Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind (1946) | Hacker News Reader

Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind (1946)

panarchy.org

80 pointsmutor40 comments

> 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.

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...

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

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

Iterated 1v1 prisoner's dilemma with a known number of rounds is effectively just a single round of prisoner's dilemma.

As to strategy's it really depends on what the penalties are and if you can see other peoples rounds. AKA if Algo 3 can see when Algo 1 and 2 have their rounds, before having a round with 1 and 2.

Another interesting version is escalating prisoners dilemma, where round X is worth more than round X -1.

It's also useful to consider how often real life resembles the prisoner's dilemma, iterated or otherwise (in my experience, not often) and in the cases where it appears to, whether other factors (such as getting the reputation of being a dick) might swamp the advantage that is to be gained by betraying your partner.

Of course you can always cook up a situation where any strategy is the best one; but in my real-life experience kindness tends to be a pretty good strategy, for a variety of realistic objective functions.

(edit: grammar)

Sadly kindness and tolerance only works with the 96% of people who are socially motivated (and not psychopaths). For the antisocial minority you must use force of one form or another, otherwise they create real damage.

I think it would be a real surprise if Russell meant this advice to be taken as an absolute rule for every possible case.

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.

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.

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...

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 ). 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.

I strongly suspect that the people burning other humans to death for witchcraft, based on red flags like literacy, may not have kept extensive records.

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 [2] https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Typical_mind_fallacy

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.

>> 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.

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)

I found that sentence confusing, and got the impression that he meant after knowing life in this world (earth, human life) the no longer young candid person has no wish to begin again as a new boy in another world (heaven?, life after death)

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.

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.

there are no bad ideas. even this one.

Bertrand Russell is a particularly vicious specimen.

Really? How so? And of what?

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

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.

Yer gonna have to slow waaaaay down there, pardner

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.

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

I don't know, how about it? Give me more to work with here.

I meant that as an addition to your list.

No, I don't think that idea, holding it or conveying it, has commensurate ability to change perspectives or raise consciousness. Not comparable to drugs/art/meditation. Not at all.

...because what other people might have to say isn't particularly important, so behaving in a way that best ensures others will be willing to share truthful opinions isn't of any particular value?

You've never had your perspective changed or consciousness raised by something someone said unexpectedly? If your answer is "no" I'd posit that that is a particularly interesting piece of data.

Now slow down there slick, I didn't say any of that.

It's a matter of what has greater impact. Drugs/art/meditation, as a rule, are a greater force for changing perspectives than ideas are. That's just how it is.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Saying we aren't rational is not an argument that philosophy cannot improve our lives. In ancient Greece the latter used to be an important part of philosophy. I think schools such as stoicism and epicureanism have a lot to offer.

If we are not rational. If we are, fundamentally, something other than rational.

That is, if rationality is optional, to be put aside when it doesn't suit us.

Or if rationality is an expression of an underlying form, like a glove over a hand.

Then, if we want to address a person, to influence him or whatever, then we would do well to address that fundamental form and not that optional, superficial expression.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com