really good noodles?

[dsayers]

Let us suppose that from the moment you were born, people around you created a false reality for you. While you instinctively try to walk, talk, and explore, you're told to sit down, shut up, and don't question. It's like this every where you turn and everywhere you turn, there are problems. You never question the problems or even imagine they could be the result of being told to sit down, shut up, and don't question. How could they when sit down, shut up, and don't question are how those problems are dealt with. The problems don't go away, but everybody says they are dealt with. If something new comes up, we turn to those telling us to sit down, shut up, and don't question for the solution. Let us suppose that this is all you know for 20, 40, or 60 years.

 

Let us suppose now that you are part of a small percentage of those people that came to realize that walking, talking, and exploring felt better. That it was something we could actively do together. That because of this, problems would be fewer, smaller in scope, and easier to address. But everybody else was told by everybody else that we were to sit down, shut up, and don't question. That this would be the solution to the problem it creates. That the disparity was so overwhelming that seeing a better way made you worse off. An outcast of those who sit down, shut up, and don't question. Except towards you, where they then become very mobile, vocal, and undermining to preserve the normalcy of sit down, shut up, and don't question.

 

Which path would you prefer? If you were a member of the first group, would you transition into the second group if you could? How would you feel if you did? If you were a member of the second group, would you transition into the first group if you could? How would you feel if you did? Should it bother either group that sit down, shut up, and don't question is paradoxical in that if anybody adhered to it, there would be nobody left telling anybody to not question and therefore nothing to not question?

[Libertarian Prepper]

That was a good read, thanks.

 

Personally I would go into the "truth above all else" group. And you're right, there would be a paradox, but don't forget there are new people being born every day who haven't yet learned that they must repress every natural human virtue and curiosity they have.

[Kevin Beal]

You cannot forget a truth that big. That's why Cypher in the Matrix has to have all his memories replaced before being reconnected with the matrix.

 

That's why I like the intro to On Truth so much:

 

 

From a short-term, merely practical standpoint, you really do not want to read this book. This book will mess up your life, as you know it. This book will change every single one of your relationships – most importantly, your relationship with yourself. This book will change your life even if you never implement a single one of the proposals it contains. This book will change you even if you disagree with every single idea it puts forward. Even if you put it down right now, this book will have changed your life, because now you know that you are afraid of change.

This book is radioactive and painful – it is only incidentally the kind of radiation and pain that will cure you.

 

Luckily we don't have to worry about being dragged off into a cage (or worse) for speaking truth to power, like Socrates and Galileo were. And as hard it is now (and it is hard), it will be even easier for future generations. The future will look with admiration upon the people who take these necessary risks today.

 

I think there is a good argument to be made that the degree to which people want us to sit down, shut up and don't ask questions, is the degree to which it is necessary that we don't shut up and do ask questions.

 

Who else is going to do it if not us?