"If you can think things so outside the box that they'd make people's hair stand on end, you'll have no trouble with the small trips outside the box that people call innovative.”
Fascinating. My initial impulse is to agree with a few, disagree with a few, and investigate a few others further. Of course, a non-heretical belief kicks in: claims, heretical or not, should be argued for; have evidence brought to bear. Indeed, it's naive to think that a simple list can really help expand cultural possibilities. Investigating, arguing, etc., about them are necessary for that. Hopefully we'll get to see some of that for your claims.
Oh God the roller coaster of going from "oh yeah I kind of agree that this view should be discussed" to "the world would be better if every person believed this 'heresy'" to "I can't believe you wrote this, you are evil just for having uttered that thought"
Some stretchy thinking and a lot of rage. I, for one, abase myself before Moloch and the horse he rode in on. For He is at the root of much of this. I went down the rabbit hole on 11, even unto reading gwern, but, as usual, I can never finish a gwern, and I failed to grasp his point or yours
Governments would function better if politicians were generally younger than they currently are. Alternatively, the leaders of youth needs a separate council to voice their opinion in government away from lobbyists and activists. (sorry for the contrarianism)
Success has always been reliant on g-factors (IQ), d-Factors (anti-social behaviors), and (lack of) p-factors (neuroticism), and those three have always been genetics in nature. (Hereditarians e.g. Kirkegaard)
"Trauma" is self-inflicted, "Abuse" is universal. There are always genetic and hormonal factors underlying it, and it is pretty easy to spot "aggressors" vs "victims" be mere physiognomy.
11 and 13 seem kind of at odds. I don’t see necrophilia being compatible with the perceived wishes of most people’s ancestors.
On heresy 17, I wonder what consequences could arise from seeing all organizations as autonomous social entities. Like how a corporation scan legally be considered a person, what if one became recognized socially? What if I/O psychology became indistinguishable from personal psychology? What if there was a DSM for organizations? Perhaps our institutions are plagued by large scale diseases we have not yet identified (or created). This heresy reminds me of SSC’s Mediations on Moloch. Perhaps society may eventually be ideologically divided between pro moloch (realizing organizations as entities) and localist anti moloch (downsizing organizations as much as possible, focus on individual autonomy) factions.
Much like the music point, maybe 1950’s academics were right when they said that TV was melting our brains. Perhaps all non-longform mediums are devolving us into instantly gratified goldfish.
Some ill-thought-out heresies I have pulled out of my ass:
Littering is good. The consequences of preventing pollution can be likened to children developing poor immune systems from a lack of pathogen exposure.
Likewise, dinner plates have had a negative effect on our microbiome and immune system. Touching food with one’s hands is a forgotten step in the digestion process.
Speech patterns affect tooth decay, much like how staying indoors poorly impacts vision. A significant amount of human behavior can be attributed to toxoplasmosis-esque diseases, most of which are yet to be discovered. Entire wars have been waged and sexual pathologies had at the behest of parasites.
Sexual fetishes are informational organisms that reproduce through media and trauma. People don’t have fetishes, fetishes have people.
While polyamory is trendy, humans are really meant to be serial monogamists. Divorce should not only be accepted, but a milestone to be celebrated. Detractors will point to statistics about precarious single parent households and traumatized children. Maybe these negative outcomes only happen because our culture is still built on a foundation of lifelong monogamy.
Laziness is a forgotten virtue. Humans should aspire to it whenever possible. Hard work is satanic, and breeds inefficiency. That is not to say that conscientiousness is bad, bur rather that extrinsically motivated goals are a moral failing. Real work should be indistinguishable from play. Maybe a large portion of the population will putter around, but there will still be professional hobbyists.
The mormons are right about one thing. Caffiene and other stimulants should be outlawed. Not for physiological reasons, but because they dampen mindfulness. The stimulant epidemic has created a short sighted populace, stunting the growth of longterm visions.
Sleep should be worshipped. For something we spend a third of our lifetimes engaging in, it is sacrificed at worst and ignored at best. Overwork and sleep deprivation have had a disastrous effect on global wellbeing. We should create a culture of sleep rituals and holidays. Instead of binge watching the latest TV show (often at the expense of sleep), we should be sharing our nightly dreams. Poor sleep habits should be ostracized no less than vices like alcoholism or smoking.
Mar 18, 2022·edited Mar 18, 2022Liked by Roger’s Bacon
Sexual Assaults are biologically wired in (some women), similar to "Baby Fever" and "Girlbossing". Any attempts at stifling or enhancing such behaviors are inherently harmful, and lead to weird sexual fetishes.
Sexual Fetishes can be clustered into larger categories, and they will often reflect socio-biological needs. Scat fetishes is tied to the gut-brain axis, age regression is tied to promiscuous fathers or coddling mothers, Dominance-Submission structures and related clothing are tied to "Spartan" parents, gender-nonconformity is tied to lack of maternal fecundity or SES, furries are tied to social isolation.
There is no way that the cycle of change can be stopped. Peter Turchin, Brain Berry, William Strauss, Ray Dalio, John Glubb etc. are all hinting at 3 different cycles: Socio-Economic (50 years), Institutional (80 years), and Imperial (200 years with 50 years of slack).
The concept "BS Jobs" is true, but not completely valid, lawyers are proxy for the human need for conflict and power, flunkies (PR and care work) are proxy for human need for respect and mutuality, maintenance and compliance work are proxy for security, and middle management are a proxy for spiritual guides and oracles. These four forms parodies the Schwartz circumplex. The only solution is to dislodge those needs out from effective operational structure into NGOs and private community/entertainment services.
Mar 18, 2022·edited Mar 19, 2022Liked by Roger’s Bacon
How I will not survive the vibe check:
The ideas of left vs right and auth vs lib is useless (especially for "the left"), and that politics has at least 4 different dimensions. 8Values can be standardized into something similar to Jordan Peterson's General Factor of Personality.
Modern government are self-justifying based on cultural market demands. The leftopians will never beat the market, and the nRX movement will always consistently beat the market akin to Index Funds.
Tithing is made so that the bottom 10% of the population, who are net negative in productivity vs essential consumption, can try to survive. The rest of the donation is for the intellectual class. Yes IQ is consistently tied to productivity, not just wealth accumulation. Prediction: for every 5IQ point increase, productivity increases 32%.
Marx and Mises can simultaneously right, similar to Gravity and Quantum Mechanics. Unfortunately, even when material costs, currency pegging, stable human resources, and rational preferences are factored, the Higgs of Keynesian irrationality persists.
Humans are adapting to have a sixth finger, stronger muscles, schizophrenic and autistic brains, more enduring internal organs, and a more nuanced spirituality, no Alex Jones we are evolving out of this mess unlike the elites.
World Island and Rimland will each form alliances against the Sino-Russian force.
Machine Learning is Divination. We are returning to religion.
Upward Mobility is a myth, but serfdom is comforting, both physically and spiritually. Alternatively, Idle Rich is the best rich, and you do not want smart kids to become rascals.
Link Rot should be considered a sin, and that transcription will become a holy activity. To make a knowledge graph will be considered saintly.
I dunno, pick any one of a number of politically correct shibboleths (some of which this cat in fact subscribes to!) and watch yourself be cast into Outer Darkness.
I don't think I've commented on here before, so first I want to say that I enjoy reading your blog very much.
I agree with 2 (untaboo paedophilia), 4 (solitary confinement, corporal punishment), 9 (human experimentation) and 17 (organisational intelligences). I also agree that the US Civil War was a mistake and that human clones are natural and fine.
And I also agree that flossing doesn't matter and that obesity is contagious - but are these really heresies?! I'm British, btw.
I'm willing to seriously consider 6 (adults oppress children and the elderly), 12 (schooling is bad) and 13 (Death 101).
1 (recorded music is harmful), 3 (polyandry > monogamy), 7 (politicians should be older), 10 (eating anything other than lab-grown human meat is unethical) and 16 (subservience is good) seem nonsensical to me. I just don't understand where you're coming from!
Perhaps one should "try on" a different heretical idea every week, and see how it feels.
Do you remember the TV show "Sliders"? A group of people travelled through different versions of present-day America, such as one in which the colonial rebellion had failed (= double-decker buses in San Francisco) and one in which penicillin was never discovered (= global pandemic). I felt most of the alternative Americas they discovered were a bit cliched - I expect you could write a much weirder version!
I thought your ‘heresies’ were rather humdrum. Heresies depend on what is orthodox, which is not the same in, say, America, as it is in, say, Morocco. Heresies are those positions that, when publicly stated, will get you burned at the stake (or the modern equivalent). For example:
• Women are not the same as men and so we shouldn’t expect them to make the same life/career choices.
• Male athletes are better than female athletes in all but a handful of sports.
• IQ is a valuable measurement because predictions based on IQ are generally accurate.
• Unions, especially of government employees, are incredibly harmful to the general public.
• Climate change is not sufficiently harmful to justify the cost of actions to counter it.
• The goal of progressives, from Woodrow Wilson forward, is a totalitarian state.
• The Christian religion should be taught in all schools.
• The Christian religion is the basis for most of our morality.
• Employers should be able to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, etc.
You try to espouse any of the above and see what happens, as compared to those below (which I’ve summarized and then provided comments).
1. Recorded music. Plato thought all music should be banned. Heretical: no watching of sports, plays, etc., only participating in sports, acting in plays, etc.
2. Pedophilia. NAMBLA’s position.
3. Most men would be happier in polyandrous relationships. Why would they be happier—less responsibility?
4. Solitary confinement is not a cruel and unusual punishment. Only recently has it been thought to be cruel/unusual. Singapore and other countries employ punishment other than prisons. Heretical: the government should not punish but should allow revenge by the victim or victim’s relations.
6. Adults use their superior physical strength and mental acuity to systematically (and systemically) oppress children and the elderly. Strong people dominate weak people. Duh . . .
7. Governments would function better if politicians were generally older than they currently are. Governments is a much more than politicians. Heretical: radically diminish what governments do, e.g., the federal government should do only what is literally allowed by the Constitution.
8. We will never stop fighting about race. The only way out of this racial hellscape is to simply breed race away by tweaking dating app algorithms to increase the number of interracial matings. Heretical: there are differences between races based on genetics.
9. Overly restrictive regulations on the use of human research subjects has been detrimental to science. Heretical: “Science” will in the end abolish man. See CS Lewis, Abolition of Man.
10. Lab-grown human meat. Who cares?
11. Physical existence is not a prerequisite for the possession of moral value. Agree, but this is only heretical for those for whom religion is not a “living option.” See William James, The Will to Believe.
12. schooling. Heretical: get rid of teacher unions in American public schools.
13. teaching “Death 101”. Sure—why not?
14. Eco-terrorism morally justified. Without showing how it’s morally justified this is bumper sticker stuff.
15. permanent name. Silly.
16. Obedience is a virtue. “Obedience to the law is freedom” vs. “I was just following orders” (Nuremberg defense)
17. Organizations—governments, businesses, schools, institutions of any and all kinds—are hybrid super-intelligences made of technologically-augmented networks of humans. Yes—all cooperative action could be viewed this way.
18. Science is rotten to its core. Bumper sticker. Yes, lots of problems, including the politicization of science (climate science, COVID), the far greater cost of experimentation, etc. Ignoring the fundamental issue of the interpretation of the uncertainty principle (‘shut up and calculate’).
19. Money is, in fact, the root of all evil. If one’s education has not included any history or the study of other cultures, then this might seem heretical.
20. Progress Studies is a waste of time. What is “progress”? What is the good life? Etc. If you can’t answer the basic issues, then studying progress is a waste. (1) “advanced” civilization has developed on the back of an unimaginable amount of suffering (slavery, the genocide of indigenous peoples, the slavery and genocide of wild and domestic animals). This is non-heretical spouting. Were Genghis Khan’s army not comprised of ‘indigenous’ people. Were the Aztecs peaceful? Did the various tribes of “indigenous peoples” not make war on each other? “Slavery” of animals? “Genocide” of animals? This is the kind of rhetoric that demagogues use. Heretical would be: we should live without using any animals for any purpose.
The lists of heresies from Tyler Cowen and Kevin Kelly were mostly silly.
10. It would be better if humans never had existed, as they have destroyed more welfare than they created. Most of all because of their effects on non-human animals. This is possibly as “compelling” as the line Diane Keaton spoke in “Sleeper”: “Did you know that ‘God’ spelled backward is ‘Dog’?”
11. Non-human animals suffer more than they enjoy, and it would be better if they did not exist. Again, what is “better”? As with the above, unless you believe in utilitarianism (which cannot be proved), then this is nonsense.
Kevin Kelly defines a heresy as “something you believe that the people you most admire and respect don’t believe and reject out of hand.”
5. War is not inevitable; it can be eliminated. Of course—if nuclear war kills off all humans, war will be eliminated.
8. The US Civil War was a mistake. The Confederate South should have been allowed to secede, and the rest of the Union would be better off today. Possibly. But predictions are difficult, especially predictions about the future.
15. There should be a Super Olympics that allows all enhancements and no gender distinctions. (note: see Applied Divinity Studies’ essay “The Transhumanism Olympics”). Heretical: there should be such a Super Olympics, and men (and not women) would win all the titles.
33. California or Texas should secede from the US. Probably.
38. Human clones are natural and fine — just serial twins. Simplistic.
39. Obesity is contagious. Possibly.
42. Social media reduces extremism. “Extremism” of what?
46. There will be a global population implosion soon. Already happening in China, Japan, Western Europe, the United States (not counting immigrants) . . .
Heresy exists only in the presence of a set of beliefs strongly held by a group of people. Followers of Buddah wouldn't view the Christian belief in the trinity as a heresy; likewise, believers in Christianity wouldn't care about Shi'a vs Sunni.
What are the unstated, strongly held beliefs with respect to which the listed statements are heretical? And who else shares those beliefs? Followers of AOC might label statement X heretical, but followers of Ted Cruz might label that same statement fundamentally true. If you believe that your beliefs need not be stated explicitly because "everyone believes" them, then you won't understand why others disagree with your application of the "heresy" label.
Fascinating. My initial impulse is to agree with a few, disagree with a few, and investigate a few others further. Of course, a non-heretical belief kicks in: claims, heretical or not, should be argued for; have evidence brought to bear. Indeed, it's naive to think that a simple list can really help expand cultural possibilities. Investigating, arguing, etc., about them are necessary for that. Hopefully we'll get to see some of that for your claims.
Another banger
Oh God the roller coaster of going from "oh yeah I kind of agree that this view should be discussed" to "the world would be better if every person believed this 'heresy'" to "I can't believe you wrote this, you are evil just for having uttered that thought"
Well I guess I'm a heretic, because I've believed your #s 7, 8, 12, and 16 for a while now, and I'm halfway to advocating for #1!
You really pulled out the big ones for this, huh?
The Progress Studies burn in particularly well-deserved lmao.
Some stretchy thinking and a lot of rage. I, for one, abase myself before Moloch and the horse he rode in on. For He is at the root of much of this. I went down the rabbit hole on 11, even unto reading gwern, but, as usual, I can never finish a gwern, and I failed to grasp his point or yours
There are only a few archetypes of man, and any deviation between lifestyle, resources, and genetics, are inherently harmful. Some starters:
- https://andreashofer72.medium.com/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRcUsKYVdS4 contra https://archive.fo/S7i1F
Governments would function better if politicians were generally younger than they currently are. Alternatively, the leaders of youth needs a separate council to voice their opinion in government away from lobbyists and activists. (sorry for the contrarianism)
Asset Money and Fiat Money are a false dichotomy, and we need both to regulate ourselves. https://alexdanco.com/2020/05/15/debt-the-first-5000-years/
Success has always been reliant on g-factors (IQ), d-Factors (anti-social behaviors), and (lack of) p-factors (neuroticism), and those three have always been genetics in nature. (Hereditarians e.g. Kirkegaard)
"Trauma" is self-inflicted, "Abuse" is universal. There are always genetic and hormonal factors underlying it, and it is pretty easy to spot "aggressors" vs "victims" be mere physiognomy.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24013770/
- https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v101y2018icp35-56.html
11 and 13 seem kind of at odds. I don’t see necrophilia being compatible with the perceived wishes of most people’s ancestors.
On heresy 17, I wonder what consequences could arise from seeing all organizations as autonomous social entities. Like how a corporation scan legally be considered a person, what if one became recognized socially? What if I/O psychology became indistinguishable from personal psychology? What if there was a DSM for organizations? Perhaps our institutions are plagued by large scale diseases we have not yet identified (or created). This heresy reminds me of SSC’s Mediations on Moloch. Perhaps society may eventually be ideologically divided between pro moloch (realizing organizations as entities) and localist anti moloch (downsizing organizations as much as possible, focus on individual autonomy) factions.
Much like the music point, maybe 1950’s academics were right when they said that TV was melting our brains. Perhaps all non-longform mediums are devolving us into instantly gratified goldfish.
Some ill-thought-out heresies I have pulled out of my ass:
Littering is good. The consequences of preventing pollution can be likened to children developing poor immune systems from a lack of pathogen exposure.
Likewise, dinner plates have had a negative effect on our microbiome and immune system. Touching food with one’s hands is a forgotten step in the digestion process.
Speech patterns affect tooth decay, much like how staying indoors poorly impacts vision. A significant amount of human behavior can be attributed to toxoplasmosis-esque diseases, most of which are yet to be discovered. Entire wars have been waged and sexual pathologies had at the behest of parasites.
Sexual fetishes are informational organisms that reproduce through media and trauma. People don’t have fetishes, fetishes have people.
While polyamory is trendy, humans are really meant to be serial monogamists. Divorce should not only be accepted, but a milestone to be celebrated. Detractors will point to statistics about precarious single parent households and traumatized children. Maybe these negative outcomes only happen because our culture is still built on a foundation of lifelong monogamy.
Laziness is a forgotten virtue. Humans should aspire to it whenever possible. Hard work is satanic, and breeds inefficiency. That is not to say that conscientiousness is bad, bur rather that extrinsically motivated goals are a moral failing. Real work should be indistinguishable from play. Maybe a large portion of the population will putter around, but there will still be professional hobbyists.
The mormons are right about one thing. Caffiene and other stimulants should be outlawed. Not for physiological reasons, but because they dampen mindfulness. The stimulant epidemic has created a short sighted populace, stunting the growth of longterm visions.
Sleep should be worshipped. For something we spend a third of our lifetimes engaging in, it is sacrificed at worst and ignored at best. Overwork and sleep deprivation have had a disastrous effect on global wellbeing. We should create a culture of sleep rituals and holidays. Instead of binge watching the latest TV show (often at the expense of sleep), we should be sharing our nightly dreams. Poor sleep habits should be ostracized no less than vices like alcoholism or smoking.
Sexual Assaults are biologically wired in (some women), similar to "Baby Fever" and "Girlbossing". Any attempts at stifling or enhancing such behaviors are inherently harmful, and lead to weird sexual fetishes.
Sexual Fetishes can be clustered into larger categories, and they will often reflect socio-biological needs. Scat fetishes is tied to the gut-brain axis, age regression is tied to promiscuous fathers or coddling mothers, Dominance-Submission structures and related clothing are tied to "Spartan" parents, gender-nonconformity is tied to lack of maternal fecundity or SES, furries are tied to social isolation.
There is no way that the cycle of change can be stopped. Peter Turchin, Brain Berry, William Strauss, Ray Dalio, John Glubb etc. are all hinting at 3 different cycles: Socio-Economic (50 years), Institutional (80 years), and Imperial (200 years with 50 years of slack).
The concept "BS Jobs" is true, but not completely valid, lawyers are proxy for the human need for conflict and power, flunkies (PR and care work) are proxy for human need for respect and mutuality, maintenance and compliance work are proxy for security, and middle management are a proxy for spiritual guides and oracles. These four forms parodies the Schwartz circumplex. The only solution is to dislodge those needs out from effective operational structure into NGOs and private community/entertainment services.
How I will not survive the vibe check:
The ideas of left vs right and auth vs lib is useless (especially for "the left"), and that politics has at least 4 different dimensions. 8Values can be standardized into something similar to Jordan Peterson's General Factor of Personality.
Modern government are self-justifying based on cultural market demands. The leftopians will never beat the market, and the nRX movement will always consistently beat the market akin to Index Funds.
Tithing is made so that the bottom 10% of the population, who are net negative in productivity vs essential consumption, can try to survive. The rest of the donation is for the intellectual class. Yes IQ is consistently tied to productivity, not just wealth accumulation. Prediction: for every 5IQ point increase, productivity increases 32%.
Marx and Mises can simultaneously right, similar to Gravity and Quantum Mechanics. Unfortunately, even when material costs, currency pegging, stable human resources, and rational preferences are factored, the Higgs of Keynesian irrationality persists.
Humans are adapting to have a sixth finger, stronger muscles, schizophrenic and autistic brains, more enduring internal organs, and a more nuanced spirituality, no Alex Jones we are evolving out of this mess unlike the elites.
World Island and Rimland will each form alliances against the Sino-Russian force.
Machine Learning is Divination. We are returning to religion.
Upward Mobility is a myth, but serfdom is comforting, both physically and spiritually. Alternatively, Idle Rich is the best rich, and you do not want smart kids to become rascals.
Link Rot should be considered a sin, and that transcription will become a holy activity. To make a knowledge graph will be considered saintly.
I dunno, pick any one of a number of politically correct shibboleths (some of which this cat in fact subscribes to!) and watch yourself be cast into Outer Darkness.
I don't think I've commented on here before, so first I want to say that I enjoy reading your blog very much.
I agree with 2 (untaboo paedophilia), 4 (solitary confinement, corporal punishment), 9 (human experimentation) and 17 (organisational intelligences). I also agree that the US Civil War was a mistake and that human clones are natural and fine.
And I also agree that flossing doesn't matter and that obesity is contagious - but are these really heresies?! I'm British, btw.
I'm willing to seriously consider 6 (adults oppress children and the elderly), 12 (schooling is bad) and 13 (Death 101).
1 (recorded music is harmful), 3 (polyandry > monogamy), 7 (politicians should be older), 10 (eating anything other than lab-grown human meat is unethical) and 16 (subservience is good) seem nonsensical to me. I just don't understand where you're coming from!
Perhaps one should "try on" a different heretical idea every week, and see how it feels.
Do you remember the TV show "Sliders"? A group of people travelled through different versions of present-day America, such as one in which the colonial rebellion had failed (= double-decker buses in San Francisco) and one in which penicillin was never discovered (= global pandemic). I felt most of the alternative Americas they discovered were a bit cliched - I expect you could write a much weirder version!
I thought your ‘heresies’ were rather humdrum. Heresies depend on what is orthodox, which is not the same in, say, America, as it is in, say, Morocco. Heresies are those positions that, when publicly stated, will get you burned at the stake (or the modern equivalent). For example:
• Women are not the same as men and so we shouldn’t expect them to make the same life/career choices.
• Male athletes are better than female athletes in all but a handful of sports.
• IQ is a valuable measurement because predictions based on IQ are generally accurate.
• Unions, especially of government employees, are incredibly harmful to the general public.
• Climate change is not sufficiently harmful to justify the cost of actions to counter it.
• The goal of progressives, from Woodrow Wilson forward, is a totalitarian state.
• The Christian religion should be taught in all schools.
• The Christian religion is the basis for most of our morality.
• Employers should be able to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, etc.
You try to espouse any of the above and see what happens, as compared to those below (which I’ve summarized and then provided comments).
1. Recorded music. Plato thought all music should be banned. Heretical: no watching of sports, plays, etc., only participating in sports, acting in plays, etc.
2. Pedophilia. NAMBLA’s position.
3. Most men would be happier in polyandrous relationships. Why would they be happier—less responsibility?
4. Solitary confinement is not a cruel and unusual punishment. Only recently has it been thought to be cruel/unusual. Singapore and other countries employ punishment other than prisons. Heretical: the government should not punish but should allow revenge by the victim or victim’s relations.
6. Adults use their superior physical strength and mental acuity to systematically (and systemically) oppress children and the elderly. Strong people dominate weak people. Duh . . .
7. Governments would function better if politicians were generally older than they currently are. Governments is a much more than politicians. Heretical: radically diminish what governments do, e.g., the federal government should do only what is literally allowed by the Constitution.
8. We will never stop fighting about race. The only way out of this racial hellscape is to simply breed race away by tweaking dating app algorithms to increase the number of interracial matings. Heretical: there are differences between races based on genetics.
9. Overly restrictive regulations on the use of human research subjects has been detrimental to science. Heretical: “Science” will in the end abolish man. See CS Lewis, Abolition of Man.
10. Lab-grown human meat. Who cares?
11. Physical existence is not a prerequisite for the possession of moral value. Agree, but this is only heretical for those for whom religion is not a “living option.” See William James, The Will to Believe.
12. schooling. Heretical: get rid of teacher unions in American public schools.
13. teaching “Death 101”. Sure—why not?
14. Eco-terrorism morally justified. Without showing how it’s morally justified this is bumper sticker stuff.
15. permanent name. Silly.
16. Obedience is a virtue. “Obedience to the law is freedom” vs. “I was just following orders” (Nuremberg defense)
17. Organizations—governments, businesses, schools, institutions of any and all kinds—are hybrid super-intelligences made of technologically-augmented networks of humans. Yes—all cooperative action could be viewed this way.
18. Science is rotten to its core. Bumper sticker. Yes, lots of problems, including the politicization of science (climate science, COVID), the far greater cost of experimentation, etc. Ignoring the fundamental issue of the interpretation of the uncertainty principle (‘shut up and calculate’).
19. Money is, in fact, the root of all evil. If one’s education has not included any history or the study of other cultures, then this might seem heretical.
20. Progress Studies is a waste of time. What is “progress”? What is the good life? Etc. If you can’t answer the basic issues, then studying progress is a waste. (1) “advanced” civilization has developed on the back of an unimaginable amount of suffering (slavery, the genocide of indigenous peoples, the slavery and genocide of wild and domestic animals). This is non-heretical spouting. Were Genghis Khan’s army not comprised of ‘indigenous’ people. Were the Aztecs peaceful? Did the various tribes of “indigenous peoples” not make war on each other? “Slavery” of animals? “Genocide” of animals? This is the kind of rhetoric that demagogues use. Heretical would be: we should live without using any animals for any purpose.
The lists of heresies from Tyler Cowen and Kevin Kelly were mostly silly.
10. It would be better if humans never had existed, as they have destroyed more welfare than they created. Most of all because of their effects on non-human animals. This is possibly as “compelling” as the line Diane Keaton spoke in “Sleeper”: “Did you know that ‘God’ spelled backward is ‘Dog’?”
11. Non-human animals suffer more than they enjoy, and it would be better if they did not exist. Again, what is “better”? As with the above, unless you believe in utilitarianism (which cannot be proved), then this is nonsense.
Kevin Kelly defines a heresy as “something you believe that the people you most admire and respect don’t believe and reject out of hand.”
5. War is not inevitable; it can be eliminated. Of course—if nuclear war kills off all humans, war will be eliminated.
8. The US Civil War was a mistake. The Confederate South should have been allowed to secede, and the rest of the Union would be better off today. Possibly. But predictions are difficult, especially predictions about the future.
15. There should be a Super Olympics that allows all enhancements and no gender distinctions. (note: see Applied Divinity Studies’ essay “The Transhumanism Olympics”). Heretical: there should be such a Super Olympics, and men (and not women) would win all the titles.
33. California or Texas should secede from the US. Probably.
38. Human clones are natural and fine — just serial twins. Simplistic.
39. Obesity is contagious. Possibly.
42. Social media reduces extremism. “Extremism” of what?
46. There will be a global population implosion soon. Already happening in China, Japan, Western Europe, the United States (not counting immigrants) . . .
A small tidbit: Holmesian Principle “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” https://theredqueen.substack.com/p/the-holmesian-principle
Heresy exists only in the presence of a set of beliefs strongly held by a group of people. Followers of Buddah wouldn't view the Christian belief in the trinity as a heresy; likewise, believers in Christianity wouldn't care about Shi'a vs Sunni.
What are the unstated, strongly held beliefs with respect to which the listed statements are heretical? And who else shares those beliefs? Followers of AOC might label statement X heretical, but followers of Ted Cruz might label that same statement fundamentally true. If you believe that your beliefs need not be stated explicitly because "everyone believes" them, then you won't understand why others disagree with your application of the "heresy" label.