This is a fascinating video. At 7:00, Tom Rowsell (SurviveTheJive) reads out some excerpts of the Srimad Bhagvatam(an important hindu scripture) where many if not every single prophecy comes true. The higher values are replaced by lower ones. Ones only worth in society is based upon their level of affluence and sex, people have no loyalty to their own family, culture or values. The only thing people will satisfy will be their genitals and bellies.
Everything will decay but there is a glimmer of hope. Just taking the name of Krishna would help one escape life and attain moksha.
Tom makes references from other indo european religions as well, this is not a culture war or culture war adjacent thing, mostly just something I found super fascinating given that they all were faiths that were very similar for the most part and got many things about the future right. The issue with kaliyuga is that of values, we have seen astounding technological and economical growth, the truth in many places is that many have lost values that were considered important by those who appreciate antiquity (I do at least). Many will not agree but even then, would appreciate any thots on this.
I noticed that the comment counts don't seem to line up with the total comments on this post, and a couple others. Do we already have shadow bans in place here, or is this just some delay issue?
Posting the full text from a recent article on my Substack, about Internal Family Systems, the idea of integrating different parts of ourselves, and the classical Christian conception of demonic influence. Can't figure out how to paste images so... might be a tad confusing. Sorry!
I made a post on twitter about how the negative voice in the head can be considered “demonic” and man, it was polarizing!
(text): When I first started realizing that the "negative voice in my head" was demonic in origin, it was pretty terrifying
As I've gotten more used to the idea though, it's actually extremely helpful! Not identifying with that voice is crucial to positive growth
Ultimately a lot of people just said the basic “yup” but quite a few folks that I respected chimed in to tell me that no actually, this voice was “me.” Thinking it’s demonic is stupid and wrong:
And most of the language used to rebut me was, of course psychological in nature:
I'm sorry but this is a terrible idea. Firstly because it isn't true. Secondly you're doing the same thing that people do when they set up some kind of discrimination between their ego and their heart or their thoughts and their feelings or whatever mental apartheid; all of these will from then on impede their thoughts from thinking together as a team. Because all that is neuronal activities, mental events, all of the same type and they can work together better if they realize this. And I didn't see how an extra helping of manichean supernaturalism is going to do anything except make it worse.
It’s fascinating to me because I do think modern psychology has made great strides. Personally I’ve benefited quite a bit from various psychological frameworks, especially a focus on loving emotions, not shaming them, and learning to feel the things we shove down.
loving those voices vs demonising them may be more effective.
you can lovingly release them into light . vs struggle of resistance
Which is why I’m frustrated that Delia here is basically telling me that I’m wrong because I’m not loving myself enough!
Perhaps the best way to frame this issue is that there are two major religious worldviews clashing here: that of the Christian, and that of the Psychological.
The ‘Self’ as a Recent Invention
The modern idea of the ‘Self’ as we currently understand it is likely quite new, historically speaking. Threading back to the Greek polymaths Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, there’s a line often drawn between their ideas, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment, where the rational part of humanity slowly grows larger, and the individual, rational, atomized self becomes ascendant in the modern world.
If you want to look into this further, I recommend The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy by Anthony Gottlieb.
Of course given that this change in worldviews all happened in Western Europe, it means that the Psychological view has many elements that are quite reminiscent of (Western) Christianity, such as dividing everything into ‘good’ versus ‘sinful’, especially people!
In the psychological worldview, the valence is just switched where ‘good’ becomes ‘healthy’ or ‘functional’ and ‘sinful’ becomes ‘unhealthy’ or ‘dysfunctional.’
When you have this framework, anything that turns you ‘against yourself’ is ‘unhealthy.’ We should strive to be fully integrated beings, loving every part of ourselves.
Except this sort of mental exercise requires a LOT of gymnastics to get it to actually work. Like, for instance, let’s say there’s a part of me that wants to smack a friend in the face. I could take the approach of saying “oh ok, that’s just a part of me that is hurt and it lashing out, I should love that anger because it just wants to protect me.”
On the flip side, I could say “no this is an evil temptation, striking my brother in anger is wrong, and I will refuse the call of the Evil One.”
Both of these paths are valid, and in my opinion useful in different scenarios. Sometimes you will find it useful to go down the path of your past trauma, analyze why your emotions are reacting the way they are, and try and “solve” whatever part of you is triggered.
Other times, this process will just lead you through a funhouse hall of mirrors, where you constantly analyze and re-analyze every tiny change in emotion, sift through all your memories for anything with the slightest hint of similarity, and drive yourself mad trying to cobble together some just-so story that explains your “trauma.”
In the latter case, it’s better to just say it’s demonic, and move on. If anything, it’s a far more practical way to live your life.
Part of the problem with the Psychological mindset is that, similar to the Protestant mindset, every new generation feels the need to reinvent the wheel. You can’t just use the concepts Freud, Jung, Reich, and the other early psychologists did, you have to create an entirely new paradigm!
Seriously - mainstream psychology has, just in my lifetime, gone from Cognitive Behavior Therapy being flavor of the month, to Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, to Exposure Therapy, to Emotion-Focused Therapy, to Internal Family Systems… etc etc.
To put it more succinctly:
When you’re constantly reinventing words and concepts like this, it stalls out overall progress in the field. Not only that, it makes it hard for different generations to relate to each other because their terminology is changed.
I can read a Saint from over a thousand years ago talking about the temptations of demons, and understand what he or she means, at least to some degree. I highly doubt psychologists that far out will make any sense whatsoever.
So Why Demons?
Well, let me link you a great book review from Scott Alexander on the IFS book, The Others Within Us. The TL;DR is:
What I gather from the manuals: IFS is about working with “parts”. You treat your mind as containing a Self - a sort of perfect angelic intellect without any flaws or mental illnesses - and various Parts - little sub-minds with their own agendas who can sometimes occlude or overwhelm the Self. During therapy, you talk to the Parts, learn their motives, and bargain with them.
…The second assumption is that everything inside your mind is part of you, and everything inside your mind is good. You might think of [a negative part] as some kind of hostile interloper, ruining your relationships with people you love. But actually she’s a part of your unconscious, which you have in some sense willed into existence, looking out for your best interests. You neither can nor should fight her. If you try to excise her, you will psychically wound yourself. Instead, you should bargain with her the same way you would with any other friend or loved one, until either she convinces you that relationships are bad, or you and the therapist together convince her that they aren’t. This is one of the pillars of classical IFS.
The secret is: no, actually some of these things are literal demons.
Now ironically, I actually think this framing is TOO strong! The Orthodox Christian framing doesn’t tend to see demons as this extremely powerful, terrifying force that must be avoided at all costs. In fact, as St. Porphyrios says:
Show contempt for the devil. Don’t meet him head on. When you struggle against the devil with obstinacy, he flies at you like a tiger or a wild cat... Don’t look at evil. Turn your eyes to God’s embrace and fall into His arms and continue on your way.
Just because demons are real, doesn’t mean we should focus on them and fear them. Doing so is a mistake. At the same time, the psychological worldview is not sufficient for all the strange things that can go on in our minds. Sometimes the thing whispering in your ear really isn’t you. And pretending it is can make you crazy.
Not every impulse needs to be analyzed, integrated, or lovingly massaged into wholeness. Some things you’re safe to look at, say “this isn’t Good,” and promptly ignore them.
That’s the thing, calling these thoughts demonic ideally isn’t about fear or hatred, towards yourself or even the demon. It’s about clarity & practicality. It’s about denying evil the ability to worm its way inside your head, and pretend to be you.
Again, the core problem critics of this view of inner voices as demons seem to have is that you’ll be “turning against yourself.” I just want to clarify strongly, that is NOT my position. We should not be afraid of the depths of our souls, or feel we are turning against and having to crush a part of us. Living in fear is not the way, and hating ourselves is not the way either.
I’ll leave you with the words of a beautifully pious holy man, St. John Chrysostom, who says it better than I ever could myself:
Why do you fear the Devil, O Christians? He cannot force you to do anything. The Devil should, rather, fear you, not you the Devil, for you are clad in the armor and panoply of God; you have as a sling the sign of the Precious Cross, with which, and from a distance, you can smite all of the demons; you wield, as a two-edged sword, the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the demons fear and at which they tremble.
Thanks for reading me ramble about demons. If you want more, you know what to do.
Often, when we look at disincentives for childbearing, we think of them in terms of opportunity costs for the individual. But if children are cumulatively being considered a societal good, we should also weigh the cumulative opportunity costs to the individuals as a societal tradeoff. It seems to me that Ron Hosh's substack (of "luxury belief" fame) generally lives up to its tagline of "general incoherence," but he raised this point/question in this post. The kids have to come from somewhere; what tradeoff(s) should society make?
Teenage pregnancy? Major tradeoff against developing the human capital of the parents and, thusly, the parents' ability to develop the human capital of the children. (And, if you want to follow the HBD line of inquiry, you might hypothesize dysgenic selection effects.)
College students? Lesser tradeoff than above, but same general issue.
20-something professionals? We're taking human capital out of the economy, just after investing in its development, rather than trying to maximize its compound interest.
Hosh also brings up geography and sexual orientation (same-sex couples using IVF is a thing), though I don't think the tradeoffs here are as clear.
Have any of you thought about this? My answer to "Which couples should be having more children" is "All the couples who don't have as many children as they want" which I don't think cleaves cleanly enough across any demographic to give a more clear tradeoff than the subsidies required to support the children not-conceived out of financial concern. But others here are more open to social engineering than I am.
Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Cincinnati Bengals @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Denver Broncos @ New York Jets
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Jacksonville Jaguars @ Houston Texans
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Minnesota Vikings @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM New Orleans Saints @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Philadelphia Eagles @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Pittsburgh Steelers @ Indianapolis Colts
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Los Angeles Rams @ Chicago Bears
Sun 2024-09-29 4:05PM New England Patriots @ San Francisco 49ers
Sun 2024-09-29 4:05PM Washington Commanders @ Arizona Cardinals
Sun 2024-09-29 4:25PM Cleveland Browns @ Las Vegas Raiders
Sun 2024-09-29 4:25PM Kansas City Chiefs @ Los Angeles Chargers
Sun 2024-09-29 8:20PM Buffalo Bills @ Baltimore Ravens
Mon 2024-09-30 7:30PM Tennessee Titans @ Miami Dolphins
Mon 2024-09-30 8:15PM Seattle Seahawks @ Detroit Lions
The phrase "defensive alliance" is ambiguous. The rival meanings are not inherently incompatible. But in practise they tend in opposite directions. When the ambiguity is resolved some-one feels cheated.
To see the problem picture four countries, Timidland, Moralland, Weakland, and Aggroland. Timidland is spending more on defence than it wants to because it fears being attacked by Aggroland. Moralland is also spending more than it wants to on defence because it too fears attack by Aggroland. But the internal politics of Moralland are complicated. The moral thing to do is to build a larger army, attack Aggroland and liberate the people of Aggroland from the tyranny of the Chief Aggro. Or is that the moral thing to do? Isn't war bad?
Timidland and Moralland form an alliance. It is a "defensive alliance" meaning that Timidland will come to Moralland's aid if Aggroland attacks Moralland. But the people of Timidland are aware of the complicated internal politics of Moralland and it is explicit that if Moralland attacks Aggroland, then Moralland is on its own. Even instigating voids the alliance.
The problem arises because history isn't that neat. The 1914-1918 war starts with the Austro-Hungarian Empire giving an ultimatum to Serbia, Russia comes to Serbia's aid, Germany comes to Austria's aid, France and Britain have alliances to honour and end up fighting. If we want political theory to relate to the real world, we need to think about Moralland extending guarantees to Weakland.
Aggroland invades Weakland. Moralland supplies weapons to Weakland. And advisers. Eventually troops. Moralland artillery is shelling Aggroland invaders on Weakland soil from positions in Moralland. Counter battery fire from Aggrotroops in Weakland is hitting positions in Moralland. Does this trigger the defensive alliance and suck Timidland into the war?
Some Timidians argue that they never agreed to give guarantees to Weakland. Given the complicated history of the region, they would have refused to get involved if they had been asked. Others are saying that Moralland are the good guys. Of course Timidland must join the war. What use is a defensive alliance is you don't defend your allies? Peaceful Timidians feel that they have been out manoeuvred, and are being forced to honour guarantees to Weakland that they never made.
If Timidland is pulled into the war by the chains of the alliance, we can be more specific than calling it a defensive alliance. It was a "chaining alliance".
But what should we call a non-chaining alliance? I've picked the word "isolating". That is clearly wrong in theory. The terms of the alliance don't forbid Moralland from extending security guarantees to Weakland, they merely classify that as instigating; Moralland cannot call upon Timidland to help honour the guarantee.
But theory and practice disagree. The internal politics of Moralland has its guns-before-butter faction. They saw the alliance as a matter of building military strength, with a view to regime change in Aggroland, to save the world from the danger presented by the Chief Aggro. Moralland also has a butter-before-guns faction, that see the alliance as an opportunity to economise on defence spending, freeing up money for schools, hospitals, road, pensions, police, industrial policy, the climate emergency, tax cuts,... The list is endless. We see the likely outcome in Europe. NATO agrees that all members should spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. Most don't. The other priorities take precedence. In practice the non-chaining alliance leads to Moralland cutting defence spending. They are after all moral and pensioners deserve higher pensions, etc. The guns-before-butter faction are aghast to find that they have been out manoeuvred. They nearly had the army that they needed to protect Weakland from Aggroland. The alliance with Timidland was supposed to add to the army. In practise it subtracted. Moralland's own army has shrunk and Timidland's army is not available. The isolating alliance has left them isolated, unable to offer security guarantees to Weakland.
Obviously my fine distinction has contemporary resonances, but after World War Three reduces Europe and America to radioactive rubble, the run up to World War Four will involve China, India, Brazil, and Indonesia. Will they continue the tradition of talking about defensive alliances? Or will they embrace the distinction between chaining alliances and isolating alliances? I locate this essay in the British tradition of analytic philosophy, looking at words and attempting to resolve their ambiguities. Not all ambiguities; just those with large consequences.
What is intuition?
Intuition is the result of a subconscious mental process
I came up with this definition by pure intuition, it seems right to me, but how do I know it seems right? I just do. OK, but maybe it's not a good definition, maybe there are better definitions available online, and because I'm writing this for other people to read, I probably should check before posting (wait... is it "probably should check" or "should probably check"?, I think most people say the latter, but grammatically the former seems better), but I'm going to resist the urge for now.
Initially I started to write this post with a few drinks and wrote whatever came to my mind as it came, and the problem is that when you are thinking about how you are thinking, you are suddenly aware of how often your thinking process is interrupted by a thought, which if you explore it, it will lead you to more thoughts that are going to be interrupted in turn... it's a mess.
This stream of consciousness quickly ended being much longer than I anticipated, but I wouldn't subject my readers to it, why not? Because I've been writing for more than twenty years and I kind of have a feeling of what people like to read. But perhaps I should, maybe more people would like my unfiltered consciousness rather than these structured thoughts, or maybe what I think are structured thoughts other people would see as ramblings--not significantly different from the unfiltered ones.
It is difficult to write. After thinking about the topic I've realized I have so much to say about intuition, but if I say it all will take me a very long time to write, and it would take a very long time to read, and perhaps because of that nobody reads it. I would rather say a little about intuition so that more people read it, and if they don't, well, at least I didn't spend a lot of time writing about it.
But at this point I haven't said much about intuition, have I? Let me try to connect what I've said so far with intuition.
The best example I can think of is when chess master players do a move they are not even consciously aware of. It's clearly an intelligent move, and they can tell if it's a good move, but they can't tell you why. If you ask them why they made certain move, they might come up with an explanation, but this is not necessarily why they did it.
Research shows that the subconscious mind makes decisions independent of what the conscious mind experiences. My favorite example is a task in which when the actions of participants were analyzed systematically, it turns out all of them did the same thing, but they all came up with different explanations of why they did it.
This is a deep philosophical issue, because it touches consciousness, intelligence, the sense of self, and even free will.
How do I choose to write what I write? I don't truly know. I intuit that some things are better options than others, but how? Where do these thoughts come from? And if I didn't consciously choose these thoughts, then who is ultimately writing?
The truth is that intuition is a mystery.
I feel like I have made a "good" point, but I also feel like there's two important points I can make related to ChatGPT and Nassim Taleb. Should I stop now? I'm not sure.
Can intuition be wrong? Well, if it's a "mystery" one would be tempted to say intuition is just intuition, but I believe there's bad intuition, and this comes from understanding what an expert is.
When one starts to learn chess there are some mechanical things to remember: how each piece moves, what's the relative value of each piece, etc. The more one learns, the more these things become embedded on one's mind, so you don't have to think about them, you just intuit that a certain move is good because it leaves you with a material advantage. But then you learn that even if a certain move is advantageous in one turn, the opponent can answer in a way that leaves you in a disadvantage. So your intuition was not good enough, and you need to learn more. After countless hours of playing your intuition becomes top-notch.
But if intuition could be wrong, what alternative is there? Presumably the alternative is analytical thinking. Aha! This sounds like Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. Intuitive thought is System 1, analytical thought is System 2.
After hours of thinking about this topic and this relationship honestly just came to my mind.
Why didn't I initially thought of this? This is like asking a chess player why didn't he see a particular move... I cannot think what I did not think.
OK. But I haven't made my point yet, and now I have to consider explaining System 1 and 2 for people who are not familiar with them. Or maybe I should just assume everyone knows that, but no, because I remember the writing advice of Steven Pinker, beware of the curse of knowledge, except this is going to be read by mottizens and if I explain something that is so basic they might conclude that I am basic. Screw it.
I believe everyone thinks analytically (System 2), the only difference between an expert and a novice is that the expert has internalized so much analytical thinking into his intuition (System 1), that whatever the novice has to think slowly about, it comes naturally fast for the expert, leaving his analytical thinking free to do much more complex analysis.
So analytical thinking is nothing more than the process through which we build our intuition. The more analytical thinking we do, the better our intuition becomes.
I didn't connect this to Nassim Taleb, but the inspiration came from him, essentially: analytical thinking is overrated.
OK, now I really feel I have to make the next point.
Recently I've seen ChatGPT everywhere, after toying with it substantially and discussing what I've found, I'm pretty sure what I see and what other people see is quite different.
The argument that I've seen a lot of people make is basically "it's just a bot", whatever miraculous answers it provides are nothing more than a simulacra of an intelligent being. It's not "truly" intelligent because it cannot do analytical thinking.
The point that I think everyone is missing is that intelligence itself is a mystery.
I don't know how I am deciding the next word that I'm going to type. It depends on my current mental state, which itself depends on the entirety of what I've read in the past, and what I've written.
But I've reread what I've written five or even ten years ago, and it's not as "good" as what I can write now. It makes sense because now I've read more, and I've written more.
My intuition about what to write next is better now.
And this is exactly how language models work. The more data you feed into a model, the better it becomes at writing a response that is deemed "good" by its readers.
Pessimists say that even if ChatGPT generates something truly marvelous it's still just a bot, it doesn't actually know why it wrote what it wrote. But guess what... Neither does a human.
If I ask you: what is 8 + x = 10? You are probably going to come up with an answer immediately. Do you know how you arrived to that answer? We know that a toddler cannot answer that, so some training is necessary. The more training, the more automatic the response will be. ChatGPT also generates an automatic response based on its training.
I feel there's so much more to write about this, but I want to conclude on the basis of two propositions.
I could write a whole essay on free will, but let's suppose that it doesn't exist, also suppose that the true nature of humans is misguided, and we are nothing more than a consciousness. I believe these two things are true, but I don't have the space to substantiate them here.
Grant me those two suppositions. What follows is that we don't know what's going to come next from our subconscious mind, you don't know what I'm going to type next, but neither do I. My conscious mind is as much a passenger in this stream of consciousness as your conscious mind is (assuming it's still following). I'm just witnessing my intuition doing its thing, but in truth that's all I can truly do.
I still don't know if my definition of intuition is close to how a dictionary would define it, but it still feels true. And that's probably what all my knowledge is: whatever feels true. My intuition of what feels true comes from all the analytical thinking I've done in the past, and this is probably what a language model considers knowledge too.
Or maybe I'm confusing what intuition is with how it manifests, just like people in the past concentrated on how heat manifests, not on what it truly was.
Maybe intuition is the encoding of analytical thinking, which we only see when a decision has to be made.
Intuition is encoded analytical thought
Either way, I had never thought of intuition in this way before (I hadn't actually given it much thought), this insight wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't sat down and written about the topic in the first place. All my intuition was already there, I just had to play it out, and as I was writing, I was genuinely surprised by the thoughts that were popping out in real time (why didn't I think of that before?).
My intuition also tells me that my insight is not something trivial that other people have already expressed many times over, but I know I've had insights in the past that I consider non-trivial only for other people to shit on them, so I shouldn't let my hopes up. Worst-case scenario this intuition about intuition might feed future insights.
I am not a big fan of Alex Berenson. I don't like journalists because they don't understand population statistics. They are interested mostly in anecdotal cases and their duty is to write about them in an interesting and viral way. And yet, that is an important service to identify targets that are worth of deeper analysis.
In Alex case while he missed many times, he also hit some good targets.
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vaccine effectiveness against infection is lost withing 3-4 months
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prior infection provides stronger immunity than vaccination
The second was always suspected but the evidence was always lacking. Now it turns out that twitter supressed tweets that announced the first real evidence (even if not very strong) that it is the case. I believe that this suppression likely extended wider than just twitter and ultimately influenced the US policy to not recognise immunity from infection when vaccine mandates were put in place. In contrast, most European countries with mandates recognised immunity from prior infection in one way or another as inferior or equal to immunity from vaccination.
There might be some practical considerations – vaccination is easy to register and provide proof. Prior infection is more nebulous, requires expensive testing, some tests are less reliable. The whole idea casts shadow how reasonable vaccine mandates are in the first place. Some would worry that the recognition of immunity from prior infection could also encourage vaccine hesitant to seek getting infected.
Such policies however are very risky because they are conditional on us never finding out the truth. It was always more likely that prior infection confers stronger immunity than vaccination. It was stupid to try to supress the evidence at any time. Eventually it surfaced (as it was bound to) and made those attempts to control narrative look evil.
Note: I could not find any studies that estimate how many heavy metal bands are atheistic, so "most" is nothing more than a personal observation.
Chances are good that if you go to church, you sing. Most churches around the world; be it Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant; have singing as a part of worship. Every Sunday they meet, greet, sing, preach, share personal stories, and some then sing some more. Why?
The first time that I sang was in college in voice class. It was the single most enjoyable and fulfilling experience that I have ever had. I was awful, but there was this intense sense of unity, this sense of belonging that I had never experienced before. There we were, a group of just 20 or so students, and together we all made a work of art for the sake of of making art. It was beautiful. I had never felt so connected to people that I did not know before then, and ever since I stopped going to that college I have not felt that sense of connection to others so intensely. I do not go to church. I have not gone since I was a little kid. Yet, almost every day I am consciously envious of the people who can believe in God because of how beautiful that singing, that sense of community, was.
I believe the reason why so many churches have singing is because of this sense of community. Singing is a readily accessible and simple way to bring people together. Churches that don't sing don't build a sense of unity with singing, and people will go to the closest church that they feel the most belonging in. If churches that don't sing don't have other ways to supplement this sense of unity, then Darwinism happens: Churches that are less able to create a community are less fit to survive.
What if you don't believe in God? What if you're a kid, a teenager, and it's Sunday and your friends are out playing and having fun and going to the arcade or playing football and your parents instead make you go to church? The Sabbath takes your day of rest and turns it into a day of work. Instead of getting to relax you get to be angry. Angry at your parents for keeping you from your friends and for not loving you if they were to ever find out that you do not see the world the same way they do. Angry at the church and the people within it for hating the nonbelievers and gays and anyone who just doesn't belong. Angry at God for being a convenient weapon for this community, that you do not feel a part of, to use against you. And you sing.
You get good at singing, as you sing every Sunday and have every Sunday for as long as you can remember. Your puberty goes by filled with stress, as all puberties do, and yours gets to be filled with an extra dose of anger and alienation. And you sing some more. But what do you actually want to sing about? What emotion do you have that has gone unexpressed that you want people to hear? How do you want to be heard?
And you get mad.
So I recently heard about this supplement called Nicotinamide Mononucleotide. It's heralded as this great medicine that reduces aging, and gets rid of many issues.
And I really want to believe it, but there's something snakeoil salesmany about it.
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It's heralded as a magical cure with no downside
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It resolves so many issues and problems with your body it's unreal
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From brain to liver, to ankles and skin, it's all covered
It all sounds too good to be true to me. I don't think it has negative effects and it's actually malicious, but I think it's just a fad that's being pushed. I don't think it can do really bad harm, but I don't think there's any better effects than a tummy ache.
What do you think? Do you have experience with this supplement?
Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):
Thu 2024-12-19 8:15PM Cleveland Browns @ Cincinnati Bengals
Sat 2024-12-21 1:00PM Houston Texans @ Kansas City Chiefs
Sat 2024-12-21 4:30PM Pittsburgh Steelers @ Baltimore Ravens
Sun 2024-12-22 1:00PM Arizona Cardinals @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 2024-12-22 1:00PM Detroit Lions @ Chicago Bears
Sun 2024-12-22 1:00PM New England Patriots @ Buffalo Bills
Sun 2024-12-22 1:00PM New York Giants @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2024-12-22 1:00PM Tennessee Titans @ Indianapolis Colts
Sun 2024-12-22 1:00PM Philadelphia Eagles @ Washington Commanders
Sun 2024-12-22 1:00PM Los Angeles Rams @ New York Jets
Sun 2024-12-22 4:05PM Denver Broncos @ Los Angeles Chargers
Sun 2024-12-22 4:05PM Minnesota Vikings @ Seattle Seahawks
Sun 2024-12-22 4:25PM Jacksonville Jaguars @ Las Vegas Raiders
Sun 2024-12-22 4:25PM San Francisco 49ers @ Miami Dolphins
Sun 2024-12-22 8:20PM Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Dallas Cowboys
Mon 2024-12-23 8:15PM New Orleans Saints @ Green Bay Packers
Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):
Thu 2024-11-28 12:30PM Chicago Bears @ Detroit Lions
Thu 2024-11-28 4:30PM New York Giants @ Dallas Cowboys
Thu 2024-11-28 8:20PM Miami Dolphins @ Green Bay Packers
Fri 2024-11-29 3:00PM Las Vegas Raiders @ Kansas City Chiefs
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Indianapolis Colts @ New England Patriots
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Arizona Cardinals @ Minnesota Vikings
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Houston Texans @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Tennessee Titans @ Washington Commanders
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Pittsburgh Steelers @ Cincinnati Bengals
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Los Angeles Chargers @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Seattle Seahawks @ New York Jets
Sun 2024-12-01 4:05PM Los Angeles Rams @ New Orleans Saints
Sun 2024-12-01 4:05PM Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 2024-12-01 4:25PM Philadelphia Eagles @ Baltimore Ravens
Sun 2024-12-01 8:20PM San Francisco 49ers @ Buffalo Bills
Mon 2024-12-02 8:15PM Cleveland Browns @ Denver Broncos
Note: this post is about abstract and applied philosophy.
Value is that which people are drawn towards, and economically, which people are willing to trade other things of value for.
In Triessentialism, which I’ve described elsewhere, I’ve identified three four qualities of value, plus their opposites:
- Utility, which enables the pursuit of goals, and hassle, which impedes the pursuit of goals. Other writers attempting to quantify these have suggested measuring positive and negative “utils.”
- Enjoyment, the experience of having sensations and pseudo-sensations, and unpleasantness which is not enjoyed. Other writers attempting to quantify these have suggested measuring positive and negative “hedons”.
- Esteem, known in various cultures as status, honor, face, standing, etc., and disdain as a suggested general category for the negative. While some writers have lumped this in with hedons, I see esteem as something as different from experiences as magnetism is from gravity. Esteem, like magnetism, is polar; your esteem in your ingroup rises as it falls in your outgroup, and vice versa, someone beloved by your outgroup will be hated by your ingroup. This is obvious in the culture war, but less partisanly, with how punks and hippies reveled in being seen as weird or dangerous by upper and middle class society. I suggest measuring this in “estons.”
- Agency, the ability or authorization to cause or withhold action, and its opposite, constraint. People and mammals who do not feel their agency to choose will struggle against their constraints inversely to how inevitable or inescapable the constraint seems. I suggest measuring this in “freedons”.
I believe that the util/hedon dichotomy is an insufficient economic model of the world, and that Triessentialism’s util/hedon/eston/freedon model can rehabilitate the increasingly creaky Homo economicus idea.
As to their Triessentiality:
- Utility is the How, the Logical aspect of value
- Enjoyment is the What, the Physical aspect of value
- Esteem is the Why, the Emotional aspect of value
- Agency is the Moral aspect of value, at the center of the triple-circle Venn diagram of What, How, and Why.
These fundamental categories and the Venn nature of Triessentialism suggests three additional constructed categories of value as the junctions of What/How, How/Why, and Why/What.
note: I have edited this since posting. “Agency” replaces the earlier weaker word “choice”, and at the suggestion of Bing chat, “Enjoyment” replaces the clinical “experiences”. I have also reclassified the What and Why at the end.
Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):
Thu 8:15PM Buffalo Bills @ Miami Dolphins
Sun 1:00PM Cleveland Browns @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Sun 1:00PM Indianapolis Colts @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 1:00PM New Orleans Saints @ Dallas Cowboys
Sun 1:00PM New York Giants @ Washington Commanders
Sun 1:00PM New York Jets @ Tennessee Titans
Sun 1:00PM Las Vegas Raiders @ Baltimore Ravens
Sun 1:00PM Los Angeles Chargers @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 1:00PM Seattle Seahawks @ New England Patriots
Sun 1:00PM San Francisco 49ers @ Minnesota Vikings
Sun 1:00PM Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Detroit Lions
Sun 4:05PM Los Angeles Rams @ Arizona Cardinals
Sun 4:25PM Cincinnati Bengals @ Kansas City Chiefs
Sun 4:25PM Pittsburgh Steelers @ Denver Broncos
Sun 8:20PM Chicago Bears @ Houston Texans
Mon 8:15PM Atlanta Falcons @ Philadelphia Eagles
This is the first intermission of 👯, listed as season 1 episode 7 for filing purposes. In this episode, TracingWoodgrains, MasterThief, The Sultan Of Swing, XantosCell, and Unsaying discuss religious community.
This discussion was originally slated to be released as an episode of the The Bailey podcast, but eventually it was decided that it should be published elsewhere instead, and so it finds its home here, at 👯.
The image used in the video is Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld's Pentecost woodcut for "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860:
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schnorr_von_Carolsfeld_Bibel_in_Bildern_1860_226.png
Show notes:
36:00 Unsaying's superintelligence of deity post: https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/a54d99/the_compression_problem/
39:47 Despite instructions made in the moment, this tangent was not cut out, as it turned out to be relevant. Normally, any requests to cut something out would be honored, but everyone involved assented to this edit of the episode.
47:03 Xantos's snake-handling video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2dlnqRDmmds
Extended show notes:
(Discussing unsuitability for marriage and the path of monasticism) https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/hkesjh/comment/fwy8ofv/
https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/watching-spotlight-young-priest
https://babylonbee.com/news/dozens-of-bible-verses-come-forward-to-accuse-joel-osteen-of-abuse
(If people want more BG on heresies, i dunno) https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/4ihgog/extra_history_on_early_christian_schisms_pt_2/
Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule, all times Eastern, is the final week of the regular season.
The next post will be a single, post-season thread that'll include discussions about the playoffs and the Super Bowl.
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Buffalo Bills @ New England Patriots
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Carolina Panthers @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Chicago Bears @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Cincinnati Bengals @ Pittsburgh Steelers
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Cleveland Browns @ Baltimore Ravens
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Houston Texans @ Tennessee Titans
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Jacksonville Jaguars @ Indianapolis Colts
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Kansas City Chiefs @ Denver Broncos
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Miami Dolphins @ New York Jets
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Minnesota Vikings @ Detroit Lions
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM New Orleans Saints @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM New York Giants @ Philadelphia Eagles
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Los Angeles Chargers @ Las Vegas Raiders
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Seattle Seahawks @ Los Angeles Rams
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM San Francisco 49ers @ Arizona Cardinals
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Washington Commanders @ Dallas Cowboys
Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.