A part of a thread from Hacker News:
ian0 There are lots of strategies which are rational, non-stupid, in a specific context but irrational & stupid if context is expanded. Eg. Paying it forward by advising a sociopath, working on something interesting despite it being damaging, not being religious because its illogical even if being religious makes you feel/act better.
not being religious because its illogical even if being religious makes you feel/act better.
red75prime It's not exactly a choice. I for the life of me just can't start believing one or another unfounded story, because there's no basis to choose which story to believe. Even taking into account prevalent beliefs of the society as a basis, I can't imagine what kind of mental stunt I need to perform to promote probability of the hypothesis to one. Deep brain stimulation could probably work, but it's too risky.
ian0 I guess it doesn't make you feel better then :) Its subjective, but some can take comfort in rituals and beliefs that rely on a certain amount of doublethink.
PS I don't think you need to compare and contrast, just go with say an interesting one like Jedi (lots in England according to the census) and see how it goes!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15438746
I would have thought that it is impossible to convince oneself of a big lie and still live happily. According to this person, with “a certain amount of doublethink” it can be done.
Perhaps this fits Daniel Dennett’s thesis that a lot of people “believe in belief”? I’m not sure to what extend this person believes.... I also tried to imagine joining a local church, lying to them about feeling Jesus in my heart or something... I couldn’t do it. It seems to me that in order to believe in belief, one also needs be able to lie in people’s faces.
