Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Have you any of you solved some political, philosophical or historical issues? By which I mean that you came up with a bunch of axioms and that you never had to update your beliefs ever again. Edit: If not, I'm interested in hearing why. Many people here have probably discussed these topics for many years already, have you really made no meta-progress?
I will start:
Freedom of speech is optimal (Even if you want to reduce misinformation, it seems that posting the wrong answer and waiting for somebody to correct you is a strictly better strategy than censoring the wrong answer)
If you can convince everyone that you're an oppressed minority, you're not. That you can get the majority on your side proves that you are not discriminated against or in a vulnerable position, as being in a vulnerable and oppressed position is defined by having the majority against you.
One is innocent until proven guilty (This is partly subjective, it's a personal value that punishing an innocent person is worse than letting a guilty person walk free. If you disagree, simply reverse the axiom)
If your biggest problem in life is being called slurs for your inborn traits - your life is pretty good and you don't have any serious problems. You're therefore privileged.
Most groups who blame a more successful group for all of their problems are simply unable to cope with their own inadequacy, and aim to subvert the more successful group by manipulating their values in a way which makes an equalization appear as 'justice', so that the more successful group feels bad and gives their advantage to the less successful group. This instinctial (which is why a dog begging for food will exploit your sympathy, so that you perceive yourself as a bad guy for not giving the dog what it wants)
You can judge things by the outcome they produce. An unsuccessful person has no right to lecture a successful person by demanding that the successful person imitate the unsuccessful person. This generalizes - Anime is doing much better than western cartoons, so it's simply better. If Christians have better mental health, then Christianity is superior in at least one way. If children who are spanked grow up to be better people than those who weren't, then parents who spanked their kids were in the right. Reality is in the right, even when it appears immoral or irrational.
Reducing "bad things" doesn't seem to work, but producing "good things" does. Trying not to worry doesn't work, but thinking happy thoughts does. Telling people what to do is better than telling them what not to do. I'm not sure why, but I've checked, this rule seems solid.
The Bible would seem to agree. But I’m curious about how far this goes- I’d be willing to bet creation scientists have happier lives, higher social status in their communities, better marriages, more grandchildren(and better relationships with them), and possibly better financial security compared to evolutionary biology. They’ve also introduced enough epicycles to make their theories work for everything we need knowledge of evolution and deep time for for(indeed, making this happen is their actual job- ‘there were six days’ does not require a professional researcher). Does this mean it’s a superior idea?
I don't think you can compare jobs like that, since a society needs a variety of trades to function. If we identify "the best job" and educate every single person in that, it will quickly stop being the best job. Society forms a hierarchy, but the top of the hierarchy is made possible by the bottom. I don't think it's fair to take the winners in isolation and say "everyone should be like them", for instance, concluding that every person should be a CEO so that every person could be rich and high status. So we have to be careful how we apply the rule.
But if creation scientists are more healthy (I think health is the closest we get to an objective metric), then I think we can conclude that their values are superior in a way (and to be exact - they're more in line with nature). So what if they're irrational, delusional, or "wrong"? That's just theory, and theory exists to aid reality. Reality will always beat theory. If they enjoy life, have many children, and have less mental issues on average (which seems to be the case), why not consider their ways superior?
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