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Jay's avatar

The trouble with ideas that are "truer than true" is that they are literally false, and that the knowledge of their literal falsity robs them of their power. "Heaven is real and I can earn a spot there" is a powerful belief to motivate positive behavior; "Belief in heaven is useful" isn't. Nobody martyrs themselves to demonstrate the usefulness of an idea.

This is what Nietzsche was alluding to when he wrote, "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?".

There's no cure for understanding; I almost wish there was. I used to go to church to hear the words of God, however imperfectly rendered. When I go to church now, I just see a guy wearing felt.

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Infinita City's avatar

I never really bought that idea.

Yes, there are Chesterton fences.

What is the opposite of a Chesterton fence?

A fence that's there for no reason, but everyone assumes there is a reason so they don't do anything about it.

I guess some people need to hear that there are Chesterton fences.

Other people need to hear that there are anti-Chesterton fences.

What's more important or impactful?

It seems to me anti-Chesterton fences.

Yes, I'm mentally biased and by my work in tech.

How do we adjudicate?

Time?

Never made sense to me.

There are so many extremely stupid ideas that have been around for 1000s of years, some are not around anymore (e.g. "it's OK to enslave or torture people that are not in your tribe" is one of the oldest ideas in humanity), some still are (Iet's speculate which ones those are).

Yes, the best way to adjudicate what's a Chesterton Fence and an anti-Chesterton Fence is reason + experimentation / permissionless innovation.

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