Ask HN: What important truth do very few people agree with you on? - rblion
======
techdog
The idea that No One Is Coming.

No one is coming to fix your problem, help you out, give you the magic "tip"
you need, point you in the right direction, throw you a rope, help pay your
bills, show you "the way," etc.

"But if I just see the right specialist..." "If I could just hire the right
consultant..." "If I could just..."

Bullshit.

No one is coming.

You own your problems.

Whatever your problem is -- raising money, finding the "right" therapist,
quitting cigarets, finding the right partner, getting the right degree (if I
just had an MBA...), learning the right skills -- whatever it is, it's your
problem. It's okay to ask for help. But it's your problem. No one's going to
fix it on your behalf, make you better on your behalf.

No one is coming.

"Yeah, but..."

No. No one, is, coming.

~~~
smartera
Fully agree as well.. Took me a long while to really believe it though. Yet
once I did finally "get it", it provided me with a new sense of freedom.

------
SpecialAccount
I keep a few months of food/medical supplies in the house in case of
emergency. People think I'm weird for it. And to be clear I'm not a doomsayer
and believe I will not likely ever need it. But once I was looking at
insurance and considered what I care about in the house. Two things I wouldn't
want to lose, my photos and my family. So I got cloud backup for my photos and
pulled together some suppliers that would keep the family going in case of
emergency.

While I don't think I will ever need it, on a long enough time scale there is
bound to be some emergency be it my generation or following ones.

I find it strange most people have contents insurance on their house, to
protect tables/chairs/TV's and think I'm strange for this. The way I see it,
is while I'm significantly likely more likely to lose my house contents via
theft/fire etc, I don't care about these things. And there is nothing a few
shopping trips wouldn't fix. However in the rare event food supplies were cut,
then I really would care. Also its significantly cheaper than contents
insurance actually saving money as I bulk buy food on special I already eat so
a bunch of what we eat is on permanent special.

As a side comment the crazy test for people to prep seems to be ask them how
the world will end. If they think they know how or when, they're crazy.
Otherwise its just being prepared.

~~~
bikamonki
Make sure you have tons of honey I read somewhere that it never goes bad and
it is an excellent source of energy.

~~~
anonbanker
Good luck finding bees. Most honey is corn syrup nowadays.

------
anonbanker
Microsoft have turned multiple generations into the digital equivalent of
abused spouses, constantly saying "this time is different" every time a new OS
is released. They'll buy new PC's and downgrade to windows 7, or grit their
teeth and use win 8.1. If you show them a shiny, modern KDE-based Linux
distribution, their eyes glaze over while they proclaim "yeah, but Linux is
hard." Even if you prove that it's easy as pie to use, they'll keep saying
that, while they look uncomfortable from the cognitive dissonance they're
experiencing.

~~~
phaus
>Even if you prove that it's easy as pie to use, they'll keep saying that,
while they look uncomfortable from the cognitive dissonance they're
experiencing.

I love Linux, and I think it has the potential to be the best operating system
for end-users. Unfortunately, it is hard for the average person to use. Even
the most user-friendly distro, Ubuntu, suffers from incompatibility issues and
broken drivers after I update. It doesn't happen often, but the average person
doesn't EVER want to spend hours fucking around with his / her computer just
to get it working properly. The interface is user-friendly, but that won't
matter if something breaks.

~~~
dllthomas
My dad installed Ubuntu for a friend of his - a non-computer-savvy poet - and
she was quite happy with it. There's a distinction to be had between "use" and
"administer" (I'm not sure how much administration of the box she did or
didn't do).

~~~
anonbanker
I'd say windows is similar in this regard. Using Terminal Services on a Server
2008R2 computer as an unprivileged user is still going to hide all the
administration tasks required.

------
cyberjunkie
That morals and what's right and wrong are not universal, and up to each
individual. That you can do whatever you want to do, if you feel it's right.
However, when the onslaught of someone else doing something that appears right
to them affects you, then, suddenly they aren't doing the right thing.

~~~
joeclark77
You think moral relativism and "if it feels good, do it" are unpopular
minority views? Where do you live? Saudi Arabia?

~~~
cyberjunkie
On the contrary, I'm saying they are popular views accepted in public and I'm
told I'm wrong. I live in India.

~~~
joeclark77
Are you saying "morals are not universal" or "morals are universal"?

------
phaus
I believe that people who don't vote can be just as patriotic as those who do.

When a person votes during a presidential election, all that is accomplished
is the person is making a choice between 1 of 2 carbon copy shit-bags that
have been hand-picked corporate lobbyists and other kinds of sociopaths. To
make it even more ridiculous, its just a single vote out of ~40,000,000. I
think it makes far more sense to vote in local elections and primaries,
because, even though the effort is still futile, that's the closest you are
going to get to making an actual difference.

~~~
phaus
The entire point of the thread was to discuss unpopular viewpoints. Apparently
I won, because instead of intelligent discourse I just got down-voted.

~~~
dllthomas
I almost downvoted you for presentation, despite fundamental agreement on the
content.

~~~
phaus
Honest question here. What specifically did you dislike about my original
comment?

------
archagon
Sarcasm in any form is harmful to discourse and ruins communities.

I bristle whenever I see someone responding to a popular opinion on Reddit
with a sarcastic "But... but...!" anti-comment.

------
dmfdmf
Ayn Rand was a brilliant thinker that most people are incapable of
understanding today. Here are the essentials of Western thought;

Plato => Kant (Primacy of Consciousness)

Aristotle => Rand (Primacy of Existence)

Kant took Plato's work and removed all Aristotelian influence. Rand took
Aristotle's work and remove any Platonic influences. The future of Western
Civilization depends on rejecting the Platonic line of thought (which is
dominant today) for the Aristotelian line of thought.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Let me guess: are you a young, idealistic intellectual? What position does
fitness of the community occupy in that world view?

~~~
dmfdmf
What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

QED

~~~
joeclark77
All you've shown is that people disagree with you. The question asks about
truth.

~~~
dmfdmf
Who's truth? Your interpretation of the question makes no sense.

~~~
joeclark77
The question is about truths, not about opinions. Just because you have an
oddball notion that most people disagree with, doesn't mean you're the keeper
of secret wisdom.

~~~
dllthomas
I think this gets at a question of the purpose of this thread. Is it to
catalogue rare-but-strongly-held opinions or to try and educate everyone about
truths we're missing?

If the former, demanding a vigorous defense is clearly counterproductive.
Anything anyone posts would find more people leaping to object than affirm,
unless it happens to be a point this crowd happens to hold that particular
contrarian viewpoint.

If the latter, the usefulness of such challenge likely depends on how well
other readers are expected to do at assessing veracity themselves.

Personally, I find it valuable to read clear statements of positions I
disagree with, and would weakly rather this thread promote such - there are
plenty of threads that are better places to argue the meat of things.

------
seanccox
I'm a generally disagreeable person, so I feel like this could be a long list.
Here are my top five:

1) Democracy != voting 2) History is a science, with verifiable and repeatable
results 3) Pacifist direct action (a la Ghandi or MLK Jr.) fails 4) History
books that lack a 'methods' section shouldn't be taken seriously 5)
Journalists are not qualified to report on the topics about which they are
reporting

~~~
bikamonki
Democracy = voting if you take away propaganda, campaign funding, educate
voters and design a fraud-proof voting system -- like maybe a 'blockchain'
voting software?

~~~
joeclark77
I would amend this to say "if voters educate themselves". If _you_ (I guess
meaning the government?) "educate" voters, the results are neither good for
education nor good for government.

------
dorfuss
Common cold does not come from exposure to cold weather but from
bacteria/viruses. That humans are immune to 99,99% germs out there and that
you should not be so much afraid of infections. And that carbohydrates in your
diet don't and cannot change into fat. Fat is fat, sugar is sugar, period.

------
pc2g4d
Psychiatric drugs are not effective in treating mental illness---at least not
more effective than placebo.

~~~
penguindev
I totally agree; many drugs are a racket these days, made only for
profiteering "sick care", and the government is totally on board with it.

Two examples I can personally testify to: treating people who don't yet know
their life's purpose with mental drugs / electroshock, and treating people who
are carbohydrate intolerant with.. more carbs.

------
lutusp
> What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

That psychology isn't a science, although public perceptions are slowly
catching up:

[http://arachnoid.com/science_of_mind](http://arachnoid.com/science_of_mind)

~~~
dorfuss
Excellent one. I'd add economics, sociology and, although I am just 80% sure -
medicine.

There is a book out there called something like "Curing factors in
psychoanalysis" which ends with a sentence: "Well, we know that talking to a
person certainly has some impact, but what impact, how and why, we're not sure
at all."

------
penguindev
That overpopulation isn't binary, it's qualitative, and having more than two
kids/family is reducing the well being of the rest of us.

------
jakeogh
Is it still controversial that all 3 NYC skyscrapers were CD's? I remember
when someone first mentioned it to me... I chewed him out.

~~~
smeyer
This may be too late for you to see my reply, but what? First of all, there
are far more than 3 skyscrapers in NYC. Also, what does CD stand for here?
Obviously, I think I'm missing a lot here.

~~~
dllthomas
My guess, at substantial risk of being wrong:

CD stands for "controlled demolition", and "all 3 NYC skyscrapers" are World
Trade Center buildings 1, 2, and 7.

And my understanding is that it _is_ still controversial, and still the
minority opinion, although I'm not sure what the thresholds are for "very
few".

------
dreamdu5t
\- Facebook is an excellent product and has never violated anyone's privacy.

\- Democracy is as arbitrary as monarchy.

------
brudgers
FIFA is better than the alternatives.

~~~
bikamonki
What are the alternatives?

~~~
simonjw
Pro Evo

------
_random_
That web is a legacy platform that hinders innovation.

------
bikamonki
The truth that security is a very expensive illusion.

------
motyar
Control is an illusion.

