Ask Lemmy

That people's 'default' morality is 'good'.

It isn't. It is actually pure apathy and only do we get taught, groomed, learn, decide, etc. about morality.

If that is true, then some people are actually 'better' and 'worse' than others. If so, then my entire outlook on human life will need to change. Don't know to what, but that is the existential threat.

Recently had to come to the conclusion, that even though I have never 'tried' to learn, observe, or otherwise be smart, that I am well above average intelligence to those immediately around me. This is beyond infuriating. How can I be 'better' than everyone on average without even trying? It infuriates me to no end.

Probably the belief that there (isn't) some kind of omnipotent god interested in guiding our affairs. It's not like I'd ever be able to know. How would I cope? Pretty easily. It'd be comforting. That's a pretty good reason to doubt it, since I'm biased in favor of it.

The thing is, I'm not picking this one because it's the most likely one, but because all of the other "core" beliefs are either completely subjective judgments that can't be "wrong" or are flexible enough that it doesn't really matter.

That climate change won’t wipe out humanity. I firmly believe we’ll survive, but it will be a massively devastating event, like 1/3 of the population will die. I think the equator will probably become uninhabitable, but more northern or southern land will become more like the equator. Maybe I’m wrong though, and we won’t survive. Maybe there’s a reason we don’t see any advanced space faring civilizations.

"Bullshit. There's no way the moon is actually made of cheese. That's just a stupid story you tell kids!"

The cream does, in fact, rise to the top. All the rich idiots I've met were brilliant in a subtle way I couldn't appreciate, and I myself am just being lead on by the people I know about having redeeming qualities of any kind. All the studies showing social mobility is small both upwards and downwards had some kind of fatal flaw built into their assumptions.

Stuff about moral decline is another candidate. In both cases, I'm actually pretty sure everyone in every time, place and walk of life has roughly the same capacities on average, but narratives suggesting otherwise are so damn pervasive I have to wonder if I'm missing something.

That people are fundamentally benevolent to one another. Obviously it can be trained out of you by circumstance, overcome by self-interest, and mental illness is a thing, but I think people innately care for one another. It's why dehumanization is the first step to committing atrocities.

But if someone offered proof that I'm wrong that might be the least surprising thing that happened all week. And if I'm wrong, the evil-doers are sub-human and should be culled without mercy until I am right.

I'm actually good at what I do, and everyone actually likes me and doesn't think I'm just dead weight.

That we can build a sane, rational society.

That there's no such thing as too much inclusivity in LGBTQ.

I don't think people who want to pretend to be dogs or cars or whatever inanimate object they fixated on as a child are harmful to society, but they have proven to only delegitamize actually real gender identities that are being actively erased in the real world.

I don't care if people want to wear collars and shit in litter boxes because that makes their brains happy, but I do care when those people show up in public places wanting to be treated with the same seriousness as actually marginalized minorities and get LGBTQ movements laughed out of the room.

That people are not wilfully stupid. The last 10 years have proved people will act against their own benefit if TV tells them to do it.

That people can change through conversations. It’s tough to accept, but most people only change when forced to.

I can't think of any that I'd be particularly surprised by at this point.

That I live in a constitutional democratic republic

I don't think it could be anything I expect. Most of the things I have consciously evaluated about myself I've come to a conclusion based on rational or empirical evidence, so I am certain either in my knowledge or ignorance about a topic. Most of the time when I've been proven wrong it's about a belief I imbibed as a child and never questioned or considered until then.

The way I landed on all my current beliefs was taking in information from as many places as I could and I decided on what I think is right.

There are a ton of topics that can't have an objectively correct answer which makes things fairly complicated.

That all living things are worthy of my compassion. If the millions of conservatives out there somehow prove me wrong... then all attempts at civilization are doomed to collapse and we're reverting back to feudal times.