[jiggyjace]

I wonder what the author's thoughts are on "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. It mentions many clear refutes backed up by history to the idea of how bad it is for humans to be "addicted to righteousness".

For example, individuals have not and do not live by themselves in a vacuum as only selfish. We are also very group-ish, and it is the righteousness or norms of those groups that allow for things to get done. People have evolved to agree to social and group norms because those groups always trust each other more, thereby getting more done.

On how efficient secular societies are, Haidt claims: "We don’t really know, because the first atheistic societies have only emerged in Europe in the last few decades. They are the least efficient societies ever known at turning resources (of which they have a lot) into offspring (of which they have few).”

If you support secularization and the ideas of "addictions to righteousness" you have to at the very least be worried about how low birth rates are for people who believe those ideals.

[riskable]

The big assumption here is that increasing birthrates (above replacement level) is somehow the ideal outcome of a society.

What if the ideal outcome is that humans populations shrink to 1/100th their current size and most "work" gets done by machines? Wouldn't that be vastly more efficient?

[FooBarBizBazz]

If there were zero people, no work would be required, and thus no machines either. The environment would just do whatever it wanted. This would be more efficient still.

[jimbokun]

Efficient at accomplishing which goals?

Why stop at 1/100th? How about eliminating all of humanity? Why would the universe be worse off with no humans in it?

Why not eliminating all life on Earth? What makes life inherently more valuable than a sterile rock floating through space?

[throw_nbvc1234]

The 2 high level problems with this line of thought: Who decides what we optimize for ("vastly more efficient") and Is this something that "should" have a single target across a society or across the world, or is this something that individuals or groups should decide for themselves. This line of thought can very easily shift into "worlds super elite aim to commit genocide in order to save the planet".

I do personally wonder (in a sci-fi dystopian novel sense) if the worst case climate change scenario would just end up with 99% of humans dying and the 1% that survive in isolated locations becoming a more sustainable civilization until technology catches back up and allows humans to re-populate the world to today's levels (or just leave to mars).

[BeetleB]

Not only that, but he pointed out research that looked at communes in the US in the 18th century. The "survival" rate of such communes decades on was starkly different between those that were based on religion and those that weren't. The latter had a very low survival rate.

[welshwelsh]

Religion is often passed down from parents to children, and people historically tend to believe whatever their parents do.

But in modern secular societies, family is less influential, and people get their information from other sources. For example, most people go to public schools, which teach from a secular perspective. They consume secular media and participate in an increasingly secular, globalized internet culture. It is increasingly possible for a person to completely abandon their parents' ideals and integrate themselves into a different community.

For that reason, I would argue that people today are likely to find other ways to spread their ideas other than passing them on to their children. This might be through art, including stuff like spreading memes on the internet. It could be through career, such as publishing research in a journal. Or through politics and activism.

[chmod600]

What you say is probably true, but there's a creepy quality to it: spreading your ideas to other people's children.

Spreading your ideas to other adults seems fine. Or spreading your ideas to your own children seems fine, because you are heavily invested and reap the results of the outcome.

And educating on fundamentals like reading, writing, and math seems fine.

But just pushing whatever pet ideas or political philosophies on other people's children seems downright bad.

[fellowniusmonk]

Why is "efficient" defined as consuming natural resources to produce children?

Why is that a measure of societal success?

Who gets to determine that this is a rubric that should even be considered?

Seems simplistic in the extreme. I think enlightenment thinking and the concurrent non-successionist/non-miraculous/cessationist protestant reformation that drove the new world clearly overlap heavily in the venn diagram of ideology. Are modern atheists core positions (epistemologically "different" "new atheism" fizzled quite quickly) not of the same ilk as our historical humanist/agnostic/deist societies?

[jimbokun]

> Why is that a measure of societal success?

Any judgement about ultimate value is just as arbitrary. It's one of the most basic and most intractable problems in philosophy.

[ameminator]

Do you think we felt righteous when we invaded Iraq on a lie? Do you think that the Hutus felt righteous when they killed Tutsis in Rwanda in the 90s? Do you think that people felt righteous when they committed heinous torture on people, for petty crimes, in the medieval era?

Do you think the vaccinated feel righteous when they condemn the unvaccinated?

[BeetleB]

This comment is just noise and doesn't really address anything the parent comment put forth.

Anyone can ask questions.

[ameminator]

The purpose wasn't to ask questions but to point out that our society, and societies around the world, have been prone to behavior that we consider wrong or a mistake due to righteousness. This was to directly support the original article and to refute the OP comment that righteousness can only be a good thing.

Maybe the style was a little rhetorical, but I do think the article has a point that we have to be wary of "righteous" behavior so that we can avoid doing something terrible. Of course, there probably are some (even many) useful points, as the original comment suggested. However, we do have to be conscious of the bad points to avoid going down a bad path.

Of course, the last question on the unvaccinated was draw immediacy to our own society which spawned things like r/HermanCainAward which celebrates the death of the unvaccinated, and other attitudes against them.

[BeetleB]

> The purpose wasn't to ask questions but to point out

That's exactly why I called out your comment. It was loaded with questions, when your goal was to make a point. It's a nice rhetorical device in theory, but blows up in practice. I've taken courses in communications and read several books, and virtually all of them say not to ask questions if your goal is to make a point - especially on contentious issues. Just go directly to making your point/argument.

> and to refute the OP comment that righteousness can only be a good thing.

The OP never made such a claim. His comment is decently nuanced. I'm also familiar with Haidt's work, and OP's comment is inline with his work. Haidt also doesn't claim that righteousness can only be a good thing. Indeed, the book points out problems with righteousness, and I would assume the OP is aware of them.