In the long run, truth and happiness often go hand-in-hand, but for this example lets say you KNOW that in the long run people will be less happy.|||Is there anything that can make you less happy then the reality that the majority of people don%26#039;t care a whit about you?|||Why would it make people less happy? If it was something that I didn%26#039;t have to tell, I don%26#039;t think I would, if it would cause that much upheaval. Maybe, if it was important, like something about how to stop global warming. It also depends on whether or not it was genuinley truthful, not just something I believed.|||No, because the world needs to be a little bit happier.|||If i really do have a world that changing truth, I%26#039;ll never tell to any one rather i will secretly come to your ear and reveal it :D|||not to dodge the question, but a lot of times i think it would be a non-issue because people wouldn%26#039;t believe you if they didn%26#039;t want to. sure, some would. but people are amazing at choosing what they believe in order to make themselves happier.|||What is happiness. This is an eternal question, kind of like why are we here. In our Constitution the words %26quot;pursuit of happiness%26quot; are declared a right by our creator. So in this spirit of happiness and a truth that would make the people overall less happy, the truth would then only effect those that are pursuing happiness in one direction.
Happiness can certainly be adjusted to all conditions of mankind and physics, its a matter of accepting what we understand and know. So if the truth hurts a bit, it will all adjust itself with one generation of man....yes.|||If this world changing truth makes people unhappy, then I doubt it is of a beneficial nature. I mean it doesn%26#039;t cure anything, improve anything, or help anyone. In that case, the less people know the better. Keep it to yourself and save the rest of the world from more unhappiness.|||It would depend on the nature of truth. If it was something that nobody could do something about, then I wouldn%26#039;t say anything. However, if it was something that despite its gravity was temporary, then I would let people know in order to be prepared, adjust their lives to the new reality, try to minimize the consequences of that world-changing truth and work towards a solution.|||Ha... would you open Pandera%26#039;s box?
The question is... would you think that was the consequence? You may very well convince yourself that the world would be a better place, since it%26#039;s a truth.
Now if you became a Cassandra or a Sibyl... you would tell the truth, however, no one would believe you. I believe that this is why many oriental philosophers believe the truth lies inside each individual: if you don%26#039;t want to believe in facts, or in others%26#039; beliefs, you just hold your own truths...
In conclusion, I would say that statement has a lot of assumptions that are worth exploring. Especially in today%26#039;s mediatic world, it%26#039;s hard to know how your truth would be spun... you may just end up in exile. And if you%26#039;re lucky, you%26#039;ll chop an ear off and become a famous painter (post mortem, that is).|||Truth in reality is far better for any human being to experience than happiness in delusion. Think of previous truths revealed-Dawkins realized that humans were not %26#039;created%26#039; especially, but evolved. This depressed some people, and many others denied it, but it has led us to great scientific and ethical advances, from biogenetics to the near-end of religion as the universal excuse.|||If it had the potential to help a lot of people but would help at least one person, then yes. Since you say it%26#039;s world changing, I interpreted that to mean that it would conflict with many peoples%26#039; %26lt;italicize%26gt; Perceptions (end italic) of how the world should be.
It%26#039;s my belief that people are responsible for their own emotions, whether or not they take active responsibility for them. I also believe that most people don%26#039;t take responsibility for their own emotions. So any world changing truth is apt to make a lot of people unhappy. No matter the nature of the %26quot;truth%26quot; presented to them.
(Tough question, so I imagined that I had to tell everyone that the world was ending next Tuesday due to an erratic wobble in the orbit. Thanks for the fun thought exercise.)
