Re:How technology could kill the art of lying
by dredmorbius on Wednesday July 08, 2015 @07:45PM
(#9855355)
Many of the terms we associate with "the end of the world" have meanings which amount to "revealed truth": revelation, apocalypse, enlightenment, catastrophe.
The upshot of each is that your previous understanding of the world is overthrown. It's not so much that it's the world which has ended as your worldview.
Mental models are difficult and expensive to construct. It takes an entire childhood and adolescence for humans, arguably a fair bit of adulthood as well.
Leaving those comfortable confines, even where they're wrong, is pretty distressing. We'll often work hard to re-shoebox reality into models to which it fits at best poorly instead.
The upshot of each is that your previous understanding of the world is overthrown. It's not so much that it's the world which has ended as your worldview.
Mental models are difficult and expensive to construct. It takes an entire childhood and adolescence for humans, arguably a fair bit of adulthood as well.
Leaving those comfortable confines, even where they're wrong, is pretty distressing. We'll often work hard to re-shoebox reality into models to which it fits at best poorly instead.