Let’s insulate ourselves from the delusional masses by forming useful coalitions

1 points by dennis_jeeves ↗ HN
Since you are reading this you probably know what I’m getting at. People who are grounded in reality ( according to my definition of course) are rare and may often be lost among the sea of the deluded masses. So this post of mine is an attempt to gather people who are like-minded.( people who I deem to be grounded in reality through my own colored lens of the world). The idea is to form mutually beneficial alliances in this insane world. Right now this process of forming alliances is somewhat unplanned and subject to chance events(you meet/know someone reasonable at school, work etc.). I'm hoping to cast the net wide by leveraging the internet. As to what exactly should the alliance be, or what it hopes to achieve is something to be discussed (though I have some concrete preliminary thoughts).

How to start: Email me your core beliefs ( though I personally prefer a voice chat with on Skype, google hangouts etc.), especially the beliefs where you think you differ fundamentally from the vast majority of people. I will quiz you on various subjects ( and so can you) to see if our beliefs align. Overall my beliefs can be loosely labeled as: generally anarchist (i.e a live and let live approach), generally anti-authoritarian ( meaning I believe govt/authorities do not protect your interests), largely capitalist( i.e vehemently opposed to coercive co-operation, put forth by typical socialism) etc. Perhaps at the bare minimum we have to share a meta belief that it is necessary to reach out and cooperate with other like minded individuals as it is virtually impossible to 'de-delude' the idiotic masses though arguments/dialogs etc. My email address can be found on my profile. In my profile you will also find a link to some webpages that outline my beliefs.

After this step, if we think our beliefs align, I will add you to an an online forum ( zero people as of now) , where you can interact with other people that I will be screening.

Caveats:

-It often takes a very long time ( months to years) to form mutually beneficial alliances. ( more so when individuals are geographically isolated from each other.) Perseverance and patience will be very important.

-The online forum is not to rant against the world, or a place to discuss your core beliefs. ( I would think forums for that already exist). This is more of a place for doers.

Side note: It’s really hard to for me to believe that someone else is not doing this ( i.e what I’m attempting in this post) already somewhere. Let me know if you are aware of similar efforts, I would be eager to join.

6 comments

[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 26.1 ms ] thread
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

> Are reposts ok?

> If a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we kill reposts as duplicates. If not, a small number of reposts is ok.

It's not very clear, but something between 5 and 10 repost are too much. Specially if you repos it every day. (And a few of your old post are quite similar.)

Don't expect to get much response if you continue to post the same thing. Moreover, some people is starting to flag these stories.

You can try to start a blog, get a few fans that agree with you, and the use this as the base for your discussion forum.

Noted, and thanks for the suggestion.(though not sure how to get that working). I wish I could delete older posts, but I cannot. The very nature of the subject is such that it will never be popular ( actually it will be deeply unpopular) and will only strike a chord with a tiny number of people who will happen to see it. I'm not sure how I will get around this. Got to give it some thought...
Also from the FAQ:

> Please don't delete and repost the same story. Deletion is for things that shouldn't have been submitted in the first place.

Someone else is doing this. In fact, almost everyone else is doing this - insulating themselves into silos with people that agree with them, where they can mutually reinforce their certainty that they are right, defining themselves to be "grounded in reality", and defining everyone else to be delusional idiots.

What's really needed is a way for people with your degree of certainty to interact with people who think differently from you, in a situation where you actually listen to each other and see to what degree the other side has some valid things to say.

>Someone else is doing this. In fact, almost everyone else is doing this - insulating themselves into silos with people that agree with them, where they can mutually reinforce their certainty that they are right, defining themselves to be "grounded in reality", and defining everyone else to be delusional idiots.

Correct, no disagreement there. Everyone else labels themselves as the one with the wisdom and others as nuts. (pot calling...)Elsewhere I used an oversimplified example to illustrate how I go about solving the problem. ( see mention of cookies : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21526198)

>What's really needed is a way for people with your degree of certainty to interact with people who think differently from you

This is off the table actually. We are talking about core principles by which people live by, that difference is nonnegotiable.

( I really have no problem if people had a technical opinion that is different form mine: eg Python versus Haskell)

>in a situation where you actually listen to each other and see to what degree the other side has some valid things to say.

Well you see I have worked long enough and have enough successes ( tiny ones though) where I do not listen to everyone. Most people do not have anything profound to say. I suspect you are confusing me with some anti-social character ( Infact I get along well with most people). Ask a self made ( rich) man if he 'listens' to most people's advise on finance, and I'm sure that the answer will be a resounding 'no'. I hope you get the point I'm trying to make.

> We are talking about core principles by which people live by, that difference is nonnegotiable.

No. Why should they be nonnegotiable? If I live my life by different principles than you, am I a fool? Or are you? If one of us is a fool, if we talk to each other, that one might realize it. If we only talk to people who agree with us, neither of us will realize it.

Or, we might neither of us be fools. Even if we never agree on anything more, realizing that the person with the other viewpoint is not a fool still has value. It humanizes the "other" to us. Our society deeply needs that. I think that we, individually, also need that.

More, even if we don't abandon our core principles, we still might learn some things that are useful. We might see that, while we still hold our position, the other side actually has some points also. At a minimum, from a purely utilitarian standpoint, we might learn how better to interact with "them".

> Most people do not have anything profound to say.

True. But that applies also to those who agree with you. Find those who are worth listening to, and don't throw them out because their starting position is not the same as yours.

There's a verse in the book of Proverbs that I paraphrase as "The wise man gets lots of advice." In the very next chapter, there's a verse that I paraphrase as "The fool listens to most of it."