Calling things addictions is a way of stigmatising socially disapproved-of things. Addiction is about "dependency" and "need". For socially approved-of activities, the exact same psychological state would be called "interest", "dedication", "commitment", "expertise", "professionalism" or "enjoyment".
The same psychological state -- liking something a lot and using it all the time -- has both very positive and very negative words. Which is used depends on the values of the speaker, or the authority of cultural traditions, rather than the user. So it's dehumanizing -- it's a subtle way to deny his life should be run by his own values.
The idea of addictions is also a medicalization of ethics. It tries to turn an issue of ethics -- judging lifestyles as good or bad -- into one of medical science with no ethical judgment needed. We have a word for that: scientism.
The only morally sustainable distinction in this area is that between activities that *the person concerned* finds pleasant and/or useful, and those that he himself finds unpleasant and useless but cannot help repeating. When the addict does not want to be an addict is the only time addiction is a legitimate term. Whenever its used because the speaker wants someone to change his lifestyle he's just an authoritarian masking his moral judgments behind a false veneer of science.
Rationality and irrationality are properties of how conflicting opinions are treated, not of specific views. (Except when the opinion is about what to do about conflicting opinions.) For example, a belief in UFOs is not in itself irrational, but the ways in which UFO-believers typically react to evidence is. If the UFO belief wasn't backed up by irrational ways of thinking about rival ideas and criticism then it wouldn't survive for long. Similarly, cannibalism is neither rational nor irrational, except that eating someone prevents his opinions from participating in the debate.
Once upon a time there were anti-semites who wanted to promote their ideas in public and get away with it, but open anti-semitism was frowned on.
They needed some way to deny being anti-semites, while verbally attacking Jews.
One option they might consider is to say, "We don't hate Jews, we just hate Israel." This would let them say all the nasty stuff they want about the Jewish state, and the Jews there, while pretending not to be anti-semites.
This would get them a larger number of TV appearances, newspaper articles, etc, than if they introduced themselves as anti-semites.
No organization or cooperation or central planning is needed for this to become commonplace. Once a couple people try it out, and get publicity, then others will see its effectiveness and can copy the technique.
Today this technique is a daily occurrence. It's used to repeat traditional anti-semitic propaganda with only slight changes.
For example, "Jews murder Gentiles for pleasure or ritual" becomes "Israelis murder Palestinians for no reason" (except that, apparently, they wanted to).
"Jews kill babies" becomes "Israel is a child-killer state."
"Jews cheat at business and steal" becomes "Israeli settlers, especially right-wing orthodox Jews, steal land and water."
"Jews (via conspiracy) orchestrate major world events" becomes "the influential Jewish lobby is behind X"
Blaming Jewish victims for provoking their murderers is a staple of traditional anti-semitism, and of the "anti-Israel" rhetoric today, which finds ways to blame the Jews that Hamas kills.
So when someone says "I'm not anti-semitic, I'm just saying there are legitimate criticisms of Israel," and then says exactly the same things he would say if he was anti-semitic, he is either anti-semitic, willfully closing his eyes to anti-semitism, or extremely naive or ignorant.
step 1: disregard equally all news from A) Israeli government and free press B) Hamas
thinking those are equally unreliable is biased.
step 2: dismiss sites that say positive things about Israel as biased. Insist sites that persuaded you that Israel is evil are neutral.
this is very common. how can it be neutral if it persuaded you that israel is evil? sigh.
step 3: declare the UN to be fair and neutral and unbiased even though it has declared israel is evil several million times
the UN is fair, therefore israel must have deserved those condemnations, therefore condemnations of israel are evidence of its lack of bias.
step 4: analyze things in terms of accusing various parties of bias instead of thinking about what explanations of events are plausible.
example: israel attacks hamas fighters who are firing from a school. so take whatever the israeli govt says happened and call that biased. say its doubtful. but don't think about questions like, "why would israel fire on a school where hamas wasn't?" because then you'd get into the uncomfortable realm of blood libels.
There *is* a single correct parenting strategy, and anyone who says otherwise is denying that truth exists.
The right way to parent works something like this:
def how_to_parent(situation)
it can't return an answer unless you give a situation as input.
the situation includes the location, the details of the problem, a list of the people involved, etc
the people are complex data structures, including physical characteristics, their history, and their minds.
their minds are complex data structures with all their ideas.
if you change any of the people, or even change one idea in one person's mind, then you are calling how_to_parent with a different input, so you might not get the same answer.
when we say "there is one right way to parent" we mean that for one input, there is one correct output.
what does the how_to_parent function do with its input? it looks at the input and then calls a sub-module depending on what type of problem it is. it has lots of sub-modules that are specialized for different sorts of problems, and it just directs the question to the right one.
it's the same with morality. if we say "there is one moral truth" we mean for a given input situation, including every last detail, there is an answer, and it doesn't change if you ask the exact same question again, with the exact same inputs.
this explanation has a problem. people think it's so trivial and obvious that they get bored and tune out. it seems pedantic, and unnecessarily precise.
however, those same people constantly make mistakes about the exact issues i just covered.
then there is also the legitimate issue that the same situation never happens twice. so what use is it that there is one truth, one right way, if it's not re-usable? if i find a truth, and use it, why would you want to know it, since you'll never face exactly the same problem?
the answer to that has to do with the reach of knowledge. but that is advanced epistemology that people don't know about.
Schools used to hit people who got an answer wrong.
Hitting people for being wrong is very un-Popperian!
A) it doesn't help them create knowledge
B) mistakes are common (among everyone, adults too)
C) finding mistakes is good! they should celebrate. why connect it to pain?
D) they see the problem like this:
we KNOW the answer. the difficulty is how to suppress disagreement (which must be bad, because it's mistaken, b/c it contradicts the KNOWN TRUTH). in other words, we know what ideas should rule, and the only thing left is to enforce their rule.
of course Popper would prefer this problem: we have some ideas about the answer, and they may be mistaken, and by discussion with people who disagree, and culture clash, and self-reflection, and criticism, and by a serious effort, we may learn something about our mistakes, and come nearer to the truth.
Everyone knows a major goal of parenting is that children end up independent. TCS wants to have that goal in mind from the very start. In general, TCS is disposed to consider it good when people have control over their own lives.
Conventional parents think the way to make a child independent is to decide what the components of a person ready for independence are, make a list, and then instill each item on the list into the child, no matter what he thinks of them.
Conventional parents all defend this attitude, and everyones' right to parent this way, even though their lists of what makes a person ready for independence are very different. They disagree about what parents should do, but agree that each parent should decide for himself what's needed and do that.
This is indefensible to Popperians. We know that errors need finding and correcting, and devising a master plan, way in advance, and ignoring the child's ideas, is a recipe for mistakes not to get found or fixed. People will reply saying they do listen to their children, and take into account that feedback, and then make a final and fair decision themselves.
What's the difference between not listening to someone, and listening only to the parts you find agreeable? If the issue is changing your mind and finding ways you are mistaken, then there's no difference at all. Taking under advisement only the stuff you find reasonable is a recipe for not finding out about any of your mistakes. It will catch the very easy mistakes, like if someone points out you made a typo you'll fix it and thank them. But the hard mistakes to correct are the ones where you have a blindness, and don't see that you're wrong. In those cases, anything that contradicts you seems unreasonable, so only listening to "reasonable" stuff means never fixing those mistakes.