There was a time when being a nonbeliever put you at serious risk of loosing everything (in the muslim countries they’ll still kill you for apostasy). So elite groups which understood that the forcefully imposed religious consensus was obviously wrong would instead setup a fake version of Christianity for new recruits, and then once these rose in the ranks tell them “yeah it’s obviously bullshit, congrats for suspecting it… but you are not allowed to say it!”
Of course every once in a while, someone high up goes rogue or forgets the vow of silence, and gets caned. Everyone else at the higher ranks submits the formulaic denunciation, and the lie continues until the next person screws up (or their heresy gets revealed when they are investigated for entirely unrelated things).
It’s not a moral fault to not finds these things out on your own but to join the mob instantly against a titan without wondering whether he was in fact expressing the well understood fact, which is also a taboo enforced by complete personal destruction… God, save us from these dim-witted inquisitors, for they know not what they do.
Well, at least now Bostrom will have his name on the same list as James Watson, Francis Kirk and Galileo.
There was a time when being a nonbeliever put you at serious risk of loosing everything (in the muslim countries they’ll still kill you for apostasy). So elite groups which understood that the forcefully imposed religious consensus was obviously wrong would instead setup a fake version of Christianity for new recruits, and then once these rose in the ranks tell them “yeah it’s obviously bullshit, congrats for suspecting it… but you are not allowed to say it!”
Of course every once in a while, someone high up goes rogue or forgets the vow of silence, and gets caned. Everyone else at the higher ranks submits the formulaic denunciation, and the lie continues until the next person screws up (or their heresy gets revealed when they are investigated for entirely unrelated things).
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/
It’s not a moral fault to not finds these things out on your own but to join the mob instantly against a titan without wondering whether he was in fact expressing the well understood fact, which is also a taboo enforced by complete personal destruction… God, save us from these dim-witted inquisitors, for they know not what they do.
Well, at least now Bostrom will have his name on the same list as James Watson, Francis Kirk and Galileo.