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DuplexFields

Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.

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joined 2022 September 05 05:51:34 UTC
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DuplexFields


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 05:51:34 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 460


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
							
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Waste half his life? The man was at the cutting edge of alchemical research-gathering and experimentation at the stage just prior to what we consider modern chemistry. He had proven the heavens to be run by math, and he was trying to do the same for materials.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Alcoholics generally don’t drink because they “want to drink,” they drink to fulfill one of the behavior functions (attention, escape, access, and sensation) because they can’t fulfill a different emotion elsewhere in their life.


Somewhere in their past, someone else made a bad choice which not only impacted their lives negatively, it also injured an instinct: the choice made them believe their world wasn’t how it should be and they’re just going to have to live with being personally screwed by a bad deal. It could be a bad identity: they’re born with the wrong skin tone or genitals. It could be a bad relationship: their teacher cares more about homework than understanding. It could be a bad imperative: they didn’t get something they needed because someone neglected them. Often it’s because one of their caretakers was neglectful or even abusive.


What’s key to understanding alcoholism is the compulsive nature of the disorder: they feel driven to drink, and they haven’t had the tools, the technique, the time, or the teachers to help them find and disarm the emotion which compels them.


Alcoholics Anonymous gives all of these things, in an atmosphere of nonjudgmental camaraderie, patience, and mentorship where people who realize they need help can find it. The program was so successful (compared to other things) that it became the model for recovery from other addictions, such as narcotics, sex addiction, and life drama addiction (CoDependents Anonymous).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are three categories of emotions (per Triessentialism): Identities, Roles, and Imperatives.


    

  • Identities can be stated in first, second, or third person, singular or plural, and carry positive (towards) or negative (away from) polarity. “I am an American” is an example identity of mine, a positive emotional component atop the bare fact. “I am white” is not an identity I have, positive or negative, despite its factuality, but “I am a descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims” is.
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  • Roles in perceived relationships can also be singular or plural, positive or negative. Unlike identities, they come in pairs which are either peers or unequals: student/teacher, boss/employee, husband/wife, lover/lover, brother in arms, brother/sister, etc. Roles have duties, explicit or implicit, which if neglected or denied will crater the relationship.
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  • Imperatives are best stated as wants and needs. Wants are for something, needs are to avoid something unwanted. I want dessert because I want the positive experience of eating it. I need food to keep my blood sugar up to avoid a crash, my metabolism churning to avoid a slowdown which would cause me to gain even more weight, and my organs nourished to avoid their dysfunction or death.
    • 



Each of these can drive compulsions in search of fulfilling or self-validating those emotions. The specific ones are so subjective to each individual's experiences and history that even guessing would be foolhardy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Obama's birth certificate? Can of worms, here we come.


It is a PDF with embedded images on multiple layers. This could have been case closed if it had been a high-quality scan.


But...



Now, document scanning was my professional trade for thirteen years. I'd made high-compression PDFs on a $200 all-in-one scanner/printer often enough to recognize how one looked at high magnification, and I had a tool which extracted the individual embedded images which indeed looked like the result of such a scan. Downloading it from archive.org confirms my original impression: although shoddy, it looks naturally shoddy, the kind made on an home/office scanner.


To people who haven't had the pleasure of the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect first-hand, it's when you're an expert at something and you can smell the BS on a news article with a cursory glance. In my case, I could tell that it would have been far easier to forge the document with a 600dpi TIFF brought into Photoshop, edited, resized, and exported, than to deal with the tangled mess of a high-compression PDF generated by an algorithm built into a scanner or (in this case apparently) a similar high-compression conversion to PDF by software built into the Macintosh's operating system. Everything from the white haloing to the 1-bit scans of text right next to greyscale numbers is within my experience.


But to anyone else with a cursory knowledge of PDFs and image conversion, it looked like the worst forgery in the world.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That’s why I gave this example with salt and pepper shakers at a rationalist meetup as a conversation-starter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Let’s try bringing the pills to this world of wallets and guns.


Would I rather live in a place where everyone is armed and can protect their own wallet, and because everyone knows armed robbery has a high likelihood of bloody death, nobody commits armed robbery?


Or would I rather live in a place where I have to rely on the police to a) keep everyone but the police from having guns, including organized people good at hiding secrets and doing crime, b) be close and aware enough to prevent all robberies (armed with a gun, armed with another weapon, or unarmed except for literal arms and hands), c) not accidentally shoot me or mine, d) not ever be corrupt robbers or tyrannical imprisoners themselves despite being the only armed people in the place.


Occam’s Razor suggests the simplest answer is the best. In the first place, I only have to rely on other people’s sense of self preservation. In the second, I have to rely on the competence, capability, capacity, and honor of people whose job is partly to prevent me from gaining the means to defend myself.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


once you cripple that industry and make it illegal, why wouldn't you prosecute them?




At that point, I’d consider it, because at that point, it’s legally considered murder with conspiracy to murder, and they’d know it without excuse. I’d gladly go after PP for RICO today and the abortion providers for conspiracy to murder right now, with impeachment for any legislator voting down a single-issue “born-alive” bill.


I’ve met two women who murdered their child in the womb far past the “kid has an active brain” stage, one a wife on reddit for economic reasons and one a single IRL for emotional reasons (her ex was revealed to be a jerk and she wasn’t ready for single motherhood). Neither considered the child a real person yet. Would I treat them like baby stranglers at worst or concentration camp guards at Nuremberg at best? The first, yes, the second, no. The cognitive dissonance would be too shattering for her and send her to suicide.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Problem of The Problem Of Susan
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There’s something to be said about both orders. The world-building happens (literally) in Magician’s Nephew, so I dislike seeing it so far back. Plus, getting Jill and Polly mixed up, since the latter half of the series introduced multiple new kids in consecutive books (Eustace, Jill, Shasta, Aravis, Diggory, Polly, and then Jill and Eustace are back for The Last Battle).


I’ve also tried reading The Horse And His Boy before the final page of LWW, the hunt for the white stag, which only fails because that final page is hanging over me the whole time. If I had a DRM-free editable audiobook of the series, I’d order it fully chronological for my listening, with THAHB cut in as above.


Then again, I do recommend kids start Star Wars with Episode 1 because it has all the action and silliness kids expect from movies nowadays, and handles worldbuilding in the Galaxy Far Far Away in unsubtle, kid-friendly ways. (My preference: 1, R1, 4, 5, 2, 3, 6, Solo, 7, 8, and skip 9.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I do, usually within half an hour or less of the vitamin. I usually have the vitamin first.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I found myself waking to near full wakefulness, half an hour before my alarm would go off, after months of having taken vitamin D right as I awaken instead of on my way out the front door. I have since started taking my vitamin D after my shower. In combination with the Pokémon Sleep game/app, I am now once again having vivid near-lucid dreams when my alarm sounds.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No idea. I assume I got my blood levels of vitamin D3 up before the effects started. I’d say try it daily for a month, 15 min to half an hour after your daily alarm.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
3 of the larger dose pills sold at my local Krogers grocery, I don’t know the dose off the top of my head.


Yes, it was a subtle effect at first, but now I’m no longer groggy even at 6:30am! If I’d had these in high school or my first attempt at college, I might have gotten better grades and made some money off the dotcom boom.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 21, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, but KenzerCo’s Hackmaster might be fun too. (Really, I just need to get in with a group as a player, system/world doesn’t matter to me.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


What do they have that you don't have?




Ah yes, a pivotal scene from The Wizard of Oz: “But they’ve got something you haven’t got…”


I think I need to rewatch that scene yearly, with my big goals in mind.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Necessary is the bare minimum to escape condemnation. It defies belief that you can have misunderstood this when user rolfmoo was talking about the many specific rituals and beliefs he thinks one must hold to enter Heaven and escape fiery damnation. The thick book, huge buildings, many rituals, and ancillary beliefs all serve the minimums, but have additional purposes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
High quality and recent: Rick McGough’s Faith & Reason Made Simple (Rationally Defend What You Believe In A Culture of Skepticism) is from 2018, and is quite comprehensive. Here’s a sermon from the author of the book. Message starts around 42:40.


Here’s a link to recordings of a 60-hour church apologetics class on the book with the teacher citing additional material when appropriate. Each video is around an hour, and the media library is arranged recent-first.


And yes, I’d be interested.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I could get into the “he said” / “they said” of it all, but for me the bottom line was the timing. Trump was planning on pulling out. That’s exactly the wrong time to do a chemical attack..


The response to the Douma event was American cruise missiles hitting an airbase after clear warnings to evacuate. To his credit, Trump walked the fine line between retaliation and no response, and the feeling among his fans on The_Donald was that he knew it was not Assad but had to do something after having mocked Obama’s “red line” backdown.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Part of the joy and sorrow of Heaven I anticipate is having no illusions.


This means I will remember the full depths of the public and secret sins I’ve been saved from by Jesus’ sacrifice. I will be made aware of the kinds of sins I would have committed if I hadn’t been sealed by the Holy Spirit and motivated by love instead of spite or greed. I will be left knowing just how righteous God would have been to condemn me away from His presence for eternity.


With no illusions, I will also be able to see the righteousness of the condemnation of all who chose to reject the Way of love-for-all and the damage they willingly cause wherever they may be. If one of the dwellers in misery is a close relative or even a lover, I will mourn them, but I will be disgusted by the depths of the evil they chose and agree they deserve their fate, just as I would have.


This all assumes the particular variant of Christianity I’ve been taught is theologically and cosmologically accurate. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised that all humans throughout history have ended up accepting Jesus’ forgiveness either before or after their death, and Hell ends up holding only the demonic angels who rebelled. I pray nightly that all will have ended up saved. But having watched both Sound of Freedom and the documentary Anne Frank Remembered this month, I don’t have hopes quite that high.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So it’s more about geopolitical grudges than something al-Assad is currently doing?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No, it’s not my reason for lying. It’s an attempt to change the feeling of “I’m lying” which can easily be detected on my face into a feeling of “I’m telling the truth”, which I can express easily.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I had a bizarrely strong urge about ten years ago to build a cinderblock shed in the backyard. It passed, but the strength of the urge startled me; it was something I fantasized about for about a year.


If I were to take pottery classes, it would start with digging up my own clay in my backyard, to prep for a post-apocalyptic/post-collapse future.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My only impressions of Mormon theology come from biased sources and the Ender’s Game novels, so I have no reason to doubt your descriptions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for June 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I remember a review which said there are more hours of gameplay after the “end” of the game than before it. Were they playing it wrong?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No, I believe because I’ve experienced God’s love when I was at my most doubtful, because I received His revelations of philosophy at my most confused, and because I received His healing in the most unexpected ways when I was at my lowest. But to you that’s anecdotes, not evidence.


I also believe that there’s a Heaven and a Hell just on the other side of death, that there’s enough forensic historical evidence to show a coherent picture of a young Earth created by the Hebrews’ God, and that Jesus’ forgiveness and baptism in water and the Spirit have a miraculous, transformative effect on the human animal.


Unlike Puddleglum the marshwiggle, I’d rather be right than happy. Like Thomas the skeptic, I trust Him who surprised me with more evidence than I asked for, and joy besides.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
“Winning” the supernaturalism discussion is one of the philosophically/scientifically unfalsifiable questions on both sides, and to progress beyond strawmen, both sides must grudgingly acknowledge it.


The anti-supernaturalist can point to any time a miracle or magic seems to have occurred, and say it can be attributed to delusion, improbable coincidence, as-yet unexplained natural phenomena, or trickery. Fire, lightning, planetary motion, cellular biology, pulling the Queen of Hearts from a deck of cards on the first try, the hand in His side by Thomas, a narrative vision of the four future world empires beheld by Daniel, and a single yellow rose in a flowerbed comforting a woman who lost her Texan mother in a car accident years ago; nothing is undoubtable. Even being able to reliably summon a visible, tangible demon through ritual could be explained away as completely naturalistic, given a clever enough arguer.


The supernaturalist can look at any miracle of science or coincidence and say how marvelous are His ways, how complex His plans, how infinitely intelligent He must be to set things up so that moment or phenomenon can have occurred just so in order that someone might become more aware of the glory of God, His righteousness, His forgiveness, and so on. The supernaturalist can also always find another example of the unexplained or the absurdly improbable and call it evidence (or, as a bailey, “proof) of the supernatural.


So we find ourselves once more weighing Pascal’s Wager against the Cosmic Ogre, the Pink Unicorn, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and asking not “which is more probable” but “whose explainers do I believe are credible, knowing all that I do about human self-delusion and motivated reasoning”. We will always be able to find evidence for a conclusion we’ve already reached.