Quick thought

[catsittingstill]

Obviously, like most of the world, I didn't believe the Rapture predictions.  I'm not claiming any credit for this--aside from being completely incompatible with my worldview, I don't actually *want* the world to end, so they weren't tempting in the slightest.

But suppose for a moment I had.  Or suppose I was taken in by some other obviously wrong prediction.  I like to think it's not very likely but realistically I'm subject to the same cognitive biases as anyone else--they are a human commonality.

So, suppose.  And suppose based on this false beliief I did things that make sense if the false belief is true but are devastating if the false belief is false.  Like spend my life savings on billboards or something.

I hope, when I discovered the belief was false and everything came crashing down around me and I had done myself enormous financial or personal damage, that I would remember my friends.  And I hope I would be a big enough person to realize that my true friends were not the people who had mouthed unobjectionable platitudes like "I disagree with your beliefs but I still respect them" but rather the people who had spared no effort to talk me out of hurting myself, the ones who had risked being considered rude to say bluntly "Cat, this is barking mad.  You're wrong--at least behave in a way that doesn't destroy you before you figure it out."

I can't be sure, of course.  I would be ashamed and hurting, and people are subject to disconfirmation bias so I suppose I would be too, and people are just not at their most reasonable at that point.  But I like to think I would realize that.

Just saying.

Comments

[keris]

Hmm, thought-provoking stuff. I suspect that if I were to have that sort of belief, though, then I would have dumped those friende who were telling me that I was mad long before I realised that they were actually my friends. For instance, turning it round, I suspect that if there were True Belivers among your friends who sincerely believe that you were Going To Hell and tried to Save you at every opportunity then you would do the same as me and just not associate with them any more, or they'd get fed up with trying to convert me and go away.

At which point, when you realise that you were wrong, it might be too late -- you might realise it but they might not be there any more. (Of course, if the people who believed in the Rapture had been right then we wouldn't have had a chance to talk to them anyway, they'd have been in heaven and we'd be somewhere else!)

And of course until something like that happens none of us know how we;ll actually react. I suspect that if I believed that the end of the world was coming and it didn't I might just get angry enough to destroy it myself. So it's probably a good thing that I don't believe anything that strongly *g*...

[catsittingstill]

Well, I might have dumped those friends who said this was mad, but I hope I'd remember they were right and look them up again.

If I thought the end of the world was coming and it didn't, I would be massively relieved. Embarrassed, maybe, but relieved. I *like* the world, even though it could use some fixing.