this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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Asklemmy

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Spirits.

It'd be cool.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

That people are inherently good. This not being the case is reinforced near daily by people's behaviors.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 hours ago

The notion that "facts matter".

I've spent my entire life believing that facts don't care about feelings. That scientific truth doesn't require your belief in it in order to be true. That at the end of the day, reasoning will beat emotion...

By far the most dis-heartening thing about the last few years (to me) has been accepting the idea they "facts" are "whatever is shouted the loudest".

It, more than anything else, makes me feel helpless. If the enemy isn't even playing with the same fact-sheet... How do you even begin to fight that?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago

Hanlon's razor. It's pretty clear some people can be stupid and malicious simultaneously, or will even feign stupidity to hide malice.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 hours ago

The average person having empathy

[–] [email protected] 20 points 13 hours ago

Trickle-down economics.

[–] NABDad 19 points 14 hours ago

U.S. democracy

[–] hactar42 50 points 17 hours ago

Karma - there are way too many shitty people who just continue to be shitty because nothing ever comes back to bite them. Meanwhile, people who actually try to help are kicked around the most.

[–] [email protected] 98 points 18 hours ago (7 children)

Most people at their core are good people

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

I would say most people are good. However, the human brain is pretty shit and easy to manipulate. It's easy to make people view other people as not human or other to them, or to not think about them at all. Maybe that is "not good" in some definitions though. When face-to-face, I will bet every time on someone treating someone well. I'll lose the bet occasionally, but I'll be right more than wrong.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I don't remember where I read this quote originally and I can only paraphrase it, but observing people living in a capitalist society and concluding that human nature is self-centeredness and greed is equivalent to observing workers in a factory that is poisoning their lungs and concluding that human nature is to cough.

[–] Bademantel 8 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

That's a nice quote, thank you. I looked into it. It's by Andrew Collier:

To look at people in capitalist society and conclude that human nature is egoism, is like looking at people in a factory where pollution is destroying their lungs and saying that it is human nature to cough.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Primary goal is to survive in the environment you are in, how many might have a desire to escape that environment but lack the ability to do so? Leave it all behind and live in a cabin in the woods isn't exactly an unheard of idea.

[–] Bademantel 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

The issue, as I see it, is that most people struggle to envision a society beyond capitalism. Capitalist ideology is embedded in every aspect of our lives. It appears in our mindset, in books, movies, and even in children's television shows. The narrative that anyone can succeed if they work hard enough, and that poverty is simply the result of laziness, is both powerful and pervasive.

The idea that everyone should live in isolated cabins is neither a realistic vision nor a desirable goal for society.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Not everyone thinks "society" is a goal.

[–] Bademantel 1 points 5 hours ago

You mean like a hermit? I think that's a rare fantasy. But if you want to do it, sure, go for it. Isn't there a lot of space and wilderness in Canada?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Damn, ya beat me. I'm not good people to so I know from first hand experience.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Don't worry, people can change.

Trust me, I used to be a huge piece of shit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

No one can stop you ordering a huge steak and a glass of water.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 18 hours ago

I was gonna go with "most people give a damn", but I think you phrased it a bit more positively.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 17 hours ago

I think β€œgood” and β€œbad” are hard terms to apply to people objectively, but I do believe that most people value social coherence and are willing to do (the minimum amount of) something to maintain it. If you can’t believe at least that it means that all of those thin blue line people are right, and I’m just not willing to believe that’s true.

[–] esc27 2 points 17 hours ago

I used to think the Anne Frank quote was inspiring. Now I just see it as bitterly ironic.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Showing people irrefutable proof of something will change their minds.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

There are only finitely many prime numbers and I will not hear otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

And your irrefutable proof is...?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

If you want to show there are infinitely many primes, one way is to first note that every integer greater than 1 has a prime factor. This is because if an integer n is prime, n is a prime factor of itself, and if n is not prime then it must have a smaller factor m other than 1, 1< m < n. If m is also not prime, it too must have a smaller factor other than 1, and you can keep playing this game but there are only so many integers between 1 and n so eventually you'll get to a factor of n that has no smaller factors of its own other than 1, which means it is prime.

Let's now suppose there is only a finite number of primes, we'll try to show that this assumption leads to nonsense so can't be possible.

We can multiply any finite number of integers together to get a new integer. Let's multiply all of the primes together to get a new number M. Then M + 1 gives a remainder of 1 when you divide by any prime number. Since dividing by a factor will always give a remainder of 0, none of the prime numbers can be a factor of M + 1. So M + 1 is an imteger bigger than 1 with no prime factors. This is impossible, so there must be a mistake somewhere in this argument.

The only thing we said that we're not 100% sure is true was that there are a finite number of primes, so that has to be our mistake. So there must be infinitely many prime numbers.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

That humans can survive the climate disaster they created.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 16 hours ago

It's ok the earth will survive.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago

Gosh I hope not. I don’t dislike you, I dislike humanity. I’m sorry you got caught up in this mess, but you gotta go.

[–] Jarix 2 points 10 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 36 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

That our benevolent alien overlords are gonna show up aaaaaany minute now...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 18 hours ago

Fucking seriously... I wish there were aliens that could save us from ourselves, but it's just oligarchs all the way down...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

Our benefactors.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Religion, mythology and probably anything mystical. It's very easy why people believe in them, they're so alluring and genuinely wish they had truth to them. Unfortunately the only truth to be found is ancient wisdom, and even that can be very iffy sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

you may be interested in mysticism then.

I've always held that the true purpose of religion is to create atheists, and not in the modern edge lord I reject your god way.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Reincarnation - I’d like to believe I’ve met others before, maybe even many times. It would explain some stuff like why you’re irrationally drawn or repelled by certain people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago

The thing that's always gotten me about reincarnation is the lack of memory of past lives. Even if it were true and some small part of a person lives on, is it functionally different than a permanent death if they retain nothing from their past lives?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 16 hours ago
[–] Nurse_Robot 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] 200ok 2 points 14 hours ago
[–] forty2 11 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

The 'common' part of 'common sense'

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

The falseness of it has been well theorized by Antonio Gramsci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony

The Fascism of Common Sense

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 18 hours ago

Aliens visiting Earth.

I know it's a statistical impossibility that we're the only life out there. I just don't believe they've ever been here. Since we haven't been either conquered or uplifted yet.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 17 hours ago

There is a gospel passage about how much will be expected of those whom have been given much. I've always heard this interpreted as how church leaders will be judged harshly in the afterlife. I wish this and hell were true, just for the sheer shock and disbelief of all the hypocritical religious leaders who've done so many terrible things and continued to preach hate.

[–] Alwaysnownevernotme 6 points 18 hours ago

That there's a place for the hopeless sinners who've betrayed all mankind just to serve their own beliefs.

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