A Citation to Asimov

hazard•about 4 hours ago

In a moment of weakness, I joined a high-IQ group (Triple Nine Society). The whole mailing list was just people having the same political arguments that were on the rest of social media, just with a bigger vocabulary.

nstents•about 6 hours ago

A sense of superiority due to status (including race, wealth, etc), and ability, is a stepping stone on the way to lessening the worth, and so humanity, of others.

delichon•about 5 hours ago

Doesn't that conclusion make you feel somewhat superior to people who don't share it? If not, shouldn't it?

nstents•about 4 hours ago

No. As an educator (HS Maths) in order to effectively both educe and induce understanding it's never about feeling superior. That feeling is so very obstructive to a student's willingness to listen and perhaps more importantly to the deeper intrinsic satisfaction I get when a student says "OH! I get it!"

That's a really interesting question. I guess I can't judge myself without bias, and I've most often been told I'm too hard on myself. So again the answer would be no.

delichon•about 3 hours ago

I was a HS math teacher too. When a student gets to "OH! I get it!", I think that they feel superior to themselves a minute ago, and to also to their buddy who doesn't get it yet, and those things are not really separable. And both feelings act as positive motivation, along with the intrinsic joy of understanding. You can ask them to indulge the later and ignore the former, but not with an expectation of success.

Some of my best students were motivated by their competitiveness with someone else in the class.

goatlover•about 4 hours ago

Not if it's an observation.

delichon•about 4 hours ago

Why wouldn't you feel superior to people less observant than yourself? Does a more observant person not have a greater worth, all else equal?

PowerElectronix•about 4 hours ago

It's human nature. We just love to belong to a group of people and think it's the bestest group of people ever.

Thanks to that we have a pretty advanced society, unlike any other being on the planet. And we also have ethnic cleansings, religious prosecution, terrorism... Also unlike any other being on the planet.

arjunnvl•about 4 hours ago

->It's human nature. We just love to belong to a group of people and think it's the bestest group of people ever.

And this is also where Human conflict originates from. Any conflict of any kind. Bestest group decides being right is no longer enough, the other side must also be made to lose. A smaller group feels marginalized, they recruit and reach to grab power. Rest of humanity is horrified and organizes against it. Peace is restored, we sign treaties and build monuments. And then the cycle repeats.

All that to say, humans are fundamentally flawed but kind of magical beings given we have survived all cycles for over 2 million years now

upboundspiral•about 3 hours ago

I agree that a sense of belonging is a foundational need for humans.

I disagree that the fulfillment of this need must beget violence.

If as a culture we de-emphasized dominion over others, de-emphasized reward and punishment, and instead emphasized respect to oneself and others, there would be a lot less violence.

baggy_trough•about 4 hours ago

Chimps do a kind of ethnic cleansing.

MSFT_Edging•about 3 hours ago

Something I find really ironic is when people will declare superior and inferior types of humans, then in the same breath relate it to evo-psych or animal behaviors.

Like if any of us are superior, why can't we reason past what chimps are doing in their evolutionary local maxima?

In order for us to be superior to anything, we need to be able to use logic to move past animalistic behaviors.

b112•about 4 hours ago

Animals have cliques, fight, go to war, the only reason Man stands out, is because he is good at making better weapons.

sp1nningaway•about 1 hour ago

Reading I, Asimov as a kid immediately converted me from a Southern Baptist to humanist/atheist.

I'm sad that atheist discourse has moved away from Vonnegut/Sagan/Le Guin-style humanism. Starting with Hitchens, prominent intellectuals seem like they hate God more than they believe in people.

Are there any current writers or public figures that have taken up the human-loving atheism of my youth?

A Citation to Asimov

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