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Comment by relics443 | Hacker News Reader

Have you considered that there are people out there with values that differ from yours? It's not wildly impossible, regardless of what the screaming minority would have you believe.

Maybe they don't have a problem with working on such projects, because they agree with their end goal?

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Ocam's razor, so yes.

I learned very young there are differences, like I literally (NOT figurative at all) couldn't see the motivation behind destroying school equipment, drawing on walls, etc. While for some, it's fun.

But even after all those years, it's just so hard to wrap my head around that.

They probably understand others have different values. The confusion is, some values seem so self evident that its bewildering anyone with a certain level of intelligence wouldn't realize the same values.

I think the answer might be that they do have the same values, but they have a different model of the world overall, which calls for different ways of achieving those values.

To take this to an extreme, imagine a person fighting for their life against actual criminals threatening vs a person fighting for their life against a random person they think is a shape-shifting alien impostor. Both are internally justified by the same values, one is externally justified by a more correct perception of reality.

Ah, those are the words I have been missing. Thank you.

How can you tell that your perception of reality is more "correct" than mine?

I'm glad someone made this comment. It blows me away when people think their set of values is the only "right" way to think and anyone else who has a different set of values is obviously damaged or doing it unwillingly.

There is nothing extraordinary or even unusual in this. It's basic tribalism: my tribe is made from virtuous people who are also smart and beautiful, the enemy tribe, on the other hand, consists of deformed degenerates with the room temperature IQ.

No you see you imply that I've given a value to the people here. Which is not at all what I said.

I exactly said I can't understand the line of thinking that leads to the decision. That's pretty much all.

Did not you imply that smart people cannot possibly be in the other tribe so there has to be some reason why your tribe members are not quitting the enemy tribe cause?

I never used anything close to "cannot possibly". I said I could not understand. I used the words "why" and "I wonder". It's very clear. It's not ambiguous. But you seem very attached to your tribe theory, so you want my past comment to fit your present view.

And it's a very conflicting view of the word too. Do you see us as enemies as well ?

In which case, you win this argument. I don't want my tribe to fight yours.

Sorry, then, if you didn't want to say that then I don't understand why you posted your message at all. It then literally amounts to "I cannot understand other people motivation" and all the references to intellect and understanding consequences and shiny toys are irrelevant.

As for myself being tribal - it's very hard to observe tribalism in oneself so, while I am not seeing it, I can very well be.

Well, let's say suddenly you learn a community of elite thinkers eat babies and think it's good way to control population.

You'd be baffled, wouldn't you ?

It's not a matter of morality, of good or bad, or right or wrong.

I understand the difference exists. It just feels so alien to me I can't get to form the mental model that helps me understand what thinking lead to this behavior.

Also, read the other comments, we answered your points already.

you learn a community of elite thinkers eat babies

Maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but you're saying that if anyone holds an opinion different than yours your reaction is the same as if they thought "eating babies" was OK?

Things aren't that black and white. People can hold opinions different than your and you can withhold judgement.

They just have a different opinion on eating babies. People can hold opinions different than your and you can withhold judgement.

See again, you add morality in the equation, talking about black and white. But morality is arbitrary. You can draw the line anywhere, one inch to left or the right, and so on, indefinitely.

So that's not what I said.

What I said was "I can't understand".

Not "it should not be" or "it's impossible" or "they are bad people".

Apparently, you have difficulty to understand that somebody can't understand.

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