[HN Gopher] Tradition is Smarter (2018)
___________________________________________________________________
Tradition is Smarter (2018)
Author : 4gotunameagain
Score : 54 points
Date : 2022-09-25 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (scholars-stage.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (scholars-stage.org)
| isomorph wrote:
| What about circumcision? Is it all about forming group bonds?
| lazide wrote:
| Not being circumcised meaningfully increases the odds of
| transmitting and contracting certain diseases, by around 50%ish
| (though reduces some, interestingly enough)
| [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2907642/] and
| increases the risk of UTIs significantly (by about 75%, albeit
| still not super common).
| [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6119846/]
|
| Consider a world without antibiotics, and a UTI can become life
| threatening. Most STDs would be similarly restrictive to
| reproductive potential, as men are much less at risk than
| women, and many women would be taking quite a gamble having sex
| with someone known to have an STD.
|
| Even today, PID can cause sterility in women and is not
| uncommon.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| >Consider a world without antibiotics
|
| In a world without antibiotics I'd rather not want anyone
| getting within 10 feet of my son's penis with an unsterilized
| blade, thank you. Not to mention the whole "direct oral
| suctioning" tradition of some religious groups [1], which
| sounds like a recipe for spreading herpes and other goodies.
|
| [1] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/safe-
| bris...
| lazide wrote:
| Considering in that world said child, with or without
| circumcising, often only had 50:50 odds of making it to
| adult hood, but if they were an adult, these things would
| matter?
|
| You'd likely have others overrule you.
|
| Such is society, or something.
| stirfish wrote:
| Yeah, the Cool Penis Club.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Probably increases male aggression as well.
| drekipus wrote:
| I posted this in a comment thread but I feel like it's worthy of
| its own.
|
| The biggest misconception about traditions is that "people just
| randomly decided to do it and punish those who don't follow."
|
| The most probable case is that traditions, such as male
| circumcision, were done for a particular purpose and ritualised
| into a tradition to share and continue that process.
|
| It's only in more modern ages where we said that "rituals aren't
| enough" and we need to think of medical reasons for it as well.
| (Cue, studies in Africa, etc)
|
| Considering how much of the mind is an enigma, it's an arms race
| to find out positive reasons of why we do certain traditions
| before we get rid of them completely without understanding them.
|
| 50 years (?) of the scientific method up against 50,000 years of
| human stories and primal survival.
| jpitz wrote:
| Chesterson's fence is about understanding: tradition may be
| smarter than you, maybe not, but it would serve well to
| understand the reasons why it's a tradition before disposing with
| it.
| convolvatron wrote:
| well and good. the issue I have is that when no one can be
| found that knows anything about why it was put there in the
| first place. every day I have to climb over that damn fence to
| get groceries. at what point do we tear it down to see what
| happens?
|
| in software, I would rather tear it down and find out what it
| was there for. most developers I've worked with in the past
| couple decades operate in an atmosphere of constant fear and
| would never consider doing that. even if the cost of putting it
| back is zero. better to climb over it every day than risk
| introducing some unknown inconsistency.
|
| maybe we'd be better engineers if we actually learned about the
| systems we're using.
| osigurdson wrote:
| If you have good tests, the reason is often much more clear.
| friedman23 wrote:
| > in software, I would rather tear it down and find out what
| it was there for.
|
| if you don't have regression testing there's a chance you
| don't find out until something disastrous happens
| celsopitta wrote:
| When you remove something from the software you are improving
| your understanding of it. I don't see how this example adds
| to your argument.
| convolvatron wrote:
| i'm sorry I was unclear. yes - I strongly recommend
| removing the fence and seeing what happens. climbing over
| it every day and giving it a glare just leaves you in the
| dark.
| 0134340 wrote:
| And you can just as well use it to vouch for change. If you
| don't understand why a change is being pushed for, maybe try to
| understand it first before trying to tear it down so therefore
| 'change is smarter'. Hopefully that now makes clear the
| ignorance and clickbaitiness of the title. Pretentious titles
| and articles never fail to show their faces on the daily here.
| blamestross wrote:
| I think the real "cultural singularity" has been the transition
| to this being false after spending the overwhelming portion of
| human history and development being true.
| he0001 wrote:
| Someone said: traditions are solutions of forgotten problems.
| klyrs wrote:
| Well, let's go back to worshipping the sun, then. Who knows, if
| we don't, it might not rise tomorrow...
|
| Or, just maybe, progress itself is a tradition that deserves its
| own reverence. Sometimes, Chesterson's fence was erected by a
| shepherd who no longer uses the field that you'd rather play
| soccer on. It was useful in its day, but no longer.
| codemonkey-zeta wrote:
| Maybe you _should_ be worshipping the sun. Morning sunlight
| exposure is associated with all kinds of health benefits, not
| least of which producing Vitamin D, an essential vitamin that,
| among other things, provides vital protection against certain
| circulating diseases...
|
| Maybe you _should_ also live everyday as though the possibility
| of the sun never rising again were real, then maybe you might
| get busy doing those important things in your life.
|
| Again, tradition is smarter than you.
| klyrs wrote:
| With that argument, you might hope to convince me to spend
| more time in the sun. Not _worship_ it.
|
| But no, as somebody with usually-moderate, sometimes-acute
| photosensitivity, even your usually-correct conventional
| wisdom isn't what the doctor orders in my case.
| criley2 wrote:
| You can develop a days worth of vitamin D in 15 minutes (or
| simply supplement it for the same benefits), meanwhile
| excessive sun exposure is correlated with all manner of
| health problems, not the least of which is cancer. People who
| spend more time outdoors tend to die younger.
|
| Again, progress trumps tradition.
| codemonkey-zeta wrote:
| Imagining a life of merely 15 minutes outside sounds
| miserable. It's also about the psychological benefits of
| sunlight exposure.
| [deleted]
| throwaway202022 wrote:
| > People who spend more time outdoors tend to die younger.
|
| Source for this? Searching for the claim only turned up
| results saying more time outdoors is associated with better
| long-term health outcomes.
|
| Also: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/heres-something-
| unexpect...
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Sometimes, Chesterson's fence was erected by a shepherd who
| no longer uses the field that you'd rather play soccer on. It
| was useful in its day, but no longer.
|
| I mean, that's the point of the metaphor: before knocking down
| the fence, figure out what purpose it served in the first
| place. It's not a question of "don't ever knock down a fence"
| or "always knock down fences".
| klyrs wrote:
| > It's not a question of "don't ever knock down a fence" or
| "always knock down fences".
|
| Exactly my point. "Tradition is smarter than you" implies
| that I won't be able to out-think it. When, in fact,
| tradition is overturned quite regularly and quite often with
| extremely good reasoning.
|
| Always doing the same thing is dumb -- be that holding or
| throwing out tradition. Mindless adherence to tradition is
| just as stupid as mindlessly discarding tradition. Tradition
| is not smarter than me, tradition is mindless. Critical
| thinking wins.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Your upstream comment made me think you were interpreting
| the linked article as saying "if something is traditional,
| it must be wise, thus we should follow it." But it is not
| saying that, by my reading. It is saying: because the pace
| of generational change is increasing, applying the
| Chesterton's Fence rule to traditions is increasingly
| difficult, thus many people abandon it and try to work from
| first principles."
| PainfullyNormal wrote:
| > let's go back to worshipping the sun
|
| Did we ever stop? Praise the sun! _solaire pose_
| PsySecGroup wrote:
| 1123581321 wrote:
| You most likely did not descend from people who worshipped the
| sun, just people who used the sun in art and recognized its
| benefits to them.
|
| There were deities associated with the sun. Sol Invictus is the
| most commonly known, but was a relatively late addition to the
| Roman pantheon, intentionally appropriated from traditions from
| Syria and elevated by the empire for what they perceived to be
| civic benefit. Hardly traditional, but perhaps an early example
| of bureaucrats recognizing the value of a tradition they did
| not personally respect.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| The idea of Sol as a Syrian god has been challenged recently:
|
| _It was long thought that Sol Invictus was a Syrian sun-god,
| and that Aurelian imported his cult into Rome after he had
| vanquished Zenobia and captured Palmyra. This sun-god, it was
| postulated, differed fundamentally from the old Roman sungod
| Sol Indiges, whose cult had long since disappeared from Rome.
| Scholars thus tended to postulate a hiatus in the first
| centuries of imperial rule during which there was little or
| no cult of the sun in Rome. Recent studies, however, have
| shown that Aurelian's Sol Invictus was neither new nor
| foreign, and that the cult of the sun was maintained in Rome
| without interruption from the city's earliest history until
| the demise of Roman religion(s). This continuity of the Roman
| cult of Sol sheds a new light on the evidence for priests and
| temples of Sol in Rome._
|
| http://romanrepublic.org/roma/wp-
| content/uploads/attachments...
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Interesting! Thank you.
| klyrs wrote:
| > You most likely did not descend from people who worshipped
| the sun, just people who used the sun in art and recognized
| its benefits to them.
|
| a. You don't know my parents, don't be so sure.
|
| b. You're right, I should have gone with "washing hands
| before surgery" to avoid these low-effort rebuttals.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Boy. :) a) Yes, I understand you are a specific person, not
| a statistical average. b) I'm sorry you didn't find the bit
| of flavor I added to the thread interesting and wish you
| hadn't felt attacked by it.
| celsopitta wrote:
| The soccer player knows why he can do it, the fence is no
| longer useful. That was exactly Chesterton's point.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| _Well, let 's go back to worshipping the sun, then. Who knows,
| if we don't, it might not rise tomorrow..._
|
| I think we'd be much better off being un-ironic sun-worshipers
| than hollowed-out atomised atheists.
|
| And I see that as someone who is sadly in the latter category.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > I think we'd be much better off being un-ironic sun-
| worshipers...
|
| Better off worshipping unintelligent and non-existent beings,
| and all the foolish memes than inevitably accrete with
| magical thinking?
|
| > hollowed-out atomised atheists.
|
| Hollowed of what? Mostly harmful traditions many of which
| were designed to entrench unearned power and influence?
| Judgmentality wrote:
| I feel like this comment points out the tradition of being
| contrarian on HN, and it would be foolish of me to question it.
| topaz0 wrote:
| Only if you don't know its purpose, which is self-
| aggrandizement.
| klyrs wrote:
| To the contrary, it would be foolish of you to not question
| me.
|
| Question Everything, Even This (but not too much because
| that's overthinking).
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| _Sometimes_ tradition is smarter than you are. Sometimes
| tradition is brain-dead.
|
| But we are very prone to assume that tradition is _always_
| brain-dead. That 's a very dangerous assumption...
| cratermoon wrote:
| Progress itself _is_ a tradition, but a relatively recent one,
| and not one deserving reverence. At least, not any more.
| api wrote:
| ... says someone who if they are posting on HN has very
| likely never known actual hunger or true poverty and has all
| humanity's history and knowledge at their fingertips
| instantly.
|
| The problem with progress is that it makes people so
| comfortable and privileged that they dream up inane fantasy
| ideologies that question progress and harken back to the
| imaginary golden ages from which their ancestors painfully
| crawled.
| klyrs wrote:
| How recent is relatively recent in your mind?
| stirfish wrote:
| Don't tear down progress until you can say why we make
| progress in the first place.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Tradition Is Smarter (2018)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22037749 - Jan 2020 (101
| comments)
|
| Also:
|
| _Chesterton 's Fence_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31553665 - May 2022 (13
| comments)
|
| _Chesterton's Fence (2020)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30070757 - Jan 2022 (142
| comments)
|
| _Chesterton's Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22533484 - March 2020 (85
| comments)
|
| _The Fallacy of Chesterton's Fence (2014)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13063246 - Nov 2016 (26
| comments)
|
| _The Fallacy of Chesterton's Fence (2014)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11743965 - May 2016 (2
| comments)
|
| _Taking a Fence Down_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9745149 - June 2015 (42
| comments)
|
| Others?
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Out of curiosity, why has the original article title been
| edited ?
| dang wrote:
| Because of the linkbait "you" (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRa
| nge=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). The site guidelines ask
| to remove linkbait: " _Please use the original title, unless
| it is misleading or linkbait_ " -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| We like to do minimal edits to titles, so taking a substring
| is often best. I was feeling proud of myself for figuring out
| how to do that in this case, until I noticed that the
| previous submission had figured out the same thing.
| ralusek wrote:
| The thing that progressivism has gotten wrong is that tradition
| isn't completely arbitrary and lacking in utility. The thing that
| conservatism has gotten wrong is that tradition isn't simply
| defensible for its own sake.
|
| Modern progressivism feels like going into a house to remodel,
| with a sledgehammer, without bothering to give any consideration
| to which walls might be load bearing. Conservatism feels like
| keeping a claustrophobic ugly kitchen in lieu of an open
| floorplan, simply because the walls should be assumed to be load
| bearing.
| ralusek wrote:
| To bring this out of the abstract, take something like
| feminism. First wave had it right, in my opinion, by focusing
| on liberation. Women weren't free to choose their own paths,
| and conservatism was the over bearing force in creating this
| problem. The aim of liberation was to free what arbitrary
| constraints were put on women simply due to tradition or
| presumption.
|
| Modern feminism, however, focuses on equality rather than
| liberation. It feels comfortable to assert that if women were
| truly liberated, they would be equal, and would be equally
| represented as software engineers, and plumbers, and truck
| drivers, etc. This is, in contrast, a failure of progressivism.
| It assumes that no traditions or gender roles had any basis in
| preferences that need not be equally distributed between sexes.
|
| TL;DR Virtue of the Mean every time
| nixnax wrote:
| xani_ wrote:
| Tradition was a mean to preserve knowledge over decades, I don't
| think it's relevant now where we can actually do that directly
| and also attach the research about whether it works, how it
| works, and how to employ a given technique directly.
|
| Nowadays it's just a convenient method to make people do
| something without questioning it or asking why.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Rarely have I had such a negative reaction to a blog post, for 2
| main reasons:
|
| 1. The author seems to "mysticize" tradition, basically taking
| the approach "sometimes you just have to take things on faith".
| Which I think is complete nonsense. If you look at the traditions
| that "work", like the manioc processing given in the article,
| _this is basically just the scientific method at work, but where
| we 've lost the documentation_. That is, people in the past
| surely did do trial and error to find out what processing works
| best, e.g. someone likely boiled the tapioca first to see that it
| lost its bitter taste, and then later others probably determined
| if they further processed it that it had fewer side effects (e.g.
| less bloating) that had long term benefits. But the important
| point is we should be glorifying the scientific method of trial
| and error here, _not_ the "losing the documentation" part that
| the author wants us to do. As a close analogy, many many flight
| rules and regulations are born out of past tragedies, where
| something went wrong, we analyzed the root cause, and then came
| up with rules to prevent those causes. If we suddenly lost all
| the documentation and history as to why we built those rules in
| the first place, we would call it "tradition", but we would still
| be worse off compared to when we had a deeper, rational
| understanding of why we created those rules.
|
| 2. As others have pointed out, if "tradition is smarter", we'd
| also still be foot-binding in China, female circumcision wouldn't
| be questioned as the mutilation that it is, and slavery would be
| an acceptable form of division of labor. There are tons of
| traditions that are total shit, and were just propagated because
| they served to reinforce the power structures that existed at the
| time.
|
| Traditions deserved to be questioned. Those that are worth
| keeping should stand up to rational inquiry.
| nixnax wrote:
| [deleted]
| nehal3m wrote:
| To your point, assuming you're a Westerner, I quote you:
|
| "female circumcision wouldn't be questioned as the mutilation
| that it is"
|
| Maybe your traditions are blinding you to the fact that male
| circumcision falls in the same category.
|
| I agree with the sentiment though, and the italicized part of
| your comment is quite an elegant way to put it.
| [deleted]
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Maybe your traditions are blinding you to the fact that
| male circumcision falls in the same category.
|
| No, they are not. Perhaps this is "oversharing", but I (male)
| was circumcised when I was 11 years old, and it was my choice
| - I wasn't circumcised at birth because I had jaundice when I
| was born. I had "tight foreskin", making it difficult to
| follow my doctor's instructions to clean under the foreskin
| when bathing, which is why I opted to undergo circumcision as
| a pre-teen. The process itself was pretty brutal (took a
| couple weeks for everything to heal), but in retrospect I'm
| very glad that I did it, and only wish I could have done it
| as an infant so I would have no memory of the surgery.
|
| Plus, circumcision has been definitively proven to greatly
| reduce the chance of HIV transmission from females to males.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Definitively proven? I can't wait to see that randomized
| controlled clinical trial. FWIW the language I see used is
| compelling evidence, where are you getting definitively
| proven from?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| FWIW all I had to do was Google "male circumcision hiv
| clinical studies", it's not that hard to find:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4233247/
|
| From the introduction: "Three randomized controlled
| trials (RCTs) in sub-Saharan Africa have shown that adult
| male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV acquisition in
| men by about 60% [1-3]."
| nehal3m wrote:
| Except a few results down the page there's an article
| that links a bunch of studies that claim the studies your
| article quotes are faulty:
|
| https://intaction.org/circumcision-hiv-a-dangerous-
| mistake/
|
| https://www.aidsmap.com/news/aug-2012/male-circumcision-
| may-...
|
| https://www.aidsmap.com/news/feb-2013/circumcision-makes-
| no-...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210509203032/https://www.mo
| nit...
|
| Which by the way would invalidate the CDC's encouragement
| of circumcision since that advice is based on the three
| studies your article a few comments up quotes:
|
| "The guidelines point to research, much of it done in
| sub-Saharan Africa, showing that circumcision reduces the
| transmission of STDs, including HIV and the human
| papillomavirus, which can cause cancer."
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Wow, talk about cherry-picking, and apparently you picked
| all the rotten cherries.
|
| First, the comment I was responding to specifically
| requested randomized, controlled studies, which is what I
| responded with. I just looked at the first 3 of your
| links, and these are just observational/questionnaire
| studies, a decidedly less definitive source of evidence.
|
| Most hilarious to me is that your second link, titled
| "Male circumcision may not make much difference to
| overall male HIV incidence in Caribbean context" and from
| 2012, _even has a big box at the top_ stating "This
| article is more than 10 years old. Click here for more
| recent articles on this topic". Clicking that link brings
| up a page with loads of articles, and a summary header:
| "Voluntary male medical circumcision (VMMC) lowers the
| risk of female-to-male sexual HIV transmission by about
| 60%. VMMC is an important part of public health
| programmes in African countries with a high prevalence of
| HIV and a low rate of male circumcision."
|
| Even your own links argue against your points.
| nehal3m wrote:
| I don't think the age of an article invalidates it's
| findings by default, but of course I'd expect new
| insights with the passage of time.
|
| I'm doubting myself as ever in light of your comment, but
| the fact that there are studies, with any credibility at
| all, with a conclusion contrary to your earlier point
| namely that it is "definitively proven to greatly reduce
| the chance of HIV transmission from females to males"
| shows that that's pushing it at the very least.
|
| And even if you're right, that doesn't excuse genital
| mutilation.
| drekipus wrote:
| There is two factors to this:
|
| 1. Less sex 2. Less moisture kept on the penis during
| sex.
|
| But I don't think permanently altering a baby's penis is
| worth the trade off of being able to have sex with people
| who suffer HIV.
|
| Maybe in Africa where there's nothing else, but not in a
| world with better medical services
| nehal3m wrote:
| They're not equivalent in most cases (not all female
| genital mutilation is performed the same way and I cannot
| fathom a medical reason for any sort).
|
| But that doesn't mean they aren't in the same general
| category when defined as surgical alterations of people's
| genitalia performed for religious or cultural reasons
| without any medical necessity.
|
| A medically required circumcision when reasoned and self-
| chosen is an altogether different story.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Except, ironically enough, male circumcision is the
| perfect example of something that was done for
| "traditional" religious reasons, but for which now there
| is ample medical support for it.
|
| For example, circumcision is extremely common in the US,
| despite the fact that it is relatively very rare for it
| to be done for religious reasons (only about 2-3% of the
| US population is Muslim or Jewish). It is done because
| the medical community broadly recommends it due to its
| health benefits: https://www.healthline.com/health-
| news/cdc-encourages-circum...
| drekipus wrote:
| The biggest misconception about traditions is that people
| just randomly decided to do it and punish those who don't
| follow.
|
| The most probable case is that traditions, such as male
| circumcision were done for a particular purpose and
| ritualised into a traditional to share and continue that
| process.
|
| It's only in more modern ages where we said that rituals
| aren't enough and we need to think of medical reasons for
| it as well.
|
| Considering how much of the mind is an enigma it's arms
| race to find out positive reasons of why we do certain
| traditions before we get rid of them completely from not
| understanding them.
| criley2 wrote:
| It's horrifying that these are even compared. The
| foreskin is just some skin and absolutely not required to
| experience sexual pleasure or climax. But for women,
| _they cut their clitoris out_ , fundamentally altering
| their ability to have sex forever.
|
| You cannot compare this. There is no equivalence here.
| IMO, female genital mutilation is comparable to male
| gelding --- removal of the entire penis. Both are
| designed to ruin sexual pleasure
|
| Always weirds me out when a dude compares a circumcision
| to FGM, like someone is intentionally conflating a much
| lesser evil with a far greater one.
| nehal3m wrote:
| One, how do you know I am a dude? I am, but you're
| assuming. Two, I did not compare them, I explicitly said
| they are NOT equivalent, even accounting for the type of
| female genital mutilation where the clitoris is merely
| nicked.
| drekipus wrote:
| FGM also can be _just cutting some skin_ (the inner
| labia) and it is comparable to circumcision.
|
| The function of the inner labia is to help keep in
| moisture and lubricant, very much the exact same function
| and role of the foreskin.
| yCombLinks wrote:
| It doesn't matter if there are (extremely overstated)
| medical benefits. Cutting off pieces of a babies genitals
| is wrong. Full stop.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Not arguing your point, but ending a comment with "...
| Full stop." doesn't make you somehow more right, it just
| broadcasts that you are uninterested in hearing any
| arguments or data that are contrary to your opinion.
| Which is good, I guess, to let us know that we shouldn't
| waste our time.
| yCombLinks wrote:
| Yes, that was my point. This is an issue I won't budge
| on.
| ajuc wrote:
| Smart is how fast you think not how much you know. Tradition
| isn't smarter than you, it's the exact opposite - it's main
| feature is that it's VERY slow to adapt, to the point that some
| people still don't eat pigs millenia after we discovered how to
| do it safely, and other still bathe in "saint rivers" full of
| pollution and germs millenia after it ceased to be a net health
| benefit.
|
| Tradition might in some cases be wiser than you, because it
| gathered the wisdom over a much longer period, no matter how
| inefficiently it did so. But the obvious solution is to do
| science to take the things that work, and throw the other things
| out. You need to challenge the traditions to do so.
|
| Some conservatives admit that there are harmful traditions at
| least, but very few acknowledge the opportunity cost of not
| figuring out why the traditions that are beneficial - developed
| in the first place. For example maybe the knowledge of the
| substances that manioc processing removes would be beneficial for
| drug development or some other uses? By keeping the tradition
| sacred we will likely never discover that, even if we save a few
| lives initially. Or maybe there's a way to grow manioc that
| doesn't need all the processing steps?
| trention wrote:
| Generally you should assume that tradition/status quo is always
| right until proven otherwise (=a logically compelling argument
| against, backed empirically).
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Experimental evidence shows that tradition and common sense are
| almost invariably wrong.
| a_shovel wrote:
| Now that's some strong (dis)confirmation bias.
| _corvo_ wrote:
| May I ask for links to the research that shows this? Not
| arguing, just curious.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Pick up any book on Quantum Mechanics.
| _corvo_ wrote:
| I don't think that'll be relevant to what the article is
| discussing. It's about group vs individual traditions. We
| can't refute those points by waving quantum mechanics.
| prophetjack wrote:
| trention wrote:
| Using this as an example of "tradition being wrong" in
| the context of the linked article is literally peak
| autism on top of the fact that our "common sense"
| understanding of physical processes being wrong (is it
| even wrong at the level of abstraction we work on?) says
| nothing about our understanding of social phenomena.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| > literally peak autism
|
| Thanks. That completely invalidates everything I wrote.
|
| Super effective technique you have there.
| trention wrote:
| Way to skip past the last two-thirds of the sentence. Do
| you have anything meaningful to say or just wasting my
| time?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| That is a pretty bold statement and sufficiently generic that
| examples can be offered to prove it wrong. Common sense sense
| says to not just run into a speeding car. Are there
| experiments proving that wrong? I am trying to be reasonable,
| but it starts with OP presenting an idea that is not so
| easily countered.
| m4nu3l wrote:
| Coincidentally I had debates recently about traditions. In
| particular about Monarchies.
|
| While traditions can be there for reasons and it's OK to follow
| some traditions, all traditions should be questioned. The amount
| of knowledge we have today is not comparable with what we had in
| any previous time in history. The article actually proves that.
| We now know about chronic cyanide poisoning to a level that was
| unknown even to the population that developed traditions to avoid
| it.
|
| Also traditions can:
|
| - Have lost the original problem they were developed to address.
|
| - Always been the wrong choice (but probably without giving a
| significant disadvantage to a population).
|
| - Be irrelevant as better methods are now available.
|
| In short the Monarchy serve no real purpose in modern societies.
| Even as a symbol, it's a very bad symbol.
| uoaei wrote:
| Cultural knowledge vs individual knowledge is an interesting
| dichotomy to explore. Cultural knowledge has a way of distilling
| information into very parsimonious and digestible forms for
| individuals then to propagate. The knowledge is in some sense
| only stored in the hyper-individual, ie, the society, while the
| individuals are following their own rules (and using their own
| models) to interact with and make use of it. One metaphor could
| be the ant colony: the colony's interest is to collect food and
| feed its young to perpetuate itself, while the ants only know
| they are following pheromone trails, exploring new regions, and
| reacting to nutritional signals when they arrive at a source.
|
| Traditional medicine systems (Chinese, Indian/Ayurveda, etc.)
| work in much the same way: the mental models of its participants
| and practitioners do not necessarily sync up with the precise
| methods of action that actually "do the work" as we understand it
| in the Western scientific context. But the system as a whole,
| enacted through the collection of people who implement it, does
| demonstrate effective outcomes re: community health.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "But the system as a whole, enacted through the collection of
| people who implement it, does demonstrate effective outcomes
| re: community health."
|
| What india and what china are you refering to, when you say
| "good community health"?
|
| I am not a historian and have not been to both countries, but
| my general picture of the times where those medicine traditions
| were at its height, is not really of a healthy one.
|
| There were certainly healthy individuals, but the community
| health probably has to be described as, survival of the
| fittest.
|
| Via martial arts, I did study a bit of chinese medicine and I
| can say I like the general idea of keeping the body in balance.
| And that sickness is rather a symptom (of imbalance) than the
| root cause. But the concrete steps they have to do, well, I'd
| say it is probably 99% placebo.
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