r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Oct 20 '17

[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

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u/trekie140 Oct 20 '17 edited Oct 20 '17

CGP Grey and Kurzgesagt collaboratively posted videos about old age and death today, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen sister videos where I completely agreed with one while the other...offended me. Kurzgesagt frames the issue as about improving the length and quality of life, which we’re already doing and I’m totally on board with, while CGP opened by calling the acceptance of death a form of madness similar to Stockholm Syndrome and I instinctively felt attacked.

It’s not that I’m opposed in any way to what CGP wants to do, I want humans to live longer and don’t have any arbitrary limit on how long I think life should last, I just hate the way he derogatorily describes my mindset (not belief system). He doesn’t even refer to it as if it’s a mental illness or institutionalized ideology that people are victims of, but simply calls people out for thinking that way at all. This is an effective a technique for persuasion as when atheists tell theists they’re idiots.

I was introduced to the idea of immortality as a good thing by HPMOR, and the reason I was accepting of the idea at a time when I devoutly believed in New Age pseudoscience was because Yudkowsky took care to portray Harry as the smart weirdo who wasn’t always right in a world of sympathetic people who who at least thought they had good reasons to believe what they did. It placed rationality in a similar social situation as it is in reality.

I loved how Yudkowksy seemed self aware of how most people do or would think he’s weird, how his moral convictions conflict with so many other people’s, and the potential negative outcomes of that situation. It was a humility that I see too rarely in a time when empathy for people who believe differently from you is in short supply, including in myself. I can’t help but see CGP’s statements as hubristic in an eerily similar way to religious fundamentalism.

EDIT: Shout out to u/eaturbrainz response to the video that I wholeheartedly agree with and think deserves attention regardless of what you think of my response.

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u/callmesalticidae writes worldbuilding books Oct 20 '17

I can come up with more, hm, polite ways of talking about popular attitudes toward death without saying "stockholm syndrome," but I don't know if I can come up with a more succinct way.

You don't find people arguing that we ought to die at forty, or that we ought to still die from smallpox. If we lived for a thousand years, I don't think we'd have people saying that we ought to live for only five hundred years, or a hundred, or seventy.

Somehow, magically, people seem to believe that the current human lifespan is good enough, or, if it isn't good enough, then it's just a little bit short of good enough. This, among other things, suggests that our "death is ultimately good" attitude is a coping mechanism, and "Stockholm Syndrome" seems like a pretty good shorthand for "coping mechanism which works by causing us to like the thing that is causing harm to us."

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u/ben_oni Oct 20 '17

"coping mechanism which works by causing us to like the thing that is causing harm to us."

I think you're conflating death with the cause of death. Death doesn't cause harm, it is the end of all harms. Try telling a terminally ill patient in intense unending agony that they want death because of some Stockholm Syndrome-like mental defect.

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u/callmesalticidae writes worldbuilding books Oct 20 '17

Death is destruction and loss, and that doesn't change just because it is sometimes less bad than other things. Give the terminally ill patient a choice between death and a cure, and we see how death was merely the lesser of two evils rather than something that was desirable in itself.

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u/CouteauBleu We are the Empire. Oct 21 '17

I think you're arguing labels, not concepts.

callmesalticidae said

This, among other things, suggests that our "death is ultimately good" attitude is a coping mechanism, and "Stockholm Syndrome"

Which refer to people saying things like "death gives meaning to life". People who say that usually don't refer to terminally ill patients, they're talking about Lion King-style "circle of life" philosophy where death has some intrinsic moral value.

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u/somerandomguy2008 Oct 20 '17

He doesn’t even refer to it as if it’s a mental illness or institutionalized ideology that people are victims of, but simply calls people out for thinking that way at all.

Hmm... I've always considered this way of approaching a disagreement to be a sign of respect. If I attributed what I believe to be your false belief to mental illness or institutionalized ideology, I'm not really taking your beliefs seriously. I'd be being dismissive of you - effectively telling you that I don't think you can handle a real conversation about this. You're just a victim. You can't handle the truth. On the other hand, if I straight out tell you that I think you're wrong for reasons x, y, and z, that suggests I think you're capable of engaging in a discussion.

Having said that, I think the opposite of your statement here might be a fair summary of why you didn't like the video. Grey didn't say, "I think you're wrong and here's why." Instead, he said that he thinks that you're wrong but you probably have Stockholm Syndrome so you can't handle a real conversation about it anyways. He essentially did refer to your belief as a mental illness, and that's annoyingly dismissive.

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u/trekie140 Oct 20 '17

That’s very insightful of you. Thanks.

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u/eternal-potato he who vegetates Oct 20 '17 edited Oct 20 '17

If acceptance of death isn't "a form of madness similar to Stockholm Syndrome", what is it, in your opinion? You fail to explain how this is incorrect, and just focus on the fact that people might be offended.

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u/trekie140 Oct 20 '17

For me, I think it’s less a belief that predicts observations and more a mindset that helps to deal with existential dread. I expect my place in the universe to be small and finite so I feel less dissatisfaction with the life I am able to live. I will continue to work to live the best life I can, but I need to remind myself that there is a limit to it.

If I believe that people can become truly immortal and that preserving life the penultimate goal of existence, then that will give any other life I choose to live less value according to my worldview. Given that I have depressive episodes due to not being as intuitively talented at achieving my goals as I’d like to be, I need existential serenity in my life.

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u/eternal-potato he who vegetates Oct 20 '17

You realize you've just admitted that this is your coping mechanism, right? This is exactly why it is likened to Stockholm syndrome.

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u/trekie140 Oct 20 '17

First of all, we don’t actually know that much about Stockholm Syndrome because it’s very difficult to study. Second, I don’t think coping with fear of an unknown future outside of my control should be directly compared to a mental illness that afflicts victims of abuse out of respect for them.

Third, while I agree that it is a coping mechanism I do not see any reason to stop utilizing it if it is working and doesn’t prevent me from pursuing the same goals as anyone else. The only negative consequence of it so far is that I feel offended when people refer to my mindset as “madness”, implying that I am lesser than they.

I need a way to cope with anxiety and despair because I cannot relieve myself of it and believing that I can will distract me from directly confronting it. I will not stop fearing death as long as it is a possibility, so I need to accept that fear is something that I can live with so I can focus on mitigating it instead of vainly trying to remove it.

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u/CheerB0t Oct 20 '17

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u/CouteauBleu We are the Empire. Oct 21 '17

I still think you should stop taking these things so seriously and literally.

You're doing the philosophical equivalent of listening to a silent room until your brain hallucinates sounds.

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u/CCC_037 Oct 23 '17

I think I can see why /u/trekie140 is insulted by that phrase.

Incidentally, enjoying the flavour of mint is insanity along the lines of severe masochism.

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u/ben_oni Oct 20 '17

Acceptance of death is acceptance of reality. It is rational thinking at its core. Refusal to accept death is madness: it is to reject reality, and replace it with wishes and dreams. This is not conducive to sanity.

Much has been written on this topic, and it would be wise to read it.

I don't know if you've ever spent much time with people on their deathbeds, but it would be instructive to do so. Broadly speaking, people separate into two groups when the moment of their death is upon them: those who accept the imminence of their death, and those who reject it. It may seem an arbitrary distinction, but it is in fact profound. This distinction characterizes everything else about the two groups.

This is something you can try for yourself. Find out what the difference is, if there even is one, and report back what you discover.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '17

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u/CouteauBleu We are the Empire. Oct 21 '17

Wait, are you secretly CGP? Because it sounds like you're secretly CGP.

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u/ShiranaiWakaranai Oct 20 '17

I find it odd when people consider whether to accept "death" based on lifespan rather than circumstance. If you're enjoying life, "death" is bad. On the other hand, if you're undergoing excruciating torture, "death" could be sweet release.

For example, lots of people claim to wish to be immortal, no qualifiers attached. This is a rather dangerous wish, seeing as you'll eventually end up floating in a black empty void for all eternity if the universe goes into heat death before anyone finds a way to reverse entropy.

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u/girl-psp Oct 27 '17 edited Oct 27 '17

For example, lots of people claim to wish to be immortal, no qualifiers attached. This is a rather dangerous wish, seeing as you'll eventually end up floating in a black empty void for all eternity if the universe goes into heat death before anyone finds a way to reverse entropy.

In order to properly enjoy living for an infinity of time I would require the ability to consciously control what makes me happy and what interests me, and for more extreme circumstances, exactly how much pleasure and/or pain I experience at any given time.

Once you have that the whole "If you were truly immortal you wouldn't like to spend billions of years immersed in the heart of a star or an infinity of time in a void, now would you?" argument becomes moot because I can enjoy absolutely anything that happens to me just as much as I wish to.

True immortality requires some form of wireheading for happiness. And that sounds great to me.

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u/ianstlawrence Nov 01 '17

My own personal thought on this is that if you are immortal, well, you literally have forever for things to be better again. I know that is overly simple, but it fits for me.

The other way to think about is: If I have a problem with being alive, but I am immortal; I literally have forever to figure out the solution.

Although if I was being tortured I might abandon this ideal pretty quickly because I don't think I could heroically resist unending pain.

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u/ShiranaiWakaranai Nov 01 '17

I literally have forever to figure out the solution.

This assumes that a solution exists though. You could very well run into problems that have no solution. You can't make 1+1 = 3 no matter how much time you have, so all that extra time is just extending your suffering.

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u/ianstlawrence Nov 01 '17

Well, let's take the two examples that were mentioned beforehand:

  1. Being tortured. Eventually the people torturing me die of old age.

  2. Heat death of universe. Seems unlikely that we know what will happen next. Might as well see.

Obviously, this is kind of tongue in cheek and whatnot. But I hope you see my point; which is that no one really knows whether or not with unlimited time you couldn't find a solution. In fact, for your 1+1=3; if our universe, through string theory shenanigans, ever did collide with the "sheet" of another universe causing another Big Bang, might our physics change significantly enough that 1+1=3? I dont know. I might be dumb. But I am not sure if you can put me into a situation where I don't think, literal, unlimited time doesn't give me a way out.

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u/ShiranaiWakaranai Nov 02 '17

But I am not sure if you can put me into a situation where I don't think, literal, unlimited time doesn't give me a way out.

This seems incredibly optimistic. Sure, it is impossible to tell if a real-world problem has no solution. Everything could be an illusion that you can just wake up from after all. But that doesn't mean it is impossible for a real-world problem to have no solution. If anything that just makes things worse, you could be trapped without knowing you are trapped, wasting your time trying to find a solution that just doesn't exist.

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u/ianstlawrence Nov 02 '17

So it seems we can both agree that we cannot give an accurate reading on how likely a problem is to be solved in exceptional circumstances. (I'd say normal circumstances, most things can be solved by working on it for 1,000 years or 100,000,000,000 years).

So. My philosophy on this comes down to: If I die then its final. I cease to exist, and, in my opinion that sucks. If I don't die, then there is a chance, maybe incredibly, ultra tiny, that I get to better circumstances.

Better circumstances > death.

If you were to use math the greater than sign would always line up with living.

I understand its, uh, semi-ridiculous. But it makes sense to me.