Some Contemporary Heresies

I define a heresy as: something you believe that the people you most admire and respect don’t believe and reject out of hand.

With that criterion in mind, here are a bunch of Contemporary Heresies I’ve collected. These are not necessarily my heresies, although some are, but most are “plausible — not insane” heresies that others around me have said they believe. Some of these heresies are trivial and some are dangerous — true heresy. (I’ll add more as they arrive.)

1. Aliens are already here.
2. Robot/AI soldiers are preferable to human soldiers.
3. Polygamy and polyandry should be legal.
4. The amount of taxes each person pays should be public.
5. War is not inevitable; it can be eliminated.
6. Cannibalism is okay.
7. Euthanasia should be encouraged (and regulated).
8. The US Civil War was a mistake. The Confederate South should have been allowed to secede, and the rest of the Union would be better off today.
9. Flossing doesn’t matter.
10. DNA sequences of each individual should be public information, just like faces, birth dates, etc.
11. The nuclear bombs dropped on Japan were unneeded, wrong.
12. The microbiome in your guts influences your IQ.
13. Universal basic income generates wealth.
14. Pre-crime tracking and deterrence is feasible.
15. There should be a Super Olympics that allows all enhancements and no gender distinctions.
16. It is impossible for humans to eradicate all human life on this planet.
17. Vitamin pills are quackery.
18. Oil is not a fossil life fuel but a geological product.
19. Death is a disease that can be cured.
20. Eating animals should be outlawed and illegal.
21. Government funding of science and tech pays off big time.
22. Global government is good.
23. Psychedelics should be paid for by insurance.
24. Your weight is a public health concern.
25. BBQ is carcinogenic.
26. Altruism is natural and the default of humankind.
27. No one born on Mars will live to reproduce on Mars.
28. All plastics should be banned from being manufactured.
29. There should be a Human Right of Migration on this planet; you may live where ever you want if you follow local laws.
30. GMO food is better for you.
31. Neanderthals were smarter than humans.
32. Nuclear waste is manageable.
33. California or Texas should secede from the US, or Alberta or Quebec from Canada, or Scotland from UK.
34. We should have a single global currency, maybe on blockchain.
35. There was a civilization on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago, but geological forces have eliminated all evidence of it.
36. ESP and telepathy are real.
37. There is no great extinction event happening on Earth right now.
38. Human clones are natural and fine — just serial twins.
39. Obesity is contagious.
40. Animals like being in modern zoos.
41. Billionaire wealth should not be permitted.
42. Social media reduces extremism.
43. Organized religious belief is on its way out. Believers of major religions will become a small minority.
44. All cryptocurrencies should be state-run.
45. National service (including peace and non-military) should be mandatory for all citizens without exceptions, including the handicapped.
46. There will be a global population implosion soon.
47. Evolution has a direction.
48. No place, institution, organization can be named after a real person. Nor publicly-funded statues made of a real person either.
49. The average person on the planet will own two homes.
50. Electrons don’t flow in an electrical current.
51. Sexism is inherent in biology.
52. Fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Christians will become deep allies in culture wars.
53. Doctors will outlaw American football, and it will be played only on island countries.
54. Fewer people will learn English as a second language as real time machine translation gets better/easier/free.
55. China will break up, like the Soviet Union.
56. Other life in the universe is DNA-ish.
57. Fans will pay more to see robots dance than to see humans dance.
58. In the majority of countries on the planet, Asian Indians will become the most common immigrant.
59. In the near future the super rich will carry or wear no technology at all.
60. The adverse side effects of increasing IQ by genetics will limit it to very modest increases.
61. The next new religion to gain tens of millions of adherents will originate in China.
62. Like snowflakes, no two atoms of the same element are exactly identical in their ultimate composition of sub-sub-sub particles.
63. Tourism will become the industry with the largest number of employees globally.
64. Progress is real. This year is better than last year.
65. Moore’s Law will continue forever, forever being redefined.
66. Modern humans will fork into non-interbreeding species. Racism will be real.
67. Having a parent-given first name will be unfashionable. The norm will be to choose your legal name at puberty.
68. Information has mass.
69. General intelligence is highly heritable, stable, & predictive of success in life across most domains.
70. Fancy wines are a scam.
71. Child labor is good. Children would be happier if they started working with adults at age 10.
72. America is the least racist country in the world.
73. The AIs are already in charge of running the world.
74. Political representatives should be selected at random, as the Amish do.
75. Anonymity should be discouraged, and reduced to smallest amounts.
76. Cats and dogs are overrated.
77. All parents should require a license to have children, equivalent to the license adoptive parents need.
78. Most taxes should be penalty taxes, paired to the stuff we don’t want more of.
79. Circumcision should be a crime.
80. There is only one electron in the universe.
81. Nuclear power is the safest source of power per kw generated over lifetime.
82. Randomness is not real.
83. Democracy is a less than ideal form of government.
84. Consciousness is an illusion.