tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196547498235237605.post1205048901474427218..comments2023-08-22T09:13:46.308-04:00Comments on Computing Ignorance: Wrestling, but with my own worldview or with questionable science?Mozglubovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04803674886685831282noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196547498235237605.post-35828958701579133082009-02-26T09:28:00.000-05:002009-02-26T09:28:00.000-05:00Regan, when I was talking about mentally unbalance...Regan, when I was talking about mentally unbalanced people I was not referring to the usual suicide bombers (since these are individuals devising plans to go on suicide killing sprees without being pushed into it by organizers). Rather, I was referring to the people who would devise and enact a plan to hurt and destroy others along with themselves entirely on their own (I actually had in mind some of the American cases of shooting sprees like Columbine and Virginia Tech. I'm sure some of the suicide bombers in the Middle East are on their own too, but the cultural precedent and life hardships, as you point out, make that somewhat more understandable. I stand by the statement that to do so requires one to be mentally unbalanced, but I'd be pretty mentally unbalanced if I lived through what goes on over there too). Of course you can always make the statement that one can never truly know the life and hardships of another individual who is driven to the edge, but to answer those hardships (especially in the case of the American killings) with as violent an end as possible shows some pretty horrifying sociopathic tendencies.<BR/><BR/>As for whether I would know if I were being exploited, I have no doubt that I would not. Growing up I had such an unfortunate reverence for authority and certainty that I've often reflected on the fact that, had I grown up in another time and place, chances are I'd have become a member of a religious order (of course, chances are I'd have been burned as a heretic at some point for asking the wrong question because I was still a big fan of logic even as a little kid).<BR/><BR/>So, I stand by my statement, but I do not think it was quite the value judgement that you took it to be.Mozglubovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04803674886685831282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196547498235237605.post-38125939108062757592009-02-26T02:27:00.000-05:002009-02-26T02:27:00.000-05:00I do take issue with one part of your reasoning. T...I do take issue with one part of your reasoning. The following:<BR/><BR/>"....(of course, when I say it is unusual, I don't mean impossible. There are all sorts of mentally unbalanced people out there)"<BR/><BR/>It a clear value judgment on your part that you must be somehow mentally unbalanced to blow yourself up. I think the disconnect for you (and make no mistake, for myself as well) is that you've (we've) never been fucked over so hard by "them" that blowing yourself up to get back at "them" seemed like a rational idea. If your whole family has been carpet bombed to death for example. If your life and everything it entails rests in the unmerciful hands of foreign oppression, where they're free to kill you, to rape you, to take every last shred of humanity from you. We've lived such a life of privilege in the land of milk and honey compared to the people that might be inclined to think in such a manner. In no way am I trying to apologize for the people that feel the compulsion to go out in a fiery explosion on a bus, plane, or building. All I'm attempting to point out is that it's easy to label someone who has nothing to lose as "unstable", or "fanatic". If you get right down to it, do you really think it matters when you've been living in some of the worst conditions in the world who it is that reaches out a hand to you? That you wouldn't know (you poor uneducated fool) that you were being exploited?<BR/><BR/>These are the lies that WE tell OURSELVES to try to make sense of the madness because if we had to live the lives that they do for just a single day we'd never be the same again. To continue to function we desperately seek to marginalize these people.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12892168178523220926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196547498235237605.post-76887881930258413992009-02-25T20:11:00.000-05:002009-02-25T20:11:00.000-05:00Left a dangling participle in that opening sentenc...Left a dangling participle in that opening sentence. Should read, "Having ..., I must say ...."<BR/>GAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196547498235237605.post-50654309051947961522009-02-25T19:02:00.000-05:002009-02-25T19:02:00.000-05:00Having fondly read your comments, let me say they ...Having fondly read your comments, let me say they are most perceptive. "efficacy of prayer as a ... of devotion" "evidence of vulnerability of religious belief to manipulation" and "unquestioning credulity" are all well put. Not sure there could be statistical or other types of evidence to support arguments in this sphere. Your concluding phrase makes me think, again, of Hoffer and his observations of how close are the states of minds of persons who unhesitatingly believe whatever their "masters" teach them: whether it be religion, politics, or science.<BR/>GAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com