• ameancow@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    I’ve come to accept that reality is far less important to our daily lives than narratives.

    I mean, it’s a real depressing understanding of the world, but after you embrace it, you learn to work around it and it can even be a huge asset or tool for getting results and interacting with others.

    For me personally, I want to learn the disappointing truth about everything, but for the vast majority of people, they will live their whole lives without ever needing or wanting to learn who actually said or did what in history. It’s fine. We can keep building stories to influence people to do better things. There is no cosmic arbiter of truth who is going to judge people for spreading a story that leads to better outcomes.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I care more about outcomes nowadays far more than if everyone is on the same page, that’s never going to happen.

    • athatet@lemmy.zip
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      13 hours ago

      This is a crazy take. Misinformation is not all of the sudden good when it has a positive outcome.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        2 hours ago

        I get where they’re coming from. It isn’t that mis/dis-information is good. It’s just that they aren’t going to get the accurate information anyway.

        For example, who actually created this university? Can you tell me? Does it actually matter? If this story causes good outcomes, where otherwise there would be a void of information which could be filled by someone else, then the story that causes good is the best option.

        • athatet@lemmy.zip
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          2 hours ago

          Yes. You can look it up and see. Or even read more comments further down talking about it.

          Yes it matters.

          • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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            52 minutes ago

            You say “yes” as if that means something. How? What changes if we just leave the gap of knowledge unfilled?

            You didn’t answer who created it. You did t say what would happen. You just said “yes” as if that alone is enough justification. What good does it do? If the gap is instead filled with mysoginist religious garbage, what’s the benefit from telling people this isn’t true?

            For people un-effected, fine. Let them know. For people who benefit from it, or who don’t hurt others because of it, what is gained? This isn’t answered by just saying “yes.” Put more effort in or I assume you don’t actually have any reason.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        It’s a pretty dumb trolly problem if you rather truth that hurts people than a fairy tale that actually helps people.

        What’s crazy is holding onto the ideal that you can get everyone on the same page, interpreting the same things the same way. Our entire civilization is build on a palace of lies we will never have truth for, so I find I don’t feel bothered if people take inspiration from someone who may or may not have existed.

        • athatet@lemmy.zip
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          7 hours ago

          Yeah but why not just find someone who actually existed to be inspired by instead of a lie?

          “We don’t know so we might as well not bother learning” is also an incredibly wild take.

          • ameancow@lemmy.world
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            4 hours ago

            I was going to talk about our social acceptance of religion despite even knowing it does objective harms to society, but then I realized you’re being performative and don’t really care or you wouldn’t have to put words in my mouth. I won’t see whatever else you have to tell me I am saying.

    • verdi@feddit.org
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      9 hours ago

      👆 This is how we get Trump and reactionaries, it’s this idiotic take right here.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        It’s funny because we allow people to believe whatever crazy, insane fairy tales they want about what magic sky wizard is the real magic sky wizard and even if those beliefs do harm, we say “well that’s their belief.”

        I’m saying, if people are going to live in fantasy land, tell better fucking stories because our world is literally burning down on the backs of performative shits sitting on the computer being smug about what their perfect future looks like.