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Comment by placebo | Hacker News Reader

First, not all crony beliefs have to be necessarily false :)

But seriously - if you are presented with evidence that when not all citizens have human rights then everyone is more well-off and happier than when all citizens have human rights, and after finding no errors in the data or logic, will you automatically dismiss it or reassess your belief?

If you would reassess your belief then it's not a crony belief. Of course, you might never need to reassess it, but being open to the possibility that it might need rethinking is what keeps it from being a crony belief

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> …if you are presented with evidence that when not all citizens have human rights then everyone is more well-off and happier than when all citizens have human rights, and after finding no errors in the data or logic, will you automatically dismiss it or reassess your belief?

Isn't this just a battle of crony beliefs? The crony belief in rights vs the crony belief that people aught to be more well off and happier.

The crony belief that people aught to be more well off and happier should be addressed separately. Claiming it as a true statement is of course problematic (especially "aught to"), but I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this statement which an HN comment is too small to contain ;)

Kidding aside, as I mentioned earlier I suggest the antidote to crony or any other false beliefs is an uncompromising and unrelenting skepticism in every belief. This neti-neti approach can continue until what remains is not a belief anymore, but a recognition of something that is prior to any belief.

> if you are presented with evidence that when not all citizens have human rights then everyone is more well-off and happier

I simply do not believe that anyone would be "more well-off and happier" by themselves being stripped of the protection afforded by their own human rights. This is a contradiction in terms.

Argument against human rights are always targeted at some powerless underclass, such as immigrants or non-citizens, who are felt not worthy of this protection. The person making this argument typically feels that the leopard would surely never eat _their_ privileged face, but would only punish, you know, _those people_.

It depends on what you mean by "human rights". Non Western countries often complain (with some justification) that when Western countries promote "human rights" they are really just promoting Western culture with its emphasis on the needs of the individual over the needs of the group.

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