I think it’s dangerous to believe one is special when not, but it’s also dangerous not to act like you’re special, even if you aren’t.
The Mediocrity Principle is a key idea in science, which basically says:
From Edge:
The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren’t special. The universe does not revolve around you, this planet isn’t privileged in any unique way, your country is not the perfect product of divine destiny, your existence isn’t the product of directed, intentional fate, and that tuna sandwich you had for lunch was not plotting to give you indigestion. Most of what happens in the world is just a consequence of natural, universal laws — laws that apply everywhere and to everything, with no special exemptions or amplifications for your benefit — given variety by the input of chance. Everything that you as a human being consider cosmically important is an accident. The rules of inheritance and the nature of biology meant that when your parents had a baby, it was anatomically human and mostly fully functional physiologically, but the unique combination of traits that make you male or female, tall or short, brown-eyed or blue-eyed were the result of a chance shuffle of genetic attributes during meiosis, a few random mutations, and the luck of the draw in the grand sperm race at fertilization.
This is like my view of free will.
We should behave in one way in order to make life rich and enjoyable, but use our knowledge of the truth of the opposite as our foundational rules.
So when it’s fun and nice to see human behavior as being authored, we should do that. And when it’s harmful and hateful to do so, we should not.
Similarly, when it’s enjoyable to see ourselves as unique snowflakes we should do so, but the moment it starts muddying our sense of reality or causing us to look down on others, we should remember that we’re all randomized stardust.
