I mean by the status quo. Almost all humans support the status quo as defined by what they believe their tribal ingroup supports, they believe that those other people who are aligned with themselves are the only ones privy to "the real story" and the people in the other tribe are evil and/or stupid. They both support the status quo as "why can't everyone just be reasonable like me and my people", and "the government" or "the media" as expeditionary forces against them are viewed as enemies to their status quo. By contrast, it is extremely rare you will find people who acknowledge the bounds of their certainty about what's actually going on, that they aren't so sure that what they think about how things should be done is the right way to go, that they're willing to subject their prescriptions to empirical analysis, that they think maybe there are things they don't know and indeed things nobody knows that significantly impact all of the above factors, and if on reflection and analysis the status quo can be shown to be deficient in a concrete way, they accept that it should be overhauled. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there's enough of these people in the world that they actually could be a tribe, and when I see them musing to themselves in the obscure fringes in which they operate, they frequently make reference to the fact that they often feel like clowns that don't fit anywhere at all. It's true these people do tend to view government and media with suspicion, but the difference between them and their tribal counterparts is that they've always viewed government and media that way, and government and media have in turn always been opposed to them, as the glue that holds together the tribal factions that otherwise tend to dominate society and whose favor those entities are constantly trying to curry, frequently by casting aspersions on those outsiders.

etherael 4y ago

> Lol… the founding documents of the United States are pretty explicit about not trusting government. Something like 80% of people don’t trust news media today. Sure, but that's not what I mean by the status quo. Almost all humans support the status quo as defined by what they believe their tribal ingroup supports, they believe that those other people who are aligned with themselves are the only ones privy to "the real story" and the people in the other tribe are evil and/or stupid. They both support the status quo as "why can't everyone just be reasonable like me and my people", and "the government" or "the media" as expeditionary forces against them are viewed as enemies to their status quo. By contrast, it is extremely rare you will find people who acknowledge the bounds of their certainty about what's actually going on, that they aren't so sure that what they think about how things should be done is the right way to go, that they're willing to subject their prescriptions to empirical analysis, that they think maybe there are things they don't know and indeed things nobody knows that significantly impact all of the above factors, and if on reflection and analysis the status quo can be shown to be deficient in a concrete way, they accept that it should be overhauled. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there's enough of these people in the world that they actually could be a tribe, and when I see them musing to themselves in the obscure fringes in which they operate, they frequently make reference to the fact that they often feel like clowns that don't fit anywhere at all. It's true these people do tend to view government and media with suspicion, but the difference between them and their tribal counterparts is that they've always viewed government and media that way, and government and media have in turn always been opposed to them, as the glue that holds together the tribal factions that otherwise tend to dominate society and whose favor those entities are constantly trying to curry, frequently by casting aspersions on those outsiders.