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Blindly following a hollow con artist who makes every indication that his plans will be bad for you, yet because he speaks the right emotional intonations to yo

Blindly following a hollow con artist who makes every indication that his plans will be bad for you, yet because he speaks the right emotional intonations to your hind brain you rationalize that it will somehow be good for you. Yup, that certainly sounds like religion!

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rayiner 1y ago
The hind brian is deeply attuned to physical reality. Religion comes from the forebrain which thinks the human animal can be transcended.
- mindslight 1y ago
  Man, you're just primed to respond to anything with rationalization, huh? What your implied narrative is missing is that being attuned to "physical reality" means being quite misaligned with our modern technological world, and that incentives diverge when those forebrains and hindbrains are in different skulls.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    It’s not “rationalization,” your point just makes no sense. I agree Trump appeals to the lizard brain—that’s the brain that’s in touch with physical reality. The folks who have magical ideas about all sorts of “human rights” are the religious ones. That’s the opposite of lizard brain.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      It's rationalization because you've taken the analysis just far enough to feel edgily insightful, and then framed the hanging thoughts in feel-good terms (eg "physical reality"). I don't actually disagree about the factual things you've said! Traditional religions, cultlike religions, progressivism, and Trumpism are all "forebrain" attempts steering the behavior of the "lizard brain". These goals often help the individual self interest of the forebrains espousing them. But modulo this, they can still be societally constructive (for instance it's hard to deny the progress that Christianity historically brought to western society), and sometimes they can be societally destructive. Trumpism, with its rejection of most of what makes our society successful (eg its rejection of being bound by intellectual reason, and your welcoming embrace of returning to the "lizard brain" behavior based on "physical reality"), is quite destructive.

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rayiner 1y ago

The hind brian is deeply attuned to physical reality. Religion comes from the forebrain which thinks the human animal can be transcended.

mindslight 1y ago
Man, you're just primed to respond to anything with rationalization, huh? What your implied narrative is missing is that being attuned to "physical reality" means being quite misaligned with our modern technological world, and that incentives diverge when those forebrains and hindbrains are in different skulls.
- rayiner 1y ago
  It’s not “rationalization,” your point just makes no sense. I agree Trump appeals to the lizard brain—that’s the brain that’s in touch with physical reality. The folks who have magical ideas about all sorts of “human rights” are the religious ones. That’s the opposite of lizard brain.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    It's rationalization because you've taken the analysis just far enough to feel edgily insightful, and then framed the hanging thoughts in feel-good terms (eg "physical reality"). I don't actually disagree about the factual things you've said! Traditional religions, cultlike religions, progressivism, and Trumpism are all "forebrain" attempts steering the behavior of the "lizard brain". These goals often help the individual self interest of the forebrains espousing them. But modulo this, they can still be societally constructive (for instance it's hard to deny the progress that Christianity historically brought to western society), and sometimes they can be societally destructive. Trumpism, with its rejection of most of what makes our society successful (eg its rejection of being bound by intellectual reason, and your welcoming embrace of returning to the "lizard brain" behavior based on "physical reality"), is quite destructive.