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MaiqTheTrue

Renrijra Krin

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joined 2022 November 02 23:32:06 UTC 

				
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MaiqTheTrue


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Renrijra Krin

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 November 02 23:32:06 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Wellness Wednesday for October 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don’t take this account literally. I don’t believe that Adam was real, which means I don’t believe that he was the first prophet of the “true gospel”. Because I don’t believe this part of the claim, the rest of it can only be interpreted symbolically or esoterically. The way I approach the idea of a “restored gospel” is informed by conversations I have had with intelligent Catholics and Orthodox, in which their account of what they actually believe about God and creation and the nature of the cosmos is so wrapped up in mysticism and symbolic reinterpretation and thousands of years of commentary by church leaders that it becomes totally impenetrable and incomprehensible. I do not want to have to sift through 2,000+ years of biblical hermeneutics in order to even begin to grasp God’s plan for my salvation. By clearing away those millennia of cruft and theological rabbit-holes, the LDS church can return to a reading of the Bible which embraces plain language and concepts that normal people can work with, while also building a High Church structure similar to Catholicism without all the historical baggage. It’s a sort of “post-Protestantism” that takes what works about Catholicism and Orthodoxy, discards what clearly doesn’t work, and allows for a 21st-century reinterpretation of Christianity.




I mean the problem with this approach is that the church fathers have written down things from the beginning.  We have a pretty good idea of what they believed about the gospel, Christ, sacraments, church structure and so on.  It does not match with Smith’s restoration.  Ignatius of Antioch refers to Christ as God before we have a codified New Testament. There are references to bishops in early Christian texts, there are references to sacraments.  The earliest known Christian catechism is the Didache, it’s pretty short and you can read it online.  It’s not Mormon.  There’s no mention of preexisting souls, God once being a physical being, or Christ and Lucifer being related, etc. it’s not present in the early church.


This makes even a metaphorical restoration nonsense.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Reddit is generally for various forms of failsons who want to seem smart but don’t want to do such things as read real books, get a real job, or leave the house.  There are a few users, mostly on the tech subs that know a bit about technology, but most of them barely have help-desk level tech knowledge.  The Reddit users I’ve known generally know nothing, but believe they are gifted, and are therefore super smug.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it’s an artifact of social media and the attention economy.  The only real way to stand out in the vast sea of ordinary people posting about your topic is to be as noisy and obnoxious and name-calling as you can get away with.  If Trump is just wrong you get nothing— no likes, no shares, no comments, you are not going to be seen by many people.  If Trump is an evil narcissistic authoritarian Christian nationalist, you get seen.  Short form doesn’t help things, because it doesn’t allow for nuanced writing, but short content displayed chronologically wouldn’t push people to that degree because doing so would not make more people see the post.  It’s like all the people posting are being manipulated into being shock jocks just to be noticed and so all of them eventually realize that being shocking and mean is the best way to win, and being deleted is actually a good thing because you are then the kind of poster not afraid to tell it like it is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’m not convinced it needs to be literal fighting.  As a species, we’re rapidly retreating from the real world into very different cyber-simulacra of various aspects of our former life.  We probably do at least half of our human contact through screens.  We play games rather than going outside for real activities.  And I think the simulacra, while they give the  a bit more of happy brain chemicals as the real thing, they’re not the same.  An online friend is not a real friend.  An online game is not the same as playing outdoors.  Watching videos of places is not the same as visiting those places.


I think a lot of this stuff ends up being a hyperstimulous.  They’re releasing more of those happy brain chemicals than the real life version because they’ve removed most of the slower more boring but actually meaningful bits of those things.  Your online friends are always there, just whip out the phone and scroll.  And they don’t make demands like an offline friend might, nor do they get in bad moods or get mad at you.  An offline walk is mostly quiet maybe interesting flowers or birds or a deer or something.  Walk around in a video game and you’ll have constant adventures.  So the online world wins, and people don’t do as much offline.


I think just about any real world experience that comes along will help.  The kids who seem the most mentally stable are athletes who are spending lots of time playing a sport with their actual body, seeing the gradual improvement as they practice and work out, growing into social relationships as they make real world friends on their team and gain tge confidence to talk to people outside of that group.  Sports of any type but especially team sports is really good for kids and especially boys.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean sure, but eventually you get the escalation you wanted and are now being blamed for a dead federal agent or worse member of the military.  The ratchet cannot go on forever.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean this is extremely inflammatory especially as coming from elected officials.  They aren’t openly saying it, but I would not expect them to be horrified by some random person taking shots at federal officials.  You don’t say things like “redo of the civil war” or declare “ICE free zones” or anything of the sort unless you want to escalate whatever is happening on the street level.  Which is already at least at the throw rocks stage.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I said “church lady” in the sense of the 1990s Dana Carvey sketch.  The idea being basically “you can’t enjoy things normal people like, because Satan.”  And that’s kind of the read I get on a lot of Woke is exactly that — everything normal people like or believe in is flawed, wrong, sinful, and “good people” don’t do those things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It’s the same as the problem with Jihadists.  Sure only 10% want to kill people, but it’s not like the other 90% are willing to do anything about it.  The TDS faction is certainly bad, but im not seeing anything that suggests that the rest of the liberals are opposed to political violence in anything other than the fig-leaf sense.  They just don’t want the blame, they don’t want to be tarnished by association with those TDS factions.  But they also can’t muster the energy to stop it, or even to say this is wrong, full stop..


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They aren’t just conformists, in many cases they’re the old church ladies telling you anything you find fun is somehow wrong.  You can’t enjoy foreign food, clothing, or music.  You can’t like your own either, you can’t like traditionally masculine things, or traditional things in general.  It’s just a narrow rather boring and uninteresting slice of things that democrats think are okay to like unironically.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for October 1, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I find paper puzzles like sudoku or crossword puzzles or word searches pretty good for a “I got a few minutes, not enough for something deep and time consuming, but I don’t want to stare into space” time.  You can just get one or two answers, get interrupted and go back again quite easily.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I hesitate to post this because I do think that those comments are the kind of background, "I hate the outgroup" signaling that you can find everywhere every day among every group. This man isn't going to commit violence against anyone. Give him a gun, a bag of candy, and unfettered access to those kids and the worst you'll get are some tummy aches.




Except that such rhetoric is being normalized and people are beginning to act on it.  You are even reacting as if “I want to kill him, his wife and his kids” as just normal.  I contend that it isn’t normal for people to be constantly saying they want people to die, and making it normal enough to show up in casual conversation is honestly scary.  I say this as a fairly centrist democrat— the rhetoric of killing opponents has absolutely no place in a civil and civilized society, and unless it ratchets back, the cold civil war will eventually go hot.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it’s over-charitable at this point to take “he must take full responsibility” statements as proof of contrition.  If you really think this is far beyond the pale, then why beat around the bush with non-statements?  “Take responsibility” can mean almost anything.  It can mean issuing tge standard non-apology statements often used in politics “if my statements were misunderstood to be meant to cause pain, im sorry,” to stronger apologies to dropping out of the race.


And now that we’re officially getting to the “shooting and terrorism” stage, it’s absolutely not good enough anymore to not say it plainly:  calls for and celebration of political violence have no place in the public sphere.  If you are doing that, you should resign from public office or be fired from any public media positions you hold.  If a political organization cannot forthrightly say: anyone on our side engaging in, promoting, or celebrating violent extremism must apologize and leave.  This includes using the accusation of authoritarian regime against the other party.  Zero tolerance.  That’s what getting serious about political violence and advocacy thereof looks like:  no excuses, no weasel worded statements, just actual action.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 29, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That depends on who creates the AI and what they want it to solve for.  Unfortunately I think most of the early adaptations of AI are going to be for functions that “be nice” actively hinders.


For example, if I’m using AI to keep people engaged with my social media site, I don’t want that AI to think about whether or not pushing content that keeps them scrolling is “good for them”.  I’m farming attention to sell to advertising companies and if my AI doesn’t optimize for attention farming, yours will and you get more advertising money.  Or maybe im trying to cut costs, and I want AI to trim overhead.  I don’t want my AI to worry about whether laying off people is “nice”, im looking to improve my bottom line.  Maybe im working on automated targeting for the military.  I don’t want AI to be squeemish about pulling the trigger.  It’s not necessarily a tax on performance, but that the functionality you need AI for has no place for the “don’t be evil” function because it’s frankly being used for at least quasi-evil things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Freedom of speech has been poisoned and we need to reframe it
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’m talking about mostly civilian discussions of political issues, especially over the Internet.  It does no good to tear apart communities and create the conditions for political radicalism and political violence.  In fact that’s the worst thing that could happen.  Societies that radicalized and created the conditions for political violence are generally shit-holes, places with zero social trust, weak economies and crumbling infrastructure.  Much of Latin America is like this, parts of the Middle East, and some parts of Southeast Asia.  Nobody really wants to live there anymore because of the poor conditions caused by the political chaos.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for October 1, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I did a detox fairly recently and I think the key is to find some other activities that you replace scrolling with to help ease the cravings.  I found if I had things like books, puzzles and art supplies or writing supplies close at hand you can choose to scratch the itch in more useful ways.


It’s rough because I’m discovering that the screen itself is a hyperstimulous and therefore when you use a screen for an activity it creates a sort of craving for more screen time.  Even switching to a soduku app instead of a paper book makes a difference— I’d crave my iPad to play soduku where I could take or leave a soduku book or crossword book.  Realizing this is valuable to me, and really kind of scary.  Even under the best of circumstances, it’s hard to get away from the idea that screens are generally the worst way to handle anything, and that they really need to be treated like any other potentially addictive stuff.


I’m personally skeptical of time blocking because of this addiction aspect.  Making rules around how you use an addictive substance not only isn’t recovery, but is often used as a way to say “I don’t really have a problem.”  If you have a drinking problem that you’re pretending to control because you only drink after 5pm or only on weekends, not only are you still addicted, but you’re impeding your recovery.  TBH I’ve often used such things as a quick test of addiction— if you are saying something like “not me im in control because I …” that’s a huge red flag.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Freedom of speech has been poisoned and we need to reframe it
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Being polite doesn’t mean accepting every idea that comes along.  It simply means that you express your disagreement in ways that, to paraphrase the rules of this place “give light rather than heat.”  That’s entirely possible even in cases like pedophilia where the acceptance of such a bad idea would be a disaster.  Saying there are only two genders is perfectly within the bounds of free expression and I don’t think you should be harassed or fired for that.  Saying something like “there are only two genders and those who disagree should be considered dangerous to society,” that is over the line.  Saying “Trump should not be sending the National Guard to American cities” is fine, saying “Trump is doing an authoritarian power grab by sending the National Guard to American cities” is too far because words like authoritarian, fascist, Nazi, and related are incendiary and dangerously lead to the acceptance of violence against anyone smeared with those terms.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Freedom of speech has been poisoned and we need to reframe it
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You can’t even get to the place of agreeing on values if you’re constantly telling yourself and your allies that those other guys are to be destroyed and kept away from power at all costs.  I think in the case of the USA the red and blue tribes share quite a lot, but having that conversation is difficult because of the filter bubbles and the attention economy made worse by the rhetoric that the other tribe wants to destroy the country.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Freedom of speech has been poisoned and we need to reframe it
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you gave a speech in the liquor isle about the dangers of alcohol, you’d be removed.  You’ll also be removed for causing a disturbance.  It happens all the time.  Homeless people yelling at the voices in their head get kicked out quite often.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Freedom of speech has been poisoned and we need to reframe it
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think there’s a very big problem in people not understanding the difference between sharing an opinion and being an asshole about said opinion.  I don’t object to free expression of ideas even in contentious situations on controversial topics.  You think abortion is baby murder, you are perfectly free to say that.  But I think the very concept of politeness and tact and decorum is pretty lost at this point.  It’s just devolved from “I don’t agree with you” to “I don’t agree with you and you are subhuman for even entertaining a different idea, and in fact should not be allowed to speak.”  And now we have people celebrating a murder with TikTok dances.


I keep thinking back to reading old etiquette books.  There was a sense that you really should strive to think of the other person, or others around you as at least as important if not more than you.  A society that frowned on being late to a show because walking in late would inconvenience other theater goers would absolutely have something very politely negative to say about the absolute shit show of political and social discourse— even if they do agree that all opinions are protected by free speech.  There are lines of decency that just have to be protected and we just can’t seem to separate the idea of an opinion from the expression of that opinion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 29, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Let the arms race begin…


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 29, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the models is less that those chatbots will be the face of the profit making for AI companies.  Not true, I think the people using the bots now are unpaid trainers, not the future end users.  Every issue that comes up now can be fixed once the bot gets a correction from the freeware users.  But that’s not a very useful user base anyway.  The best use case for such bots is actually business to business.  Maybe Walmart wants to use it with its app to help customers find a product that fixes a problem they have, or can tell you where something is.  They’d probably want to buy a license for incorporation of the bot into their app.  Maybe Apple wants to replace their social media team with Open AI based solutions.  Or the CEO of Tesla wants to use AI to suggest improvements to their car line.  In those cases, getting a good useful bot would get them an effective and efficient solution probably worth a good deal of money to them (if for no other reason than it reduces headcount), and they will pay for it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 29, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Short term I agree, it won’t work, but keep in mind that ATM, Theres a monopoly on university level job training.  The old university system was all there was, and so they never faced much competition for post graduation job placement.  If the new academic system can produce higher quality education and therefore better graduates, eventually it will be noticed that graduates of these institutions do better in the workforce than traditional college graduates.  Depending on the school and major the new academy doesn’t need to be that good to outpace the current university system.  Most people coming out of the university today are probably less educated than high school graduates of the 1960s.  They are not well-read, they don’t understand the scientific method (unless they happen to graduate in STEM) and don’t know how to do serious academic research or write logically coherent papers.  Heck, even the professors seem to be less able to do serious academic work.


Does anyone actually want to hire a humanities degree holder?  I can’t imagine anyone looking at the current crop and wanting them in any part of the business.  They’ve mostly majored in being liberal, campus protesting, and becoming a litigation nightmare.  If there were alternatives, they’d be completely unemployable simply because even minimal job-related competence (doing dispassionate research, doing the work assigned, staying on topic, and knowing better than to be a walking, talking bag of grievances all of which are based on something the company could be sued for) those people would be snapped up.  Why hire a blue hair when Hillsdale grads can do better work and act like professional workers?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Quality Contributions Report for September 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I tend to agree with one of the replies to @MonkeyWithAMachinegun ‘s post.  I find the most damning thing about the discourse on political violence to be the enablement and incitement and lack of contrition by the left to be far more concerning than the actual numbers for a couple of reasons.


First of all. Because it does absolutely nothing to slow tge growth of such violence.  If mainstream media sources are talking night after night about how conservatives are a threat to democracy, fascist, violent, and so on, this creates the radicalized people necessary (not necessarily sufficient, but necessary) to produce attacks.  It also creates the environment that enables those attacks by normalization of the idea that certain parts of the political spectrum are too radical to be dealt with through the normal process.  The modern cosmology of Fascism is that it occupies the place where Satan lives in the Christian world:  a vile creature to be shunned and defeated by any means at your disposal.


Second because it reveals just how much support there is on the left for this sort of thing.  Right wing rhetoric is sufficient to get advertisements pulled, people cancelled, and leave actors or other entertainers blackballed out of the industry.  Left wing incitement and victim blaming doesn’t have the same effect.  Kimmel basically victim-blamed the right.  His “punishment” was a week of leave and a ton of media attention and the full support of the rest of Hollywood.  Places like Bluesky are not losing advertisers, there are no calls for Facebook, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky, or Reddit to remove posts that victim blame or celebrate the Kirk assassination.  Radical left podcasts are still widely available, and to my knowledge none of them carry a content warning.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 29, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it depends on the flavor of Protestant.  If you’re talking about low church Bible thumping evangelicals, I get it, but I think most high church Protestants respect the councils and the dogmas of the early church.  The Anglo Catholic movement actually accepts the dogmas and canons of the first seven councils so they’d be pretty in line with the Roman Church and the various Orthodox Churches.  Lutherans still informally accept quite a bit of that dogma through the Augustine Confessions and Book of Concord.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 29, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The reason I see it as pretty central is that basically the Trinity goes back pretty far in the historical record, and was dogmatically declared around the same time the New Testament was canonized.  It’s really hard to claim one without the other.  If you’re calling the New Testament without reservations The Canon as opposed to other writings, it’s really hard to consistently also say “but they are wrong about these other things.”