FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
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User ID: 1739
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
The pay-off is huge - not only is half the world absolutely depended on China economically, in case of a conventional war, China could force a stale mate and then it can out-last and out-produce the entire rest of the world, combined.
China is hugely dependent on foreign trade, which functionally stops as soon as they’re in a conventional war with the US. No merchant ship will risk going to China and no merchant insurance company will insure it if they have to risk the most powerful blue water navy on Earth sinking it. You thought the Houtis were bad for trade? Meet the USN. They’ll be reduced to land trade with Russia. How are they going to outproduce us then? China does not have the natural resources for autarky.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
7mo ago
It would be great if it were true, but I think the end result of any peace talks would be Trump coming home in disgust and urging congress to send more military aid to Ukraine, possible including the kind of offensive weapons that Biden has been reluctant to give.
If you want peace, that would be a good result! I've never understood our constant policy of half-measures. If we're going to back Ukraine against Russia by providing weapons then we should be providing the best weapons and in quantity. Limiting our support just keeps the war going as long as possible. Do we want Ukraine to have a strong position or not? If not, then why supply weapons at all?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
In 19th and early 20th century Britain you were a homosexual if you liked to be penetrated by men, but if you were the one doing the penetrating you were not considered homosexual. This is similar to the culture of the Roman empire, which saw nothing wrong with man penetrating another man but considered being penetrated to be shameful. All that to say, the conception of the "gay man" as being someone who wants to have any kind of sexual activity with other men is historically quite recent.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
give them a job that's subsidized by the government so it's less brutal than most minimum-wage jobs, but still gives them some responsibility and spending money
Subsidization is not necessary. I started working part time minimum wage jobs when I was 14, high schoolers are more than capable of handling minimum wage work. It’s not like they’ll be sent to the salt mines (for one thing, salt mining pays a lot more than minimum wage).
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
Suicide is a form of murder: self-murder. We make efforts to stop murders, we should make efforts to stop suicide. Overall, society must signal disapproval of suicide. Cultures that honor or otherwise approve (even the implied approval of not bothering to do anything about it) fall into failure modes that our current society doesn't, without much obvious benefit. See Imperial Japan, for instance, which continued fighting long past the point where there was no hope of victory because their culture venerated honorable death over defeat. It did their society active harm. Their suicide rate remained high up until around 2010, when it began to drop and has continued to drop until today, where the suicide rate is actually a little less than the United States (it went from a high of 25.6 per 100K people in 2003 to around 12.2 today, compared to the US's 14.5).
Why did suicide rates drop so significantly in Japan? Well, in 2007 the government released a nine-step plan to lower suicide rates. Since then they funded suicide prevent services, suicide toll lines, mental health screenings for postpartum mothers, counseling services for depression, and in 2021 created a Ministry of Loneliness whose job is to reduce social isolation. In other words, when the Japanese government tried to make a societal effort towards preventing suicide, suicide rates dropped.
Which is good, because Japan needs every citizen it can get. Population is still dropping, and everyone who kills themselves can no longer contribute to society nor create and raise society's next generation.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
2mo ago
The last two paragraphs I quoted use opposing arguments to come to the same conclusion: Similarities to the "monomyth" are evidence of Truth and differences from the "monomyth" are also evidence of Truth.
C. S. Lewis laid out the central "similarity to monomyth argument" in more detail in his essay "Religion Without Dogmas" He's a key quote:
"If you start from a naturalistic philosophy, then something like the view of Euhemerus or the view of Frazer is likely to result. But I am not a naturalist. I believe that in the huge mass of mythology which has come down to us a good many different sources are mixed—true history, allegory, ritual, the human delight in storytelling, etc. But among these sources I include the supernatural, both diabolical and divine. We need here concern ourselves only with the latter. If my religion is erroneous, then occurrences of similar motifs in pagan stories are, of course, instances of the same, or a similar error. But if my religion is true, then these stories may well be a preparatio evangelica, a divine hinting in poetic and ritual form at the same central truth which was later focused and (so to speak) historicized in the Incarnation. To me, who first approached Christianity from a delighted interest in, and reverence for, the best pagan imagination, who loved Balder before Christ and Plato before St. Augustine, the anthropological argument against Christianity has never been formidable. On the contrary, I could not believe Christianity if I were forced to say that there were a thousand religions in the world of which 999 were pure nonsense and the thousandth (fortunately) true. My conversion, very largely, depended on recognizing Christianity as the completion, the actualization, the entelechy, of something that had never been wholly absent from the mind of man. And I still think that the agnostic argument from similarities between Christianity and paganism works only if you know the answer. If you start by knowing on other grounds that Christianity is false, then the pagan stories may be another nail in its coffin: just as if you started by knowing that there were no such things as crocodiles, then the various stories about dragons might help to confirm your disbelief."
In his autobiography he discussed the "difference from monomyth" argument:
"I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste. And yet the very matter which they set down in their artless, historical fashion—those narrow, unattractive Jews, too blind to the mythical wealth of the Pagan world around them—was precisely the matter of the great myths. If ever a myth had become fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. And nothing else in all literature was just like this. Myths were like it in one way. Histories were like it in another. But nothing was simply like it. And no person was like the Person it depicted; as real, as recognisable, through all that depth of time, as Plato’s Socrates or Boswell’s Johnson (ten times more so than Eckermann’s Goethe or Lockhart’s Scott), yet also numinous, lit by a light from beyond the world, a god. But if a god—we are no longer polytheists—then not a god, but God. Here and here only in all time the myth must have become fact; the Word, flesh; God, Man. This is not “a religion”, nor “a philosophy”. It is the summing up and actuality of them all."
There really isn't a good way for someone to return to the "European traditions before Christianity". Modern neo-paganism has almost nothing in common with actual pre-Christian paganism. They share some of the same names for gods, and that's about it. 95% of their practices are things that were made up in the 1800s by the occultists and romanticists of the time.
As an example, how many practitioners of Asatru join the military in order that they may hopefully die gloriously in battle, so that they may be chosen by the Valkyrie to join Odin in Valhalla? How many of them respect the marriage oaths, since the souls of adulterers will be consigned to Nastrond to be devoured by wolves and poisoned by serpents? How many of them, when they have grown old or sick, will pick up a gun and attempt death by cop? After all, those who die of old age or sickness are consigned to Hel's cold halls. How many of them will even consider human sacrifice, as their ancestors did among the hanging trees of Uppsala? How many of them support slavery, as the three adulteries of Rigr clearly separated the races of thralls, churls, and jarls?
The fact is that we don't really know all that much about northern European paganism, and what we do know the neo-Pagans mostly don't do. They're cosplaying as pagans, making it up as they go.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
I disagree strongly that what you describe is sadism: what you describe is the natural desire for justice. Calling that sadism is a trick the left uses to attack the idea of punishment as a whole. C. S. Lewis wrote about this in his essay "Delilnquents in the Snow": though he was describing 1950s Britian what he wrote applies to the modern U.S.A. just as well.
According to the classical political theory of this country we surrendered our right of self-protection to the State on condition that the State would protect us. Roughly, you promised not to stab your daughter's murderer on the understanding that the State would catch him and hang him. Of course this was never true as a historical account of the genesis of the State. The power of the group over the individual is by nature unlimited and the individual submits because he has to. The State, under favourable conditions (they have ceased), by defining that power, limits it and gives the individual a little freedom.
But the classical theory morally grounds our obligation to civil obedience; explains why it is right (as well as unavoidable) to pay taxes, why it is wrong (as well as dangerous) to stab your daughter's murderer. At present the very uncomfortable position is this: the State protects us less because it is unwilling to protect us against criminals at home and manifestly grows less and less able to protect us against foreign enemies. At the same time it demands from us more and more. We seldom had fewer rights and liberties nor more burdens: and we get less security in return. While our obligations increase their moral ground is taken away.
And the question that torments me is how long flesh and blood will continue to endure it. There was even, not so long ago, a question whether they ought to. No one, I hope, thinks Dr Johnson a barbarian. Yet he maintained that if, under a peculiarity of Scottish law, the murderer of a man's father escapes, the man might reasonably say, 'I am amongst barbarians, who . . . refuse to do justice ... I am therefore in a state of nature ... I will stab the murderer of my father.'
Much more obviously, on these principles, when the State ceases to protect me from hooligans I might reasonably, if I could, catch and trash them myself. When the State cannot or will not protect, 'nature' is come again and the right of self-protection reverts to the individual. But of course if I could and did I should be prosecuted. The Elderly Lady and her kind who are so merciful to theft would have no mercy on me; and I should be pilloried in the gutter Press as a 'sadist' by journalists who neither know nor care what that word, or any word, means.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
3mo ago
Christians are the most persecuted group in the world. Their plight is almost entirely ignored by corporate media.
This is certainly true if you count by volume. It seems likely to me that Jews may be more persecuted as a percentage of all Jews, because there are very few Jews and billions of Christians. According to the non-profits who care about this sort of thing, 380 million Christians live in countries that have high levels of persecution and discrimination towards Christians.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
Governments should be terrified of riots. Unless you’re capable of sending in the troops and shooting to kill (like China or North Korea) no government has the ability to stop a riot when it gets large enough. 100 police cannot stop 1,000 rioters, much less 10,000. I believe that many in government on the left treated left wing protests with kid gloves partly out of knowledge of how difficult it is to control riots, but mostly from ideological commitments that favored the rioters cause. Now those same officials think they can crack down on right wing rioters successfully, and they will find they’re sorely mistaken. The best way to stop rioters is to stop the riot from beginning in the first place: if you let it get this far, with this much built up resentment, and having shattered the cultural value that rioting is wrong (which might have otherwise kept normies from jointing in), there may be no way to put the genii back in the bottle. At this point there may be nothing they can do but hunker down and try to mitigate the damage until the riots burn themselves out.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
3mo ago
Museums, libraries, etc., primarily benefit local communities. Why should my tax dollars go to a local library 1,000 miles away: can't they fund their own library if it matters so much to them?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
We have China surrounded on three sides with allies. Good luck getting your resources from Mongolia, Russia, and North Korea.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1mo ago
On the other side of the fence, you have Nvidia releasing an open foundational model for robotics and partnering with Disney of all companies to make a droid robot.
It's not that weird that they're partnering with Disney. When Walt pushed the company to develop animatronics in the 60s their work was groundbreaking. Making the animatronic Lincoln for the world's fair was extremely difficult. They kept running into new engineering problems and having to invent their way out of them. Since then they've sunk huge amounts of money and talent into improving animatronics further. Have you seen some of the most recent Disney animatronics? They're incredibly lifelike, and other companies just can't manage to imitate their quality.
So I figure Disney has a lot of experience, technology, and capital that would be useful for making lifelike robots that are aesthetically pleasing.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
3mo ago
If you click on the individual country they explain their reasoning. Here was the reasoning for listing Mexico:
Although the majority of Mexico's population is Christian, many believers live in danger of persecution, particularly from criminal gangs, drug cartels and indigenous groups. In many parts of the country, the presence of criminal groups is growing. Christians who bravely speak out against their activities, or who are involved in community work or evangelism (especially with youth, drug addicts and migrants) are deemed a threat. That makes them a target. In some cases, Christian children or the children of church leaders are singled out.
In some Indigenous communities, those who decide to leave ancestral and traditional beliefs to follow Jesus face ostracism, fines, incarceration and forced displacement. Given that indigenous leaders are those who administer justice in such areas, believers have no one to turn to to investigate wrongdoing and protect their religious freedom. These families can also face harassment from the community, such as property damage, restriction of access to schools for their children, and threats.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
This gives a baseline 5-6% chance of death for the year, climbing towards 8% when he leaves office. He’d have a cumulative chance of death, during that period, of about 24%.
Based on the SSN actuarial tables, it's a cumulative chance of death of 22.42%.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
2mo ago
How do you propose to “terraform” magnetospheres into the moon or Mars? Terraforming in general is extremely sci-fi on the tech tree: we might have the resources within the next half-millennium, but even that’s unsure. The most realistic terraforming proposal I’ve seen for Mars is to basically melt the entire surface to release gasses, and even then that won’t be enough by itself to get the job done.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
2mo ago
I don't really see how these pagan beliefs are more outlandish than anything in the Bible, if taken literally.
The trouble is that nobody does, including the neo-pagans. They mostly just get together and try to cast spells and protect the environment. You get lesbian Wiccans calling on the blessing of fertility goddesses, and not recognizing the irony of that one bit.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1mo ago
Which embassy did they bomb? And when? I’ve just did some cursory Googling but I didn’t turn up anything.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
They got the minerals, but they don’t have the throughput to get China as much as they need by train. Overland trade is something like 5x more expensive than maritime trade.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
True, but was there anywhere better to be poor in than London in 1900? I doubt Paris or New York was much better.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
Kind of seems that that is exactly what they are doing: providing mental health services, attempting to find ways to reduce social isolation, trying to change social norms so that literal oblivion does not look like such a nice choice in comparison to social disgrace, etc.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
Kamala is happy to fight in the dirt with Trump, because she too can have a full debate without saying anything substantial.
Then why hasn't she done any interviews, answered any questions from the media, or agreed to more debates? She's terrified of being put on the spot. Remember, this is the woman who was so nervous about having dinner with a big doner that she had her staff put on a practice dinner for her.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
Yes, it is.
Copyright literally is the right to make copies. If little Timmy draws a picture of Mario for his fridge, it’s within Nintendo’s legal rights to issue Timmy with a takedown notice and threats of legal action if he does not comply.
Now nobody does that, because you’d have to be nuts, but copyright law is way more extensive than you’d think.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
2mo ago
People tend to lack self control. If you had self control you wouldn't be fat.
Its well known that certain medications lead to weight gain: do you believe they do so because they reduce the self control of those who take them? Does hyperthyroidism cause significant increases in self-control, and does hypothyroidism erode self-control? Do GLPs work because they increase the individual's self-control?
If not, then factors other than self-control are at play.
Shoot, I was looking forward to winning. I really hoped the Democrats didn’t have the capacity to force Biden out.
I can only hope they lack the competence to choice a “generic Democrat” candidate who has a chance of winning.
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