The New Ideas Blog

Here are six new thoughts ranging from psychology to public policy to morality.

What would you think of a man who went almost every day to the same bad movie? Some people would laugh at this, or say the man had a mental problem. But how many of us revisit our own terrible internal movies again and again?

Ten times as many people are killed by falling coconuts each year as are killed by sharks, yet we are not afraid of coconuts, and take few precautions to avoid their dangers. The truth is that we are generally bad at calculating risks. That leads to an obvious question: How much are our laws and safety regulations based on actual risks and how much are they made just to please a public that clearly can’t judge these things very well?

What if a scientist found a way to remove the criminal impulses from those convicted of violent crimes, but he would only perform the procedure if the perpetrator was then set free? Would we allow this? And if not, doesn’t that suggest that we are actually more interested in serving our concepts of “justice” than in making people safer?

The most altruistic person must still keep himself healthy and safe, if only to be able to serve others for a longer time. The most selfish person – if she is truly looking out for her own best interests – must still look out for the interests of others, if only to be happy and get what she needs. So is it possible that a “deep” selfishness and a “practical” altruism arrive at the same place in the end?

Definition of technology: The specific methods, materials, and devices used to solve practical problems. Of course a “practical” solution to the problem of designing a better weapon may be entirely counterproductive to the goal of peace. Our technologies are often used to accomplish things that are not good for us, because we start not with basic values, but with assumptions based on unexamined desires. With that in mind, isn’t it possible that spirituality is the the ultimate technology?

Before language, we humans had to make decisions by conscience alone. At what point did some humans decide that verbal rules could replace this internal sense of right and wrong? Was it once we had twenty words, or two hundred? Isn’t it possible that we will never have enough words to fully explain everything or to trust any “moral commandments.” Should words and the logic that follows overrule what we see as right?

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