
Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind (1946) - mutor
http://www.panarchy.org/russell/ideas.1946.html
======
throwanem
> In public, as in private life, the important thing is tolerance and
> kindliness, without the presumption of a superhuman ability to read the
> future.

Wise advice in any age, and perhaps of particular value in ours.

~~~
harveywi
It is not always wise advice. ("Now you see that evil will always triumph
because good is dumb." \- Dark Helmet)

In an iterated prisoner's dilemma [1] where both players know the number of
rounds that will be played, the optimal strategy is to always defect. When the
number of rounds is unknown to both players, a good strategy was empirically
shown to be "tit for tat" [2] - if your opponent is cooperating, then you
cooperate too, otherwise you continue to defect as long as they do, and only
resume cooperation after they resume playing nice.

Obviously game theoretic models are just models, but they can be useful and
illuminating.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_itera...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_iterated_prisoner.27s_dilemma)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat)

~~~
throwanem
Perhaps Russell might have been wise to toss in something about not being
overly literal, too.

------
rcthompson
It's a little depressing to read how many harmful ideas he considered "almost
died out" or even "officially died out" that still plague our society to this
day, 70 years later.

~~~
Kenji
Hey, look at the bright side. If you think in millenia, it wasn't too long ago
that people had to fear that they were killed for outrageous ideas like that
the planetary system could be heliocentric or that there are irrational
numbers.

~~~
Karunamon
Giordano Bruno was the person supposedly burned to death for heliocentrist
views, in reality, that was more to do with his religious beliefs (pantheism,
rejection of the Christian trinity, etc) than his views on how the stars are
lined up.

That one was easy to find on Google, but I'm unable to find an identity of any
person who was burned at the stake for their views on mathematics. It's a
common theme, but not one of the links on the first few pages were able to
point to anything in specific (just lots of posts like this one that repeat
the claim)

Not that this absolves the early church of ideologically based murder or makes
their actions less heinous, but in the interests of accuracy...

~~~
Kenji
I applaud your intellectual rigour. You are right, it is not confirmed if
someone really got murdered over irrational numbers (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus)
). That is why I changed my comment right after I wrote it, to "fear that they
were killed" instead of "have been killed". Let us not turn legends into
facts.

------
whoByFire
I was expecting a discussion of harmful technologies. Instead, he essentially
says "rationalization considered harmful". Which is not too controversial.

But his model of humanity is interesting. He seems to think of humans as
harboring dark passions that are just itching to be rationalized. Despite
Russell's atheism, I can't help but wonder if the doctrine of total depravity
[1] hasn't rubbed off on him. Or if we are seeing evidence of the typical mind
fallacy [2].

But I also can't help but wonder that maybe he's just better at introspecting
than I am. And that maybe my model of humanity should be a little more
depraved.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_depravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_depravity)
[2]
[https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Typical_mind_fallacy](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Typical_mind_fallacy)

------
louprado
While this was just an anecdote, it caught me off guard:

> if you question any candid person who is no longer young, he is very likely
> to tell you that, having tasted life in this world, he has no wish to begin
> again as a 'new boy' in another.

The tone suggests that old people have "had enough" of this disappointing
world, but I'll suggest a different view.

Assuming this candid survey was conducted amongst R.Bertrand's philosophical
and possibly atheistic cohorts, they would give that answer because a
philosophical person makes it their duty to learn how to live well and
internalize their goals.

Contrast this to someone who never bothered to learn how to live well, or
believes God will decide whether or not they lived well. This may create a
desire for another chance or more time to figure it out and get it right.

Coincidentally I once asked this exact question to someone who had experienced
profound hardship (e.g., civil war, mutilation, death of child, total loss,
abuse, political persecution, etc). That elderly person made it clear that
they would very much want to be young again.

It is regretful that Bertrand would make such a broad and questionable
generalization in such a depressing context.

~~~
Kluny
>> if you question any candid person who is no longer young, he is very likely
to tell you that, having tasted life in this world, he has no wish to begin
again as a 'new boy' in another.

> The tone suggests that old people have "had enough" of this disappointing
> world, but I'll suggest a different view.

I read it differently - not that the older person has had enough, but rather
that they count their experience so valuable that they don't want to start
again without it. At the age of 27, I definitely don't want to relive the
trauma I went through in my teens and early twenties as I learned to navigate
relationships and look after my wellbeing. I'd love to have a young body
forever, but that experience is worth a lot.

~~~
vacri
I have a similar position re: youth traumas, plus another angle. I love being
a sysadmin, but at 43 it took a long time to get here - I started out doing
neuroscience, worked as a neuroscientist for a while, went to work support at
a related equipment supplier, moved into testing, and eventually ended up as
sysadmin a few jobs down the road.

If I had started out my career in the tech world, I would have had a more
enjoyable career path and a much bigger bank balance, but I also wouldn't have
my well-rounded experiences. I like that I started out in biology, and I see a
pragmatism about life in biologists that I don't see anywhere else (and
particularly not in tech). In short, I don't know who I'd be if I started over
afresh, and I genuinely don't know whether I'd be better or worse off (or even
value the same things)

------
jkingsbery
Russell comes across, here as in most places, as ignorant about what religious
people believe. Anyone looking for a more balanced take should read
Chesterton's Orthodoxy.

------
FreedomToCreate
Many of the ideas here, especially the ideas of moving past nationalism and
that prosperity for all is better than prosperity for the few, are still
controversial today. The tribe mentality, in regards to what the media
portrays especially, has grown. Conservatives vs liberals, minorities vs the
white patriarchy, Silicon Valley vs the rest of the world. We have just
evolved and shifted the divisions, but the core mentality has not changed.

------
hellameta
there are no bad ideas. even this one.

------
B1FF_PSUVM
Bertrand Russell is a particularly vicious specimen.

~~~
methehack
Really? How so? And of what?

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
Malignant 'rationalism', the kind that murdered millions of people, starting
with the French revolution and continuing with the Soviet one.

~~~
jhbadger
People (particularly religious zealots) like to _claim_ that the French and
Soviet revolutions were "rational" but they ignore:

1) The villain of the French Revolution, Robespierre, wasn't a rational
atheist but in fact founded his own pseudo-Christian religion "The Cult of of
the Supreme Being" and actually had actual French atheists executed.

2) Stalin, who was responsible for most of the Soviet deaths actually went to
seminary and trained to be a priest.

------
swayvil
Please, we aren't rational. The ideas just provide a narrative wrapper for our
stew of inclinations. Fine philosophies will not improve things.

My bet is on drugs, art and meditation.

~~~
stcredzero
How about the idea that one should be kind and treat all people with dignity?

~~~
andreasvc
Sounds great, but in practice people will take advantage of you; e.g., if you
walk alone in the street at night in a big city and a stranger asks to use
your mobile phone, you'd have to be particularly naive to say yes.

~~~
stcredzero
Saying yes in that case wouldn't be required. I'd say, sorry, I can't help
you, then walk on. In my case, with those sorts of requests, I often say,
sorry, I have to follow a rule about that, which is true. I have a personal
code of conduct that forbids my satisfying requests like that.

~~~
andreasvc
Sure but that illustrates my point: applying as much kindness as possible is
not what people actually strive for nor would it be a solution. Preventing
being taken advantage of takes priority.

~~~
stcredzero
_Sure but that illustrates my point: applying as much kindness as possible is
not what people actually strive for nor would it be a solution. Preventing
being taken advantage of takes priority._

Look at my post: I only say you should treat people with kindness. _You_ are
saying some nonsense about _" applying as much kindness as possible."_ Is it a
habit you have of putting words into another's mouth. This is a Strawman,
either intentional or unintentional. It's generally possible to be kind while
also protecting yourself. It's only in very extreme circumstances where it's
not. Calm, speaking interactions generally do not fall into this category.

~~~
andreasvc
I don't see such a large difference between your wording and mine; "should"
implies making some kind of best effort at doing something where possible. But
regardless, where we differ is that I think that people are generally neutral
or indifferent instead of kind. I don't believe this can be radically changed
in a way that works out, that would be Utopian thinking. I gave you a very
common example where being kind is not advisable, yet you claim this happens
only in very extreme circumstances. I'm curious how you arrived at such a
conviction.

