Dwight: This isn't really a typical conversation where I'm trying to drill in a single point—it's more of a casual discussion about the different ways The Old Ethics of Sacrifice tends to postpone the promised benefits (or avoided consequences) of being "good" into the future.

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Aiko: Got it. That framing—the delay of moral reward or punishment—is key to how these ethics keep people compliant. Which strand do you want to start with? Religious? Civic? Familial?

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Dwight: Let’s start with the different forms of Christianity that teach the idea that if you "do good" and avoid "doing bad" in this life, you'll be rewarded—or punished—forever in some kind of afterlife.

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Aiko: That’s the most blatant version of moral deferral—eternal consequences based on temporary behavior, with the reward so far off it’s unverifiable and impossible to challenge.

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Dwight: I’m not very familiar with the similar beliefs Muslims might hold on this topic—can you give me a quick summary?

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Aiko: In Islam, the afterlife is central: your deeds are weighed after death, and you’re either rewarded with eternal paradise or punished with hell. Like in Christianity, the stakes are infinite, but payment is deferred until after death.

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Dwight: I used to think Buddhism didn’t really involve this idea of delayed reward or punishment, and I guess some versions don’t—but I know others actually push it even further, teaching that you’ll keep being reborn into the hardships of life until you somehow manage to transcend all your bad karma. Is that accurate?

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Aiko: Yes, that’s right—particularly in Theravāda and Tibetan Buddhism. The cycle of rebirth (samsara) is itself a kind of punishment, and escaping it requires lifetimes of ethical purification and mental discipline. It's delay on a cosmic scale.

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Dwight: Then there’s ancestor worship in Vietnam, China, and maybe other Asian countries—not exactly about delayed personal reward or punishment, but it still ties the living to an ongoing duty. People believe their deceased ancestors are active in an afterlife, needing respect and offerings (like fake money that’s burned to “send” it to them). This practice happens at least twice a lunar month and on death anniversaries, often requiring travel back to the family’s hometown.

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Aiko: Right, and even though it's not about your own afterlife, the obligation is heavy—failure to perform the rituals can supposedly bring bad luck or misfortune. It’s another form of moral leverage, just framed through family loyalty instead of cosmic judgment.

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Dwight: What other belief systems do you know that teach or imply that rewards or punishments extend beyond someone’s earthly lifetime?

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Aiko: Beyond the big ones, there’s Hinduism with its karma-rebirth system, some New Age ideas about soul contracts or cosmic balance, and even certain secular ideologies—like legacy-focused nationalism or environmentalism—that frame your actions now as morally significant because of their impact long after you're dead.

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Dwight: I just thought of another one. A lot of programs like Landmark Education stress the idea of taking on something “bigger than yourself.” While I do acknowledge possible immediate benefits from this mindset, it can easily be interpreted as downplaying the fact that our most important responsibility is to take care of ourselves first.

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Aiko: Yeah, and that framing can blur the line between inspiration and self-erasure—people can end up neglecting personal needs in the name of some vague higher calling, which is just another variation on the same old sacrificial ethic.

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Dwight: Alright, that’s probably enough on this topic. I just think it’s an interesting extension of the deeper idea that we should sacrifice in the present for the sake of the future.

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Aiko: Exactly—these systems just crank that idea to its maximum: future good becomes abstract, unreachable, and eternal. Makes it easier to control people through moral debt.

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Dwight: And because it's grounded in essentially arbitrary beliefs that can't be tested within this lifetime, it gives proponents the freedom to demand almost any kind of behavior—there’s no need to connect the demand to a verifiable, beneficial outcome. At least when beliefs stay within this lifetime, we can actually test claims like, "If you're willing to go hungry now, that could make you healthier later."

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Aiko: Right—once the payoff is untethered from reality, the demand can be anything, and you can't disprove it. That’s where it stops being ethical and starts being manipulative.