

20 Things I Believe That Many Do Not - myzerox
https://medium.com/@mauricemauser/20-things-i-believe-that-many-do-not-5e6375ac40ca

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restalis
My 2¢:

1\. Life is about the continuous cycle of our human species development and
where we fit in that as individuals.

2\. A religion as a system of beliefs is not so much to be true as to fulfill
a purpose. The purpose (and the religion) can and should be revised from time
to time. (Religions can be replaced.)

3\. Agreed.

4\. Justice is grounded on power. It should be on reason.

5\. We need adequate regulation. If what we have is adequate or not is a
subjective and a political mater.

6\. University education should not be a replacement for auto-didactic
learning.

7\. Agreed. Overspecialization is a weakness in itself.

8\. Partially agreed. The package of ability and personality is both
genetically inherited and later shaped.

9\. If in doubt, improve your ability to make an educated guess by learning
more about the mater. This is what humans (should) do, as a species.

10\. Luck is both given (by arbitrary events) AND created (by how we react to
arbitrary events).

11\. "Risk-avoidance is the riskiest strategy." does not fully respect the
logic.

12\. Through "well-intended conservation" the good is at most just preserved
(by definition), therefore the comparison is flawed. Also, it's worth noting
that there is an effect called "absence blindness" that kicks in in such
comparisons. [http://joshkaufman.net/absence-
blindness/](http://joshkaufman.net/absence-blindness/)

13\. Technological progress spawns a lot of things, including extinctions for
many things that we come later to disregard.

14\. Progress is not a mathematical function and any attempt to force it to
look otherwise is an error-prone exercise.

15\. The average is a more simplistic reduction than the power-laws, so
agreed. A less simplistic representation than power-laws is also possible.

16\. Agreed. (We would probably need a religion drive to achieve that.)

17\. Agreed.

18\. Aging is a natural biological process. Humans will step over their
biological limits, but that will threaten our cohesion on a species level. One
of my personal wishes is to leave behind the humanity in one piece...

19\. Consciousness is a feedback loop. (The most simplistic reduction.)

20\. Free will is an optimum seeking mechanism (made of deterministic
components indeed).

In the end looks like for the most of the beliefs I'm too in those that the OP
refers to as "many".

~~~
myzerox
> _" 1\. Life is about the continuous cycle of our human species development
> and where we fit in that as individuals."_

If you create what feels authenticate to you, it will fit in with humanity as
a whole.

> _2\. Religion as purpose._

I'd say purpose is drawn from _philosophy_ in general, and religion is an
instance of philosophy.

> _4\. Justice._

There is a political dichotomy of merit-based systems vs. egalitarian systems.
I lean towards merit, and equal opportunity.

> _5\. Adequate regulation._

There is an overregulation bias. If in doubt, a new law is passed. This is
especially harmful to innovation: see AirBnB, Uber/Lyft, Synthetic Biology.

> _6. "University education should not be a replacement for auto-didactic
> learning."_

But the emergence of MOOCs makes autodidactic learning a possible replacement
for university education. In an unbundled form, of course, as you still need
to develop your network (w/o the campus) and build your reputation (w/o the
degree).

> _9\. Authenticity vs. social convention._

Again, given the _dichotomy_ of authenticity vs. social convention, favor
authenticity. ("if in doubt" is more of a stylistic element)

> _" 11\. "Risk-avoidance is the riskiest strategy." does not fully respect
> the logic."_

It would not, if we could control all of the risks. However, we cannot fully
predict and avoid the occurrence of extreme events. Hence, it is better to
embrace them via antifragile systems:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile).
Moreover, not taking any _seemingly high_ risks, usually leads to not making
any progress at all - and stagnation is the ultimate risk.

> _12\. Creative destruction vs. conservation_

The comparison is to be understood on the level of "where should I, as an
individual, focus my limited attention and energy on?" Environmentalism or
Technology? Answer: Technology.

> _13\. Technology-driven extinction_

Many people primarily see the dangers of technology, whereas - imho - the
benefits outweigh the costs. In fact, the opportunity costs of not advancing
technology because of naysayers would be higher than the damage that is done
by technology itself. (extinction is meant on the level of humankind)

> _18. "Humans will step over their biological limits, but that will threaten
> our cohesion on a species level."_

Threat and opportunity usually go hand-in-hand.

------
a3n
> Democracy is not the best form of government, meritocracy is.

The problem here is that what is valued as meritful is easily manipulated. If
killing in war is proclaimed as meritful, then killers rule in such a
meritocracy. Churchill said it best, democracy is the worst form of
government, except for all the others.
[http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/364.html](http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/364.html)

~~~
myzerox
Yes, one of his better quotes!

Of course a healthy meritocracy relies on a meaningful and objective measure
of performance. Technology should make it easier to implement such a system
today though, compared to the times of the old Greeks.

