tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6230750.post1268840487974628385..comments2023-11-30T11:57:43.224-08:00Comments on Niniane's Blog: to boldly goNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06731517033909059791noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6230750.post-75534494819079239492011-10-12T17:34:29.435-07:002011-10-12T17:34:29.435-07:00I think this is a dangerous attitude to have. It ...I think this is a dangerous attitude to have. It ends up blinding you to the bad things that you do, because your thought process revolves wholly around doing and being good/noble. It means that it makes it difficult to admit that the things you may be doing may actually end up being evil, and thus once you do them, because there is already a huge mental edifice built up around justifying or explaining why something that is evil (or more precisely, over time gradually has become evil) is actually good, it becomes hard to pull away from it.<br /><br />I think one root of this problem is that people don't understand what "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" really means. The problem is that the road to heaven is ALSO paved with good intentions, so if you're trying to do good, you really might have no idea what you've got until you're finished (and perhaps for quite awhile afterwards). This means that, while you're doing it,if you go along saying, "we are not doing evil, we are idealists and always trying to do good," you build up this HUGE self-identity of being good, and then once you find out that, oops, what you did ended up having evil effects, it's much harder to pull out of it because then you have to violate your self-identity.<br /><br />I've seen friends who are so set on being right and good and noble that after awhile when they wander into something that is less noble and less good (usually because they still have base desires, and over time they have rationalized achieving those desires for some noble means), it is very hard to convince them otherwise because they've built up such an idea of who they are and why they're doing what they're doing, and plus they are very intelligent, so all this mental power is invested in maintaining this identity, so the smarter the person (or corporation is), the worse it can end up when you eventually (and usually unintentionally) commit evil acts.Yishanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10457070986730822597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6230750.post-71792153981869254392011-10-12T10:09:31.476-07:002011-10-12T10:09:31.476-07:00You'll always be "we" to me, Niniane...You'll always be "we" to me, Niniane.Peter Norvighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04019538682957797752noreply@blogger.com