BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
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User ID: 3614
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
1d ago
Do you really think shoving all the gays back in the closet and teaching masturbation is evil will fix everything?
A practical Church-oriented solution would probably wind up looking like homosexual desires are a cross some people wind up bearing, like some people have kleptomania. It doesn’t matter how much you desire to steal, or how seen and valued it would make you feel, or what great justifications wordcel kleptomaniacs can generate to justify themselves. Civilization just isn’t going to let people steal all the time. The ordered solution is to not do it.
I imagine Richard Simmons was the optimal gay guy, from the Church’s perspective. Did he break down and sin from time to time? I’m sure he probably did. He was discreet enough that we will never know for sure, though.
But when society condones disordered living, it causes real harm to both society and the individual. Just like when society condones shoplifting, for any reason, SJW or otherwise, eventually stores start shutting down, harming society overall and the individuals who were doing the stealing.
Addendum: This stance presumes that homosexuality is, in fact, irresistibly based in biology, which I am not aware is proven.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
1d ago
And this is a fair way to say it.
If I am a Martian Elm on Neptune, I’m not concerned much about the plight of the Neptunian Elm. But I also don’t want the Venusian Elm to move in on my nice spot by the river, either, and start competing for water. Even if I am supremely confident I’ll win, there’s nothing I really gain out of the situation.
Besides not speciating into a Quokka Elm, I guess.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
1d ago
I got sniped by your edit, RIP.
Sorry.
To respond, you seem to think of the “weak but strong” mindset as recognizing the enemy’s strength but thinking oneself still capable of taking them on.
I think it is most essentially revealed in that Tyson quote. It is unsurprising to me that uneducated Iron Mike, via practical training and competition at the highest levels, stumbled across the idea’s purest distillation. Throughout training, he is deeply concerned that his opponent is too strong for him. This leads him to train harder. He does retain a certain degree of confidence in his own strength, though, or else he wouldn’t be willing to face this guy’s challenge. At the moment of decision, he then switches over to the idea that his opponent is too weak, that he knows he has him. But he still has to respect his opponent’s strength, because Tyson demonstrably fought hard and tactically. He is just utterly confident that he is the strong one now.
It’s important to note he wasn’t always right! He was one of the greatest, but I think it’s fair to say that when he lost this “too weak and too strong” mentality, he also lost bouts he could have won.
As I see it, and as how most applications of the term I’ve seen look like, it’s a cognitive trap that does improve morale, but usually does so at the cost of epistemic clarity(e.g. “Republikkkans are literal fascists, we can surely defeat them with protests and slogans!)
I think this is just a side effect of, what I would Chudishly call “ivory tower thinking.” A sort of over-academicizing of thought. Despite this, the concept is extremely practically useful in real life.
The way it is tossed around by overeducated people who do not have any actual experience with low-information, high-friction contests is what leads to the cognitive trap version that I think you do correctly identify.
I think this is why colleges and universities used to be so big on amateur sports for as much of the student body as possible. I’m sure the logic would have been “It’s just good for the young men’s development,” but I think this is kind of practical learned knowledge is an element of what they meant by “good.”
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
1d ago
people can and do come to definitive conclusions about the world all the time
But this is different from truth. A definitive conclusion is just a definitive conclusion. People conclude wrongly all the time. The truth will be discovered in the contest.
Are the #resist libs correct in assuming themselves the underdogs?
We’ll find out, won’t we? But at every moment, it is best for me, Joe Chud Reactionary, to treat them as both strong (they control many commanding heights of information warfare and have copious quantities of the sinews of war, among other advantages), and weak (I must believe that they can in fact be defeated, implying that my side is stronger than them due to some combination of factors.)
They would benefit from doing the same thing, so I hope they don’t.
Righteous is irrelevant, though?
True is also irrelevant because your enemy is always a mystery. Lacking 100% knowledge of your enemy (because how could you ever have it?), it is impossible to know the truth of your enemy. So it’s best to plan with humility and act with confidence.
And I say good in the context of healthy, as in, likely to lead to a better and more predictively successful life
So, adaptive wins, as it always does.
Edit: Probably worth saying that I think this is also a good and righteous state of mind. When God told the Israelites he was giving them Canaan, they didn’t just waltz in and wait for God to vaporize their enemies. They sent in spies, scoped out the land, enjoyed a few odds-evening miracles, engaged in effective battle strategies, suffered and died to defeat (partially) enemies that were simultaneously too strong (to be defeated solely by the Israelites) and too weak (to resist God’s will).
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
1d ago
I think this is just healthy psychological sentiment for any human trying to competitively get things done vs. another human. Mike Tyson has a good quote about this:
While I’m in the dressing room five minutes before I come out, I’m breaking my gloves down, I’m pushing the leather to the back of my gloves, so my knuckle could pierce through. When I come out I have supreme confidence. I’m scared to death. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of everything. I’m afraid of losing. I’m afraid of being humiliated. But I’m confident. The closer I get to the ring the more confident I get. The closer, the more confident. The closer the more confident I get. All during training I’ve been afraid of this man. I think this man might be capable of beating me. I’ve dreamed of him beating me. For that I’ve always stayed afraid of him. The closer I get to the ring the more confident I get. Once I’m in the ring I’m a god. No one could beat me. I walk around the ring but I never take my eyes off my opponent. Even if he’s ready and pumping, and can’t wait to get his hands on me. I keep my eyes on him. I keep my eyes on him. Then once I see a chink in his armor, boom, one of his eyes may move, and then I know I have him. Then once he comes to the center of the ring he looks at me with his piercing look as if he’s not afraid. But he already made that mistake when he looked down for that one tenth of a second. I know I have him. He’ll fight hard for the first two or three rounds, but I know I broke his spirit. During the fight I’m supremely confident. I’m making him miss and I’m countering. I’m hitting him to the body; I’m punching him real hard. And I’m punching him, and I’m punching him, and I know he’s gonna take my punches. He goes down, he’s out. I’m victorious. Mike Tyson, greatest fighter that ever lived.
What is that but “my enemy is simultaneously too strong and too weak?” And lots of competitive athletes have very similar points of view about their psychology during training and competition. It energizes them and keeps them hungry and competitive.
So I think you’re right, it’s a common narrative and, one step further, it’s a good and healthy narrative.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
1d ago
I was in the gym three times this week. I started the Jim Stoppani Beginner to Advanced program and, after roughly two years away from the gym, my lifts are somewhere between humbling and humiliating. On the other hand, at least I’m doing it.
On the gripping hand, I also did two sparring sessions, for about an hour each, and those went much, much better in the ego realm. I just have years of skill and experience on anyone else at the new club, and so even being very rusty (noticeably so to myself), I was able to spar in a pretty relaxed and casual manner and still do very well. Which is good because I needed the ego boost after the lifting.
On the other gripping hand, while I can do plenty to build up the skill level of the other people at the club, being a big fish in a small pond is the way to stagnate. I’ll have to think about ways to regularly get to other clubs and work with better fighters. In the interim, I aim to at least clean up my own technique so that I, personally, feel less sloppy.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
2d ago
Jeroma, Jerometta, Jeromina, and Jeromabelle
@FiveHourMarathon We’ve solved your problem for you.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
2d ago
This would work great if his name is Jerome and he winds up having all daughters.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
2d ago
Even the parting of the Red Sea would get secularized these days.
19 Then the angel of God who went before the host of Israel moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, 20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness; and the night passed[a] without one coming near the other all night.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. 23 The Egyptians pursued, and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. 24 And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down upon the host of the Egyptians, and discomfited the host of the Egyptians, 25 clogging[b] their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily; and the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel; for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”
That’s easily attributable to luck and unusual weather conditions. Even if the whole modern world saw it being broadcast live on TikTok, I’m not sure it would change the priors of anybody, one way or the other, really.
Things like Elijah calling down fire from Heaven, and God speaking to Job from the storm, those might be more plausible. But then…AI and movie magic. I’m not sure those would have any effect on anyone who wasn’t directly present, and perhaps not many of those, either.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
7d ago
That's what makes this 180 so conspicuous. It makes no sense: if you know you're compromised, you wouldn't have campaigned on lifting the veil, if you know you're not, what could possibly convince you to hesitate at the last second?
I think it is at least moderately possible that we live in such a degraded political and media environment, that Donald Trump can rise to the Presidency by just continuously doing the thing that seems like the best idea at the time. So, compromised or not, run on nailing Epstein johns to the wall, because that incrementally improves your electoral chances. Then, once in power, if it turns out there are reasons to not release that information, just do a 180 with no explanation and brazen out the short term consequences because they don’t matter in the long run.
Donald Trump walks the Shortest Path.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
8d ago
The fact that very few of the characters actually had any agency at all in Blindsight is a feature, not a bug. You're not reading about plucky oddballs making decisions and saving the world, you're reading about an extended game of 4D chess between two non-conscious gods in which the humans are a footnote at best. Theseus itself is an analogy for how the book says the human brain works, with the conscious actors being irrelevant at best and actively harmful at worst, and the non conscious actors being responsible for almost everything in spite of the fact they’re usually backgrounded in the plot.
Yeah, and this is where I will defend Watt’s writing in these two books, where Blindsight is his masterpiece and will probably go down as a classic of 21st-century science fiction. Sure, his characters are frequently more like plot coupons, but they’re not really the story. The story is about titanic forces moving around in the background, between the lines on the page, which is pretty cool when he pulls it off and the reader figures it out.
I think that’s basically the theme he’s always writing about, even his early Rifters series was like a first stab at that idea.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
8d ago
You’ve never heard of Thalidomide?
And it’s not about comparing, it’s about Science not being perfect, despite it’s many notable successes.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
8d ago
One day some dudes with erlenmeyer tubes showed up, and they saved half the children. They saved half the children.
They also turned some of them into flippered mutants, so let us not act like Science has ever batted 1.000 here. Not the physical sciences, and certainly not the social sciences.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
8d ago
I am somewhat unfairly advantaged by having been a lurker long before I started posting, but you and I have significantly different points of view on what constitutes “a bad thing.”
That said, I once believed the trajectory of human civilization was in the direction of being golden gods, so I have hopes that you’ll come around. [[Insert positive emoji of your choice]]
Completely unrelated, but I have often wanted to pick your brain on your, trying to be fair here, significant concern around death. Correct everything wrong about my interpretations of your ideas, but you seem to be very focused on instantiating uploads and achieving eternal cyber life of the mind at some point in your expected lifespan.
It seems trivial to me that a society that can actually achieve that goal, is on the cusp of being able to simulate every mind that ever lived, and any arbitrary number of minds that didn’t. So if you think it’s inevitable that simulation will happen, what’s your concern about dying? The pain will suck, I’m sure and that’s fair, I’d enjoy a golden god body too, but it seems highly likely given your priors that you’ll just go to sleep and then wake up a simulation at some unspecified point in the future, with no sensation of loss.
What do you think? Do you want to spin this conversation off somewhere else?
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
8d ago
Strongly B.
I have no stance one way or the other on whether there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Sure, it’s a bit implausible that we’re the first, but also someone has to be so why not us? It’s just unknowable at the moment.
If there is intelligent life and it developed further away than Mars, I think it is impossible for it to have the means and desire to reach Earth, and then spend the last 80 to 8000 years apparently mostly focused on pranking us. They would have conquered us to work in the unobtanium mines, or coldly and amorally reshaped the planet to their liking, or just moved on, or something.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
8d ago
I want to believe, but also there are no aliens in the classical “beings from outer space” sense.
I rate this news 5 Nothings out of 5 Ever Happens.
You are correct that Comic Sans is the appropriate font for this.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
8d ago
Adoption is an even worse offender if you take this line of thinking.
No significant argument here. The kind of adoption process that involves traveling the world to find the perfect orphan is straight-up child buying, and has some moral similarities to eugenic embryo modification.
What I am struggling with, however, is understanding the game plan of the aliens - specifically why on Earth the alien Theseus went up against would intentionally seed the Icarus Array with a lifeform capable of turning the entirety of humanity into a super-intelligent hive-mind. That is an utterly suicidal move.
My takeaway from the two books was this:
Beginning of Blindsight
Theseus arrives at Big Ben.
The Captain/Jukka Sarasti realizes almost immediately upon encountering Big Ben that all current life in the Solar System is fucked.
Big Ben is the alien. The Scramblers are just antibodies or pieces of the larger hivemind that is Big Ben/Rorschach.
The rest of the plot of Blindsight plays out, with The Captain knowing in advance that Theseus and its crew will be inevitably reprogrammed and consumed by the Scramblers.
The Captain executes a dead man’s hand strategy where whatever information Big Ben inevitably sends back down the telematter stream to Icarus is going to be edited/hacked.
End of Blindsight/Beginning of Echopraxia
Big Ben sends information back down the telematter stream to Icarus. Under normal circumstances, this would start the process of creating Big Ben 2, except now with access to all the matter and energy of the Sun, rather than the brown dwarf Big Ben 1 was found orbiting.
The Captain’s dead man’s hand strategy results in this information not beginning the process of making Big Ben 2, but rather Portia, which has similar capabilities to Big Ben 1 but is a competing organism. This hack was what the Captain was working on the whole time Theseus was engaging with Big Ben.
The Captain expects Portia to consume all life in the Solar System, but in a hivemind kind of way similar to the Bicams, thus allowing humanity and vampires to continue existing, sort of, while also being able to compete against entities like Big Ben.
End of Echopraxia
Portia is humanity. The human shaped bodies are just antibodies or pieces of the larger hivemind that is Portia.
Book 3 would be a war of super-intelligences between the alien Big Ben and the nearly as alien Portia, with all remaining human-esque entities caught in the middle.
I find it interesting to think that under this interpretation, the Captain is an exquisitely well-aligned super-intelligence. Its strategy is the only way to save anything of what humanity was, given the circumstances and universe as presented.
Anyways, to answer your question with my personal interpretation, the alien’s plan took a left turn when the Captain was able to execute some kind of Hail Mary man-in-the-middle attack on their information transfer to Icarus.
Incidentally, this all implies that almost all of the character actions in Blindsight are irrelevant to the plot, and even actively counterproductive, because the single most important thing occurring is the Captain making sure that Big Ben never susses out that there is another super-intelligence in the mix.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
8d ago
Are children possessions? Can they be bought and sold?
Er, well, no
Surrogacy businesses everywhere in sudden disarray.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
11d ago
That’s even more deportable than the gang tattoos.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
13d ago
What is to be done? Clearly we must do something
Why must we do something?
Or are you describing someone else’s thinking? Sorry, it just isn’t clear to me if the quoted bit is your own thinking on the subject.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
13d ago
I raise you Michael Mansell.
Confident that they could, and so never having asked if they should, Australian eugenics scientists continue to pursue their goal of creating the whitest oppressed black person to ever live.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
14d ago
Thanks for the info!
Very interesting stuff.
This is insane. I love a good example of governmental statistical fudging, thanks!
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