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as a species we are moderately dishonest about lots of things, often for understandable reasons I've been thinking that curiosity might be one of the most powerful things to try to be more honest about I don't even think people "should be more curious", that's a trap
the problem I'm framing is: people consistently *claim* to value curiosity *if* you ask them about it. they will seldom outright say *curiosity is bad*. but in practice (and understandably so partially because of the constraints they're in) they will discourage curiosity
we *do* know that curiosity is one of the most valuable forces that drives our species. it's never far from the core of any human progress. most good people will acknowledge this comfortably, openly. they will respect and honor successful curious minds like feynman & einstein
yes, this is a very succinct way of putting it! and here's the thing: lots of people will think that we should try to reduce the tunnel vision. I think it might actually be more effective to drop the lip service https://t.co/WEY50R4vAS
I guess it's a subset of a wider problem of pretending things are better than they are. we have to stop pretending, so we can face reality, so we can fix things easy to say, but in practice this means talking about difficult things– which can sound bleak, cruel, rude, etc https://t.co/MCktarwjDQ
and again I am reminded of the asshole problem – a few people who revel in being particularly vindictive about harsh realities will introduce unnecessary friction into what should be a supportive process. this looks *very* ugly and we overreact to it https://t.co/Q36h3rsyxj
when I say overreact, I mean this: 1. some asshole says something cruel, vindictive, hurtful. outright abusive 2. everyone agrees that that's bad 3. someone then suggests introducing process to prevent abuse this is not an *intrinsically* bad thing. but...
it's then possible, (i'm not saying it always happens, but it happens with remarkable frequency and reliability– I think it's related to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy)... for the well-intentioned anti-abuse system to end up enforcing a stiflingly narrow Overton window https://t.co/ROCKW656mM
[mic drop] https://t.co/cNC86MObxb https://t.co/9IzDkOLT4r
