this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
11 points (100.0% liked)

Moving to: m/AskMbin!

23 readers
5 users here now

### We are moving! **Join us in our new journey as we take a new direction towards the future for this community at mbin, find our new community here and read this post to know more about why we are moving. Thank you and we hope to see you there!**

founded 1 year ago
 

As asked

top 37 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That humans are actually the rational beings many claim themselves to be, rather than animals that makes decisions based on emotion and then rationalise why they made the decision.

I feel it would solve all the problems other commenters have mentioned.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So, exclusively rational decision making?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Pretty much.

The co2 we are emitting into the atmosphere is leading to problems.

Rational response: reduce our co2 emissions as fast as possible.

Our constant population expansion and habitat destruction is causing a new mass extension event:

Rational response: Limit population growth. reduce environmental impact and regenerate damage already done.

Etc

etc

etc.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

While I agree there are some problems that would be best solved through rational thinking, I wouldn't want to live in a purely "rational" world. The entirety of the human experience lies between the gaps of rationality.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Wanting to feel love and happiness is quite rational too. Irrational feelings are not “anti- rational” they are just orthogonal, like color to taste. But making decisions based pure on feelings IS anti-rational.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

That's a popular trope that is spouted by anti-rationalists all the time, but it's a total red herring. It's one of those rhetorical tactics that is designed to disrupt judgment and put a stop to a conversation before the absurdity of the claim is made obvious. It's drilled into us as children through tv, movies, even books, but it's entirely false.

Rationalism has plenty of room for fantasy, emotion, and everything else that humans experience. It's not a choice between being rational and being a fully developed human. The choice is between being rational and being irrational. Everything else is its own separate thing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Organized religion? How do you define religion?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Free or not, religion is brainwashing

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Get rid of greed

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

That no matter what scientists and engineers try, when combusting fossil fuel, the exhaust smells like a terrible latrine.

I think that would spur a quick response from everyday citizens as to what they heat their homes with, or how they get around their cities.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

I like the direction of this thought. I’ve imagined the same, until I remembered that before fossil fuels, humans used whale oil for lamps, lubricants, soaps, etc, and cut down trees for heat.

This is one of those “be careful what you wish for” scenarios. 8 billion people burning trees for heat and killing whales for lighting creates a whole new hellscape.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Make it red too

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

That's a clever one.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Probanly erradicate akrasia. A lot of the world's problems are down to rampant akrasia on the part of most people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for teaching me a new word!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Any time! I find being able to put a name to it makes it slightly easier to call ourself out for doing it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Akrasia - A lack of self-control or acting against one's better judgment.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

I'd change a single bag of Cape Cod party-sized sea salt potato chips so that it would be at my current location.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The part where the ecosystem is in collapse?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Would that be stopping global warming or all the extinctions?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Ideally, global warming, but it would be fair to view that as pointless when dissipating the extra CO2 doesn't necessarily return the trees and the problem would degrade again in a couple hundred years. You'd have to introduce a new fuel source that is sought after, clean, and eternal. Which would be two wishes.

So you have to define it as both of your options, since the loss of either worsens the other. Turn the whole environment back to where it was in the 1200s, overrun the streets with bears, see if I care. It'll give 'em something to do. Especially the Amazonian avocado farmers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

eradicate capitalism

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I'd crank all human empathy levels by 15/100 points to see what happens

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

No more cancer. Life is hard enough as it is.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Everyone gets perfect genetics.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

You'd have to be really clear about what you mean by "perfect".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Replicators, people gotta eat.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

And holodecks, because people have to do other things.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Have all Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Google servers go up in smoke and watch the world realize how much we depend on these four fuckwits

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Absolute poverty or relative poverty?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I'd turn down human greed 30%

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Genetically make humans unable to make children. Good by humanity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

The Big Club running -- and ruining -- everything.

(NSFW - language)