[detaro]

"Don't use Facebook" is currently not common sense. Many people are on Facebook and have thought about all these arguments and decided it is worth it to them.

(In the meantime, fewer people seem to consider it common sense to be on Facebook, at least it seems to me less and less people are surprised if someone doesn't use it)

[gbog]

Well, I'm reading the Histoire de la Revolution Francaise (Michelet) right now, and something very stunning is that everyone, even the most faithful revolutionnaries, was still "royalist" in 1790. They all had "thought about all these arguments and decided it is worth it to them", because of perceived "common sense". Being a republican was considered extreme even in the left wing of the nascent Assemblee Nationale. And a few month later, it became obvious that monarchy needed to be definitely removed from the Nation, and "common sense" changed to the opposite. So the real common sense (i.e. the "right way to think about it") was to be republican.

Another example is abolition of death penalty in France by Mitterand: right now we French/Europeans believe it is very barbarian to still have Justice use this gothic expedient, and rightly so if you ask me. But just before its abolition polls showed most people opposed the abolition. A new, better "common sense" replaced an old habit falsy believed to follow "common sense".

So back to Facebook: right now most people do not know it, but it is not unlikely that the retrospective "common sense" of the future will be to avoid Facebook today. And I think a much saner regulation on what can be advertised and sold as food to human being in the US will also be retrospective common sense. And not driving cars is also common sense. The list is quite long...

[edited typos and grammar]

[detaro]

Ok, yes, I agree in so far that what counts as common sense is temporary. Added a "current" to my post above.

[amirmc]

> "... and have thought about all these arguments and decided it is worth it to them."

I suspect 'most people' aren't even remotely aware of such arguments. Nor of the effects that choices now will have on their future selves.