Hacker News Reader

Comment by k__ | Hacker News Reader

"society would function better if people were educated young about understanding the concept of determinism and why we don't have control"

My life got better after I rid myself from those thoughts. I firmly believe, they are dangerous.

View on HN

Probably no more dangerous than free will beliefs because as with some determinist beliefs, it's moderated by thinking life is dictated by a greater order, see Calvinism or the many determinsts who aren't "dangerous" as well as those of us who think deterministic belief leads us to more nuanced and moderate views on societal events, that something begets something begets something, ad infinitum which can lead to better prevention and help mechanisms. I'm certainly not a danger other than to cheesecake or endangered anymore than anyone else who believes the will is free of physical influence and that at its core it's random, or a god or something fueling the RNG or whatever.

>I firmly believe, they are dangerous.

What is your reasoning?

A single example: the US justice system is based on retribution. People are condemned to prisons and sometimes death as a result of ultimately how they are wired and the circumstances they were in- there was no 'choice' made regarding whether or not to steal or kill, they were always going to do that, they never had any real 'control' over their actions. If anything criminality in any form should be considered a mental illness, but instead we gladly put people in tortuous conditions because we have wantonly decided that they are guilty, bad/evil, people.

This focuses on the "retribution/punishment" aspect of the penal system, but it's also important to remember that "deterrence" and "reform" are also important. Even if you feel people don't deserve to be punished for their crimes due to the crimes' inevitability, it's still important for repercussions to exist to create a society where it is less likely for people to commit those crimes (for fear of punishment), and where people who do commit crimes undergo a process that makes them less likely to do so in the future. (There are better ways than prison to reform people, of course, but not as many to deter people from committing crimes in the first place)

That just sounds like a one sided convenience for people fated to not be hurt by the system that doesn't harm them. Deterrence can be from not having to go through the rehabilitation system.

It leads people to think they're stuck in the position others tell them they are.

You're bad at writing, you're not smart, you're poor, you're a man, etc.

Intelligence is dangerous as well.

I'd argue per-person ignorance is higher on the scale of "potential to cause humanity harm" than people generally being more intelligent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com