Victorian Era Still Ongoing

This one took me forever to put into words. One of the biggest problems in the Anglosphere is that everyone takes social conventions deathly seriously. Indeed so much so I have a new principle: the more who consider something Very Important, the less important it is likely to be.

(Second section a tangent about lying.)

As per title, the only question is whether current times are as uptight as Victorians, or more so. Only they're not uptight about sex, so of course nobody could ever confuse modern behaviour and being uptight...

I should be blunt. A healthy society does not give its own norms much credit, let alone anyone else's.

I mean come on. Gay marriage? Seriously? Talk about #firstworldproblems. And this literally considered a life-and-death situation? As in, the pro-gay marriage people want everyone else to die? I thought we were supposed to be fighting the perception of gays as melodramatic. Doctor, is one of your bottles labelled 'perspective?' We need about 1000 ccs, stat.

Of course, Jehu puts it most bluntly. Of course it is who...whom.

Gee guys, one group wants another group to all die. I wonder what this is about. This is totally unprecedented. It must be the end of history.



I should note that at least the actual murders are kept to a minimum. The death rhetoric seems to be just that - rhetoric. This is progress. Real progress, not Progressive progress.



And of course The People are completely taken in.

I must seriously propose that it is not only morally right, but actually a duty to lie to someone so gullible. (Part 2. Part 3.) Otherwise, you're just cheerfully ceding them to the Devil. Let me go through the logic.

If you asked such a gull, they would say not to lie to them. But this is only because they think they're not gullible, which is the keystone of the belief system that makes them gullible.[1] So, instead imagine you could make them understand that their only options were being taken in by you, and being taken in by the Devil. Which would they pick?

This would not be a serious problem if liars could be eradicated, and with that condition I'd say lying was wrong. I submit that our current society has competitive lying, with championships every four years. I additionally note that it is an overly-seriouly-taken social norm to pretend that liars are rare. Not to mention that the championships are considered Very Important.

This looks like I'm advocating that everyone lie. And indeed I am. Can you convince the Devil to stop lying? The less good it is for someone to be swayed by an anti-lying campaign, the more likely they are to be swayed.

I do suggest testing for gullibility. Lying to the non-gullible is counter-productive. Instead it is worthwhile to build trust in these cases.



[1] By contrast, I'm fully aware that lies go down smooth and easy. Luckily intellectual bulimia isn't unhealthy, or I'd be in a bad way.