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A Beautiful Lie
January 9, 2022 at 1:58 am
(This post was last modified: January 9, 2022 at 2:16 am by Fake Messiah.)
This seems to be a concept that people don't talk much about. I call it a Beautiful Lie. It is when someone says a lie so beautiful that you are a bad person for not believing it, let alone debunking it.
Like you see a photo of a balloon and someone proposes it is a spaceship from an advanced outer space civilization, and people who debunk it get shamed for being a bummer/party pooper.
And of course, we see the beautiful lie from people who are making money off it. Like Elizabeth Holmes who was promising people how she will revolutionize medicine with her impossible invention. She told these sad stories about sick people who will benefit so much from her, and that everyone will be able to detect if they have cancer early on in the game, so everyone will be healed in time and happy. There will be no sadness anymore in the world.
And if you criticized her you ended up being a hater of cures for cancer, not a supporter of women, etc.
Another candidate is Elon Musk who is constantly giving these impossible beautiful lies. Like the tunnels that will revolutionize traffic jams; that he will send up to hundred (or more) people per spaceship to Mars; how he will create the autonomous self-driving electric trucks by 2019 (which were already completely possible by the year 2012 - his own words); the Tesla robot, etc. And if you try to reason with his believers they will just shame you instead of admitting that he is lying.
And, of course, there are other beautiful lies like life after death, miraculous healings, angels, Santa, etc.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: A Beautiful Lie
January 9, 2022 at 4:04 am
(This post was last modified: January 9, 2022 at 4:08 am by Anomalocaris.)
If it is a lie, it is not beautiful.
If it is a concept that doesn’t contain an intentional lei, it can be beautiful. But proper attitude towards a beautiful concept is examination, followed aspiration, never belief.
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RE: A Beautiful Lie
January 9, 2022 at 4:32 am
(This post was last modified: January 9, 2022 at 4:35 am by purplepurpose.)
Elon is like a second coming of Jesus. But its a nerdy Jesus. Respect the lord of tech. Have faith so that you will be by his side on the Mars.
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RE: A Beautiful Lie
January 9, 2022 at 6:08 am
(January 9, 2022 at 4:04 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: If it is a lie, it is not beautiful.
If it is a concept that doesn’t contain an intentional lei, it can be beautiful. But proper attitude towards a beautiful concept is examination, followed aspiration, never belief.
(bold mine)
I disagree. A lie - by which I mean an intentional, deliberate, pre-planned lie - can be helpful, kind and compassionate. In short, 'beautiful'.
For further expansion, I refer you to Twain's 'Was It Heaven? Or Hell?'.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
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RE: A Beautiful Lie
January 9, 2022 at 7:42 am
(January 9, 2022 at 4:04 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: If it is a lie, it is not beautiful.
If it is a concept that doesn’t contain an intentional lei, it can be beautiful. But proper attitude towards a beautiful concept is examination, followed aspiration, never belief.
I am an IT field technician who sometimes performs work in women's clothing stores. I have heard lots of "beautiful lies"; it is clearly wrong to sometimes not lie, not to mention being very bad for business.
I have had people lie to me; it still feels good, even when I know that they are lying.
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RE: A Beautiful Lie
January 9, 2022 at 11:55 am
"Does this dress make me look fat?"
"Not at all, darlin." :-x
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RE: A Beautiful Lie
January 9, 2022 at 11:56 am
A beautiful dream can have a life of its own, to inspire and change.
The thing is, anyone can have such a dream - the question is whether it is achievable, and whether the dreamer has the ability to turn it into reality.
Musk has shown that he can make his dreams reality. Sure, it makes no sense right now to set up colonies on Mars, as they can't be self-sustaining. They will always be a huge money-sink, and eventually the colonies will be abandoned. But, perhaps that can be solved one day. I'll take the ability for humans to get to different rocks in the Solar System as a huge win. We will let others figure out how to make money off such travel (asteroid mining, tourism, etc.).
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RE: A Beautiful Lie
January 9, 2022 at 12:11 pm
(January 9, 2022 at 11:55 am)Ranjr Wrote: "Does this dress make me look fat?"
"Not at all, darlin." :-x
Thinking: ‘That thing looks like a poorly shaved lemur.’
Out loud: ‘What a beautiful baby!’
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
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RE: A Beautiful Lie
January 9, 2022 at 9:25 pm
(This post was last modified: January 9, 2022 at 9:29 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(January 9, 2022 at 11:55 am)Ranjr Wrote: "Does this dress make me look fat?"
"Not at all, darlin." :-x
“compared to what?”
(January 9, 2022 at 12:11 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: (January 9, 2022 at 11:55 am)Ranjr Wrote: "Does this dress make me look fat?"
"Not at all, darlin." :-x
Thinking: ‘That thing looks like a poorly shaved lemur.’
Out loud: ‘What a beautiful baby!’
Boru
it maybe a socially apropos lie, it sure as hell not a beautiful lie.
A beautiful “lie” might be “the baby is so beautiful perhaps his own mother might even love him!”
😜
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RE: A Beautiful Lie
January 10, 2022 at 7:08 am
That's just it, the lie is beautiful to the ones who want to believe in it, but to others, who see it's a lie, it's not beautiful.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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