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The thing that really worries me about these kinds of beliefs in some kind of a god or gods is that they can provide a get-out clause for existential risks to h

The thing that really worries me about these kinds of beliefs in some kind of a god or gods is that they can provide a get-out clause for existential risks to humanity. If this physical universe is just one manifestation of existence, then there's less to worry about because there will be some kind of existence afterwards if you screw it up. But in my view the universe is all there is, and it very definitely doesn't "care" if humanity cooks the planet in a way that makes human life impossible. If that's your view, the first priority of every single person should be to work towards stabilising the climate and reduce our impact on the enviromnent, but instead we have shiny-eyed millenarians piling billions of dollars into things like AI that could be much more productively used in funding an energy transition. (And don't get me started on the idea that AI will help that transition - we already know what we need to do, that isn't complicated, even if the route is complex).

assaddayinh 7mo ago
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hattmall 7mo ago
>If that's your view, the first priority of every single person should be to work towards stabilising the climate and reduce our impact on the enviromnent But why though? If that's what you believe and there's nothing more, we know the sun is going to explode and destroy everything and an asteroid impact is likely to happen that destroys even sooner than that, so why does that matter?
- frereubu 7mo ago
  Because we could cook the planet in a matter of decades or centuries rather than waiting ~5 billion years for the sun to explode, which would give us plenty of time to figure out how to explore space sustainably rather than some kind of delusional Musk-like sci-fi fantasy of bases on Mars in the next decade.
JamesTRexx 7mo ago
Religion is just one of the excuses/covers used to grab more power and/or shiny baubles by psychopatic people. And there are the ones who just want to see others suffer no matter what. Most of the people that are left don't feel like lifting a finger unless it directly endangers their own comfortable life. Call me cynical, but I haven't seen any improvement in human nature in 50 years.
NalNezumi 7mo ago
I think you're missing the historical context of how the "life after death" idea served as an utility, in many religions. We today have laws and moral separated from religion and institutions that both teaches it to the young citizen and uphold it. But that wasn't the case for vast majority of the history. How would you convince a tribal person that can't perceive something beyond "good for me & my family/tribe is all justifications required" to act collaboratively beyond that view? Especially if that attitude is also causing suboptimal behavior around him. Introduce the concept of "good behavior" but there's no guarantee he will follow. Even if you introduced law & punishment you really have no efficient way to enforce it, back in the days. So you introduce the idea that "if you behave bad,(or your children does) you'll suffer beyond your death". Just so happen this simple yet powerful idea don't really scale with a complex world
- Gud 7mo ago
  This is a naive world view. Religion became a tool for the powerful to suppress the masses. I doubt it was ever "for the good of the tribal man", although it's a nice story. I believe most people have an innate spiritual side, questioning our roles in the universe and what life is really all about. But powerful people(like Peter Thiel) have throughout history enforced their own fucked up world views on the rest of us, via indoctrination and blunt force. It's still ongoing. People are wired to follow their leaders.
  - NalNezumi 7mo ago
    I don't follow how your take is any different? We're essentially saying the same thing: it's a "nice story" == easier to sell to people for the powerful to control them. Organized religion is pretty much about manipulating our innate spiritual side with nice stories to keep us bought in to the "nice story" that serve the top the most. I'm just pointing out that the utility of the idea is just that: organization and control. It is quite redundant today because there are more advanced way of doing the same thing. Or are you just pointing out that things have to be argued in a cynical way for it to be true?
  - dosssman 7mo ago
rich_sasha 7mo ago
I'm not sure you can blame this on deities. Nazis and Stalinists (especially the latter) were very atheistic. Both at some level thought they're building a better world, literally by murdering millions of people and enslaving orders of magnitude more.

assaddayinh 7mo ago

[dead]

hattmall 7mo ago

>If that's your view, the first priority of every single person should be to work towards stabilising the climate and reduce our impact on the enviromnent But why though? If that's what you believe and there's nothing more, we know the sun is going to explode and destroy everything and an asteroid impact is likely to happen that destroys even sooner than that, so why does that matter?

frereubu 7mo ago
Because we could cook the planet in a matter of decades or centuries rather than waiting ~5 billion years for the sun to explode, which would give us plenty of time to figure out how to explore space sustainably rather than some kind of delusional Musk-like sci-fi fantasy of bases on Mars in the next decade.

JamesTRexx 7mo ago

Religion is just one of the excuses/covers used to grab more power and/or shiny baubles by psychopatic people. And there are the ones who just want to see others suffer no matter what. Most of the people that are left don't feel like lifting a finger unless it directly endangers their own comfortable life. Call me cynical, but I haven't seen any improvement in human nature in 50 years.

NalNezumi 7mo ago

I think you're missing the historical context of how the "life after death" idea served as an utility, in many religions. We today have laws and moral separated from religion and institutions that both teaches it to the young citizen and uphold it. But that wasn't the case for vast majority of the history. How would you convince a tribal person that can't perceive something beyond "good for me & my family/tribe is all justifications required" to act collaboratively beyond that view? Especially if that attitude is also causing suboptimal behavior around him. Introduce the concept of "good behavior" but there's no guarantee he will follow. Even if you introduced law & punishment you really have no efficient way to enforce it, back in the days. So you introduce the idea that "if you behave bad,(or your children does) you'll suffer beyond your death". Just so happen this simple yet powerful idea don't really scale with a complex world

Gud 7mo ago
This is a naive world view. Religion became a tool for the powerful to suppress the masses. I doubt it was ever "for the good of the tribal man", although it's a nice story. I believe most people have an innate spiritual side, questioning our roles in the universe and what life is really all about. But powerful people(like Peter Thiel) have throughout history enforced their own fucked up world views on the rest of us, via indoctrination and blunt force. It's still ongoing. People are wired to follow their leaders.
- NalNezumi 7mo ago
  I don't follow how your take is any different? We're essentially saying the same thing: it's a "nice story" == easier to sell to people for the powerful to control them. Organized religion is pretty much about manipulating our innate spiritual side with nice stories to keep us bought in to the "nice story" that serve the top the most. I'm just pointing out that the utility of the idea is just that: organization and control. It is quite redundant today because there are more advanced way of doing the same thing. Or are you just pointing out that things have to be argued in a cynical way for it to be true?
- dosssman 7mo ago

rich_sasha 7mo ago

I'm not sure you can blame this on deities. Nazis and Stalinists (especially the latter) were very atheistic. Both at some level thought they're building a better world, literally by murdering millions of people and enslaving orders of magnitude more.