Let hear them conjects
I believe in the afterlife.
I also believe that humans have the unconscious ability to influence their relative perception of time. Think of all the times that seemed to “fly by,” or moments that “last forever.” I think you do this unknowingly, and it’s usually connected to a heightened emotional state, which means you have an increased level of some neurochemical. I don’t think there’s a specific one responsible for altering our perception of time, just that they correlate.
That we have the ability to alter our perception of time is what allows us to have an “afterlife.”
What I believe, without evidence, is that when you die, your brain does a massive dump of all of it’s dopamine and serotonin, as well everything else, that let’s your final moment be one of peace and acceptance. Additionally, you will stretch your final moments till it seems a lifetime, all while hallucinating massively because of this huge dump of neurochemicals into your neocortex.
So during your final moments, whether you believe you’re going to a heaven or a hell, you’re right. Because that’s exactly where you’ll imagine yourself. If you think you’ll bounce around a field of billowy clouds while visiting loved ones with all your pets by your side, then you will. If you think you deserve to drown in a river of hellfire while the world laughs, then you will.
As an athiest, it kinda gives me something to look forward to. One final hurrah before nothingness.
Most of my moral convictions aren’t provable because the most basic ideas are simply axioms. “You should be a good person” cannot be justified in a way that’s non-circular, and defining “good” is also similarly arbitrary. The only true “evidence” is that people tend to agree on vague definitions in theory. Which is certainly a good thing, imo, but it’s not actually provable that what we consider “good” is actually the correct way to act.
I have started creating a moral framework, though. I’ve been identifying and classifying particular behaviors and organizing them in a hierarchy. So far it’s going pretty well. At least my arbitrariness can be well-defined!
You should watch The Good Place and/or read the book How to be Perfect by Michael Schur. He made the show too.
He starts from the same standpoint as you and then explores moral philosophy to find answers.
I think it is easy enough to argue without making it circular. As for “good”, I don’t think an objective absolute and universal definition is necessary.
The argument would be to consider it an optimization problem, and the interesting part, what the fitness function is. If we want to maximise happiness and freedom, any pair of people is transient. If it matters that they be kind to you, it is the exact same reasoning for why you should be to kind to them. Kinda like the “do unto others”, except less prone to a masochist going around hurting people.
If we want to maximise happiness and freedom
But that’s what I’m saying, that choice is axiomatic. I think most people would agree, but it’s a belief, not an unquestionable truth. You’re choosing something to optimize and defining that to be good.
If it matters that they be kind to you, it is the exact same reasoning for why you should be to kind to them
Only if you believe that everyone fundamentally deserves the same treatment. It’s easy to overlook an axiom like that because it seems so obvious, but it is something that we have chosen to believe.
But that’s what I’m saying, that choice is axiomatic. I think most people would agree, but it’s a belief, not an unquestionable truth. You’re choosing something to optimize and defining that to be good.
I’m not really arguing against this tho (perhaps the choosing part, but I’ll get to it). I’m saying that a goal post of “axiomaric universal good” isn’t all that interesting, because, as you say, there is likely no such thing. The goal shouldn’t therefore be to find the global maximum, but to have a heuristic that is “universal enough”. That’s what I tried to make a point of, in that the golden rule would, at face value, suggests that a masochistic should go around and inflict pain onto others.
It shouldn’t be any particular person’s understanding, but a collectively agreed understanding. Which is in a way how it works, as this understanding is a part of culture, and differs from one to the other. Some things considered polite in the US is rude in Scandinavia, and vice versa. But, regardless, there will be some fundamentals that are universal enough, and we can consider that the criteria for what to maximise.
I’m also playing with the idea, of considering “good” as global optimization of freedom.
Here is what I was thinking lately:
Imagine there is a cage, once you enter the cage you cannot leave, so your freedom is restricted. Should you be allowed to enter the cage? What’s more important freedom to make a choice or freedom of having choices?
Real world examples that are related to this: entering a monastery, addiction to hard drugs, euthanasia.
That consciousness is real and not an illusion
But reality is just experienced through consciousness so what would that reality be?
When we die, we’re recycled. There’s no Heaven, Hell, Rainbow Bridge, Valhalla .etc Because those are man-made constructs to give people a sense of belonging based on what you did in life. Someone talked to me about the Egg Theory and while I have a bit of skepticism towards it, I do understand a plausibility about it.
And if anything from the Egg Theory is true, then cool, I’d love nothing more than to be recycled and born into a life from the past to live it out again.
That humans are apex predators, and we have been so for upwards of 2.5 million years. Following from this, I believe that most chronic illnesses that we have today (e.g. obesity, diabetes, mental illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, arthritis, PCOS, etc.) are caused by us straying from eating diets with lots of fatty meat.
Even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won’t.
My BS, unprovable hypothesis: The Golden Age of Piracy was actually a successful Socialist movement, with Nassau being a disruptively successful enclave of Socialism in action. The pirates deeply threatened the budding power structures in the US (not conjecture) and the entrenched powers in Europe. While some powers, most notably royalty, were willing to use pirates as mercenaries (privateers), there was an excess of democracy and human concern (somewhat my conjecture) among the Nassau pirates. The Nassau pirates had pensions, a form of worker’s comp, disability, democratic command structures at sea, and healthcare (such as it was given the era). According to the historical texts on the Nassau pirates, there were almost no written records, which strikes me as especially odd since they had so many long-running financial and governing processes.
That P != NP.
Also, that all non-trivial Riemann zeros in the critical band are at 1/2.
We likely live in a simulation.
Assuming it’s possible to create a simulation, the odds of us being in a simulation is 50%
But if you can create one simulation, maybe you can create 1 million. Or maybe you can create nested simulations.
So even if the chance of creating a simulation is 1%, but the creation of one simulation means millions are created, the odds of us living in a simulation are above 99.99%.
Another theory is the Boltzmann Brain. Basically the idea that a brain can spontaneously appear in space:
By one calculation, a Boltzmann brain would appear as a quantum fluctuation in the vacuum after a time interval of 101050 years.
Which means if the universe lasts forever, but has already reached a point where worlds can’t form, there’s infinite time for something as complex as a brain to suddenly spawn. Which also means it’s more likely that you don’t exist and are just a brain that will last for a nanosecond before disappearing, and none of this is real. In fact, in a universe that lasts forever, the fact you are a brain that will disappear in a nanosecond is more likely than you being a human with a real past.
It’s been a looooong nanosecond.
That’s what you think!
"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most.
That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love… true love never dies.
You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.
You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in."
- Hub, Secondhand Lions (2003)
When people are left to enter deals and economic arrangements as they see fit, it produces the most overall wealth, both for those at the top and those at the bottom of the economic hierarchy.
the libertarian pipe dream
You’re right, but we don’t care because wealth has diminishing marginal returns on utility.
I think our model of cosmology is likely way more wrong than we think. I LOVE it when we get new data that challenges our accepted notions, which is why I’m loving all the “how are these ancient galaxies so big” stuff coming out of Webb.
My running theory is that what we call the universe is an inverse version of what we would consider to be the real universe, were we not stuck in this crummy inverted one.
The reason for the common cold being so prevalent in cold weather is because of the cold.
My theory is that cold temperatures best suit the incubation of the germs. You are especially susceptible at night, when you can’t control your breath enough to keep your nose/nostrils warm. Warm face/nose at night = you won’t catch a cold.
I’m absolutely convinced of this theory. I’ve tested ways to keep my face/nose warm at night, and it seems to test very solidly (and I get sick very very easily). Once my room gets too chilly, I’ll inevitably wake up with a cold.
EDIT: let me have the smallest conspiracy theory in the world, thank you.
I might believe this. Temperature is an important part of our environment and I’d be surprised if it had no effect on any diseases that may be floating around
Hmmm, not sure why you’re getting the downvotes, but your idea is not far-fetched. There have been multiple studies showing things like viruses living longer and traveling farther in cold dry air than in warm humid air, and also about the cold having immediate negative effects on certain aspects of immunity. The studies I’ve seen have usually been about the flu virus instead of cold virus, but some of it would transfer over, like the ones about immunity.
What’s weird is that for years (decades?) doctors / public health / scientists etc swore up and down that it was a myth that cold temperatures had anything to do with cold infections. It doesn’t surprise me now, after seeing the uphill battle it was to get the scientific community to finally, grudgingly accept that COVID is transmitted by floating around the air, sometimes over long distances. Many so-called “scientists” still don’t seem to accept this, despite having aerosol engineers break it down for them.
Ancestor simulation.
Explain pls?
Technology improves to the point where after being born you cannot cope with reality. You’ve gotta go through the ancestor simulation and learn your way out so you can actually enjoy all the amazing stuff of life afterwards.
The ancestor simulation is where I’m at.
That’s fascinating
I also really hate their methods and don’t really want to reach reality.
That global democratic socialism can work. Currently the only states successful in implementing it are oil-rich nordic countries, and I want to believe it can work elsewhere but it’ll be hard to prove.
I think the problem is that no system that gives equal weight to everyone’s opinions can survive a population that does not have a majority of good opinions. And if the populace does agree on most things, then it doesn’t matter much what system is being used. The best the system can do is incentivise certain behaviors.
Sweden and Finland have no oil, and if anything are even more “socialist” than Norway.
Back to the drawing board on your premise.
Sweden is fairly unique as it’s economy wasn’t destroyed by WWII, and it’s stance on banking and foreign exports and foreign ownership has enabled it to make massive profits. But the economy is seriously struggling today. The average home loan takes 100 years to pay off.
Finland economy replaces oil with timber and an extremely educated population. Both of which are not sustaining the model well as the country is in recession, the timber industry isnt producing sustainable profits like it used tol, the debt-to-GDP ratio is extremely high, the highly educated population is leaving and people don’t typically immigrate to Finland.
So arguably the model isn’t working anymore, without something like oil to fall back on.
I have family in Sweden, and that doesn’t sound like what they talk about. A modest salary - local gov worker or a teacher - seems to be enough for a modest 3bd detached house of a pricing similar to ours.
Where are you getting 100 years? Is that a thing outside Asia?
Edit: a modest salary EACH. Sorry.
2016 - 40% of mortgage borrowers are not paying their debt down. Those that are paying principal are doing so at a rate it would take 100 years https://www.swedennews.net/news/225058369/sweden-facing-possible-property-bubble-warns-imf
2014 - Sweden to limit max mortgage to 105 years after average ment is 140 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/mortgages/sweden-cuts-maximum-mortgage-term-to-105-years-the-average-is-14/
2024 - Countrys household debt to income reaches 180% (down from 199% in 2022) https://www.nordea.com/en/news/household-debt-burden-on-the-decline-in-sweden
Clearly no Nordic country is a panacea. But the issues you mention are relevant to a whole bunch of northern European countries, many of which are pretty “socialist” by American standards.
On the oil question, Norway is in any case the international exception. Most countries with oil are not socialist paradises but rather repressive police states. Or semi-failed, like Venezuela. Even before the climate crisis made it unethical, oil was a decent predictor of bad social outcomes. Norway aside, the world’s most successful countries, as measured by HDI rather than GDP, tend to have few natural resources. Or almost none at all, like Japan and Germany.
It irritates me that, even today, people keep mentioning oil as some kind of magic solution. It’s the opposite and always has been.
Norway being the only exception.
I’m not sure if people are suggesting that oil itself is a magical solution or if they’re suggesting that having exclusive access to an extremely profitable resource (oil) enables a country with a tiny population to make socialism work.
I have a strange feeling that if oil became worthless Norway would quickly stop doing socialism well
Not sure I understand this obsession with Norway. Its neighbors are doing just as well, and are just as “socialist” by American standards. The only substantive difference is that they don’t have sovereign wealth funds worth trillions. Because, all that oil money - Norway does not spend it. It keeps it for a rainy day. What makes Norway successful is not the oil money. The winning formula is human capital, not natural capital.
Denmark is as successful a country as Norway on pretty much any metric.
The point I was trying to convey is that the only democratic socialist countries that I’m aware of are rich off of either abundant natural resources or rent-seeking from more exploitative countries like the US. Is it a sustainable model for poor countries too? Historically they’ve fallen into autocracy. I want it to work everywhere because I believe in justice, but I can’t prove it with math or precedent.
Firstly, just know that the formula “democratic socialist” is itself almost an Americanism (although it’s true that Orwell used it). In the rest of the world it sounds suspiciously similar to what the former communist countries of eastern Europe called themselves. And they were most certainly not democracies.
Outside the USA the usual term is “social democracy”. That’s what the Scandinavian model called itself. Past tense intended.
For examples of successful, free, and equal societies, I would suggest that the best examples are indeed in northern Europe, with a handful of special mentions like NZ or Japan. The HDI is surely the best indicator.
Of countries that have historically used the word “socialist” to describe their political systems, with or without “democratic” thrown in, none are places that you would want to live.
No, Norway is social democracy.
