I care, it allows me to build on ideas. One of the cooler truths I've seen is the law of large numbers (and similar ideas, like positive and negative expected value) and how it has shaped my life in taking chances. That idea alone improved my quality of life by a lot.
Ideas that are true are like building blocks that can lead to a better life (or at least do damage control on the current one). And that makes me feel good and reinforces my belief system.
> they care about feeling good about what they believe.
Regardless of how you feel about the objective truth, it exists. Naturally, it follows that people who engage with what exists ought to have better outcomes than those who engage in fantasy. Admittedly, when the majority of people engage in fantasy and even the mere mention of truth is seen as an existential threat, it takes on the opposite dimension. In particular, as mentioned above, the truth-tellers are reviled, feared, mocked, and made to suffer. It should be obvious that a value system that prioritizes fantasy over truth is unsustainable. As more people shift from truth to fantasy, whatever functional or pragmatic underpinnings civilization has erode until nothing fundamentally true remains. Civilization is subordinate to the truth and without it there is no civilization.
“This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
― T.S. Eliot
I care, it allows me to build on ideas. One of the cooler truths I've seen is the law of large numbers (and similar ideas, like positive and negative expected value) and how it has shaped my life in taking chances. That idea alone improved my quality of life by a lot.
Ideas that are true are like building blocks that can lead to a better life (or at least do damage control on the current one). And that makes me feel good and reinforces my belief system.
> they care about feeling good about what they believe.
Oh wait...
:-)