2025-01-20# Controversial topics threadPlease consider first reading the page on
[Disclaimer on value differences](../value_differences_disclaimer.md).## Freedo
m of speechI live in India, upper-middle socioeconomic class (college-educated,
net worth $20k-$100k). This might place certain restrictions on what I can say a
nd how I say it.Some topics that are considered sensitive: - criticism of people
in my immediate social circle - criticism of any religion or religious leaders,
including related issues like dating, caste, etc. - criticism of any political
party or politicians in India - criticism of India - ???All my opinions on these
topics are within this one post, and I will avoid mentioning them in other post
s. (I might use pseudonyms to talk about these topics anonymously. I understand
that someone putting enough effort can probaly doxx them anyway.)## No movement
plsSocial change happens not when 10% of people want change, but when 10% of peo
ple know that everyone in that 10% wants change. Establishing "common knowledge"
is a major part of it. See also: [Blue Eyes Puzzle](https://xkcd.com/blue_eyes.
html), [Scott Alexander's political posts](https://slatestarcodex.com/about/), [
Srdja Popovick's book](https://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-Revolution-Nonviolent-Te
chniques-Communities/dp/0812995309#customerReviews)**I am NOT interested in acti
ng as a leader for social change around any topic mentioned on this page.**Goals
of this website: - Find high quality research collaborators, receive high quali
ty feedback - Spread knowledgeNOT Goals of this website: - Establish "common kno
wledge", start a political movement## Rule of lawProtecting your safety, belongi
ngs and relationships requires living in a culture that allows you to protect th
ese things. Law enforcers are usually members of your culture and ultimately acc
ountable to members of your culture. It is not practical for law enforcement to
protect you if most members of your culture don't feel you deserve to be protect
ed.Physical safety is the second level of Maslow's hierarchy, after having enoug
h food and water. In today's world (and particularly in India), it is rare to fi
nd someone dying of thirst or starvation. But it is not rare to find someone who
feels unsafe.Fear begets fear. If you are afraid of people of a different value
system from yours, you're less likely to advocate for rule of law to protect th
em. They will then use extra-legal means to protect themselves. Now both you and
them are less safe.People who feel less safe can be less empathetic, less hones
t, less trusting and more isolationist. If many people collectively feel unsafe,
this has impacts on nearly every aspect of culture. These damaging effects can
persist multiple generations, as it is transmitted from parents to children.In p
articular, if you are benefitting in any way from making others feel less safe,
please consider whether your benefits are worth inflicting this sort of damage o
n another person. The damage can persist long after you die, the benefits may no
t.Please consider protecting people in your daily life from harm irrespective of
their value system. Please consider advocating for a rule of law that protects
everyone. This way everyone can peacefully coexist despite their differences.##
IndividualismI am quite individualist. I take my life decisions myself, and I wa
nt to ensure I'm the primary person responsible for the outcomes of my life. IMO
some people, but not necessarily all people, could benefit from being more indi
vidualist. How you want to live your life is a personal decision. I am not recom
mending everyone copy me.Why?Some important ideas that I believe in are as follo
ws.1. Almost nobody likes being controlled by another person. - This could be a
parent or sibling or spouse or employer or political leader or anyone else. Volu
ntarily following someone almost always feels better than following them under t
hreat of violence or starvation. - Ideally you can negotiate boundaries and agre
ements with people in your current social circle in a mutually beneficial way, b
e it when deciding your actions or when expanding or narrowing your circle. - I'
m strongly in favour of consensual social connections over non-consensual ones.
- I'm also generally in favour of making long-term commitments not only short-te
rm ones. Consensual agreements doesn't necessarily mean no commitments or respon
abilities. - However, sometimes people in your existing social circle might rest
rict you and seek control over you. If you are currently under someone else's co
ntrol, and you would prefer to break out for any reason, this might be possible.
See below for how.2. There are 8 billion people on this planet. The probability
that your family and friends are among the wisest / most knowledgible / happies
t / kindest / etc people out of these 8 billion is approximately zero. - You can
still selectively learn good things from your family and friends, but it'll hel
p to also consider learning from others. - You can increase the odds you have an
awesome life by deliberately choosing what you learn and from whom. Your source
of inspiration and learning could be a podcaster or religious leader or politic
ian or filmstar or anyone really. - Copying other people's decisions tends to
get you life outcomes similar to those you're copying. Make sure to track what o
utcomes your role models got in their own life. - If you are not satisfied with
your role models' life outcomes and want something better (or even just differen
t) for your life, you must learn to think independently and act independently.
- Becoming an independent thinker starts with exposing yourself to books, peopl
e and situations that others in your social circle are not being exposed to. You
r brain is a computer, its output depends on its input. - I have gained a trem
endous amount of value in my life doing this, arguably more than my entire forma
l education (although it's kinda hard to compare, they both support each other).
3. Approval / disapproval of you by your social circle is one of the largest pre
dictors of your behaviour. - Social incentives (what your friends and family app
rove of and disapprove of) are often a stronger predictor of your behaviour than
financial incentives (what makes you more money) or culture (what other people
around you usually do). - If you choose your social circle deliberately, you can
alter your own thinking and behaviour. - Pain of social disapproval is often gr
eater than reward of social approval, atleast in terms of how it feels inside yo
ur head. You should be especially careful about what your peers disapprove of, a
s this will affect you more strongly. - See also: Asch's conformity tests and ot
her research that confirms these hypotheses in a specific lab setting#### See al
so: Dealing with abusive situationsDISCLAIMER: I am not an expert on dealing wit
h abusive situations. If you are in such a situation, try to get advice and supp
ort from people who have more experience with it than me.How to break out of ano
ther person's control? - Two things you need: - a source of income or sufficie
nt savings not under this person's control. If you do not have this, obtaining t
his should be your life priority. - moral convinction that you are not anyone'
s slave or property. - Conflicts of this type that I've seen are often more psyc
hological warfare than actual war. - If you believe you are not under their co
ntrol, this reduces their control over you. - Non-violent resistance is powerf
ul and ensures you retain the moral high ground. Keeping this internal sense of
morality and self-respect is important in order to break out. - If they threat
en violence, it is often a bluff, they lose their power if you call their bluff.
- Even if they are violent, spending one month in a hospital may be better th
an spending decades as their slave. - Some situations are extreme enough that
your abuser would literally rather murder you than let you go free. In this case
, you may have to be more strategic, move slowly, find allies before making any
move. Your opponent is not willing to play fair and neither do you have to. You
may end up scarred whether you stay in this situation or attempt to break free.
Remember that one day you are going to die, and your choices will affect your li
fe many years to come.## CosmopolitanismI am extremely cosmopolitan.If this at a
ll interests you, I recommend making friends (or atleast acquaintances) of peopl
e from countries other than your native one. I would also recommend making frien
ds with people of different cultures in your country, of different socioeconomic
classes, and of different value systems.How? - This could be online or by trave
lling to other places or by finding people from those places visiting or living
in your city.Why? - Friends can tell you things you won't learn as easily from s
ocial media or elite-funded news channels (i.e. almost all news channels). - Als
o you'll be able to empathise with actual people rather than figments of your im
agination. I've personally had good experiences doing this. - The really optimis
tic version of this is, maybe wars will become less likely if everyone had frien
ds from other countries, maybe class boundaries would reduce and so on. But I th
ink the benefits to you as an individual alone are worth it, ignoring the societ
al benefits.## ReligionI am atheist. I strive to be tolerant of people of other
faiths, although there are some topics we may have to avoid in casual conversati
ons in order to have a pleasant interaction.Which religion you choose to belong
to is one of the most important decisions of your life. You don't want to blindl
y pick whichever religion you happened to be born into. It is better to think de
liberately about it.How? - If you are interested in exploring further on this to
pic, there are lots of freely available websites, books and videos online. Consi
der reading the writings of all the major world religions, and reading materials
from multiple conflicting points of view. - I'm not sure what the best intro re
source on atheism is, maybe [this one?](https://www.suchanek.name/texts/atheism/
ChapterUniverse.html).**The rest of this section elaborates my personal views on
religion. If you're not interested, you are free to ignore it.**There's a bunch
of separate threads of evidence in favour of atheism that I consider worth stud
ying. Which ones you study more deeply may depend on your interests. The most im
portant thing is you actually study these topics yourself from the ground up, so
you aren't blindly trusting a bunch of scientists or scientific institutions.St
uff I've studied reasonably well: - biochemistry, genomics, computational genomi
cs ([example](https://asia.ensembl.org/info/genome/compara/mlss.html?mlss=1098))
- newton's laws, quantum mechanics, newton's laws implying deterministic univer
se, philosophical implications of human brains also being deterministic - occam'
s razor, solomonoff induction - chalmer's hard problem of consciousnessStuff I'v
e studied at surface level: - radioactive carbon dating of fossils - particle ph
ysics, esp. particle physics around big bang, star formation - evolutionary expl
anations for mammalian morality - redshift of stars due to universe expansion -
psychology, evopsych, sociology of groupthinkStuff I wish I'd study sometime: -
reading holy texts of all major religions (I'm still halfway on this) - CMB radi
ation - neuroscience and psychology research on meditation, prayer, community ri
tualsSome potential advantages of being atheist: - In the very long run, you mig
ht help humanity find the truth. Truth tends to survive the rise and fall of civ
ilisations, as information is easy to preserve and hard to destroy. A record of
your beliefs and actions may be preserved and later read by others even if your
nation gets nuked to dust, for example. - People around you might benefit in ter
ms of material wellbeing. Post-Englightenment, there's a direct correlation betw
een countries' GDP growth and their cultural tolerance of atheist scientists and
engineers. (I also suspect there's a direct correlation between this tolerance
and rate of new inventions by country, but this is harder to prove.) - You might
avoid some traps like using medicines that haven't undergone double-blinded ran
domised control trials and may hence be toxic. - It might improve your critical
thinking skills. Many cognitive biases are due to social pressure, learning to r
esist social pressure will make you a better thinker. Your beliefs may be less c
ompartmentalised, as knowing the truth in one subject also aids with knowing the
truth in other subjects (and vice versa knowing falsehoods deteriorates it).Som
e potential disadvantages of being atheist: - You may end up distanced from peop
le who no longer share your values. Coordination is easier between people with s
hared values and beliefs. You may find it harder to coordinate with others. - Yo
u may end up distrusting of other people's beliefs. You'll realise truth-seeking
is really hard and a lifetime of effort is not enough to discover all the impor
tant truths about the world. - You may have more anxiety about the future. You'l
l realise many events in life are random and beyond your control. (For example,
this could be who you date or how good your health is or how a particular exam r
esult went.) You'll realise people often imagine fictitious narratives to make s
ense of random events, because they don't like random events. - You'll realise m
ost problems in life don't solve themselves, someone needs to actually put in th
e work to solve them. - You'll have to take life decisions while facing more un
certainty about potential outcomes. You'll realise many facts about our past, pr
esent and future are currently unknown. Many of these facts will remain unknown
even after you die. - You may become more confused about your morality. You'll r
ealise that different cultures produced people with different moral values. - Yo
u'll realise the world is not a fair place, karma doesn't always work. History i
s full of mass murderers who received more love and popular support than you eve
r will. - You may end up less satisfied with your present circumstances. Most re
ligions teach some degree of contentment with one's present circumstances.If you
have recently become atheist, I encourage being kind to yourself while you figu
re out its implications for your life. This took me many years to figure out, an
d could take you as well.