I like your confidence. I also get that you invite criticism because the only way to feel ones own strength is to feel resistance. As you think about things, you "clean up" inconsistencies and create powerful heuristics. This makes you feel sharper and stronger, and things which other people suffer from now feel trivial to you. It's this, and not truth itself, which feels so good. By the way, if you enter formal education, this will go away. You will be made humble, and your own personal model of the world will be replaced with a consensus which feels sterile and foreign. Formal education would make you more adapted to society, but the more you fit the mold, the less you will feel like yourself.
But I'll bite, I guess. What do you think "understanding" means? An internal model which can predict something by simulating it and creating an identical output, perhaps? But if you use a coffee machine, then you press a button and get your coffee. Despite not understanding the machine, you can predict the output. Worse still, you cannot tell different machines apart from the outside, in all cases you press buttons and get your coffee.
If you wish to get to the bottom of things, you cannot use the literal definition of every word that you use to think. We call a process that we can predict deterministic, and one that we cnanot predict propabilistic. But this definition has nothing to do with the object itself, it merely describes how much information we possess about the object.
There may be things which can't be explained by physics which are still physical. Do you know about Gödel's incompleteness theorems? Theories are more limited than reality is, but you make no difference between these two. If I had to guess, it's because you aren't conscious about the difference between the map and the territory which it represents. The saying "All models are wrong, but some are useful" refers to this problem. But if logic, math and any other language is fundamentally limited (and they are), then how do you think in ways which avoid these limitations? If you think about math using math, or about language using language, then there will be gaps that you cannot even see. When you try to get to the bottom of reality, what you actually attempt is getting to the bottom of language. But all languages are self-contained, self-referential systems which can only speak about themselves.
You might notice that I speak about limitations, gaps, and things which are false. You do the same. You impose limitations on things, saying what can't be done or what can't be true. As you see, we can tear down any idea, destroy it, and prove it wrong, but we cannot actually do the opposite. And if you continue going like this, destroying everything which you can destroy, you might assume that there will only be a single, undeniable truth left. But that's not the case. You will actually be left with nothing. You're not destroying anything in real life, of course. You're destroying your map of reality.
You've probably destroyed a lot of things that you're better off without, but if you get too good at destruction, you will end up with a nihilistic worldview (it's already materialistic), and then you'll find that life seems empty and bland. If you then wish to return again, you'll have to learn the opposite of destruction, creation. I think Nietzshe was right when he said "The conditions of life might include error".
Why would I value truth in itself? Truth-seeking can be both beneficial and destructive. Pretending that false things are true will make you less correct, but it might make you more functional. I do not "need" to update my model. I'm not required to be rational. If rationality was optimal, why did darwinism bring about so many irrational beings? Why is is only now, when we're starting to become rational, that it seems like we're on a path to self-destruction?
Destruction is fun, but I find creation to be more so. I can do things that you can't merely because you prune things which are impossible, illogical or irrational, whereas I simply don't. In order to create, you have to appreciate the specific. The general is a space of possibilities, and anything which exists will have to be something specific. The general applies to many contexts, but it doesn't perform well within any one of them. The specific is superior within a context, and only within that context. When you criticize religion, you're attacking a context because you can think of a conflicting context which is more generally correct, but you're also harming that local ecosystem which probably functions perfectly well if nobody disturbs it. As with nuclear weapons, there's an asymmetry which makes destruction easier than creation. A war of values and philosophies would be M.A.D., so it's our good fortune that most people don't go around disillusioning one another. In other words, correct philosophy is "in bad taste".
TwiceHuman
11d ago
If this is true, then why did Nietzsche blame the jews for wokism in the 1800s?
He blames the jews for the reversal of moral values. "Might makes right" is now entirely alien to us. All modern virtue has become the opposite of that which, biologically, leads to health. The victim mentality has become a social strategy. People now compete in who can make themselves out to be the most oppressed, and this behaviour is rewarded. There's no participation trophies because we no longer have the heart to say that somebody won, and to them imply that somebody else must have lost. If somebody is offended by words, we no longer feel disgust at the offended party (as we used to!), but instead blame the stronger party, the person who doesn't suffer from mental breakdowns due to mere words. This reversal, which attributes the highest value to the low and meek, is "wokeness". When Nietzsche criticizes morality in "The will to power", and in "The geneology of morals" which I'm quoting below, it sounds like a modern critique of the feminine values which have taken over society.
"Let’s bow to the facts: the people have won – or “the slaves”, the “plebeians”, “the herd”, or whatever you want to call them – if the Jews made this come about, good for them! No people ever had a more world-historic mission.“The Masters” are deposed; the morality of the common people has triumphed. You might take this victory for blood-poisoning (it did mix the races up) – I do not deny it; but undoubtedly this intoxication has succeeded.The “salvation” of the human race (I mean, from “the Masters”) is well on course; everything is being made appreciably Jewish, Christian or plebeian (never mind the words!)"
We domesticated ourselves too much, and now we, like dogs, have something like Williams syndrome. Most of our "barbaric" traits have been pruned from the gene pool, but as a result, strong men are lacking, masculinity is lacking. And the jews helped bring this about, even if a development like this was inevitable.
I agree with basically everything here, but my deduction is different.
There's strong signs that it's jews who are in charge of all this. Whoever is doing this is clearly powerful. The woke clearly hate everything they can relate to the holocaust, to the point that their hatred of nationalism led to an almost global consensus that borders are immoral. Whoever is behind this is also trying to destroy Christianity and its traditions. A lot of people who have warned against jews historically have been assassinated (e.g. JFK). The woke is also driven by the media - and jews are extremely over-represented in the media. If you've been on 4chan, you've seen the image I have in mind right now. It also happens that jews aren't at home in America, and they're therefore in a position in which they can harm America without harming themselves. Only globalists and those without strong roots can benefit from causing this much harm.
I've never been on 4chan, but even I know that a lot of users predicted our current events, warning that the jews would do these things. And historically, these issues have also been blamed on freemasons, FBI/NSA/CIA/GCHQ, "the system", satanism, feminism, communism, the illuminati, NWO, globalism and on elite families tied to banking (Goldman Sachs, the Rothschild family, Rockefellers, etc), and many other groups, and most of these claims aren't wrong, the question is just which group is in charge, if any.
While there might be some non-organic anti-semitism, the jews could be spreading that in order to legitimize their victimhood. And Trump said "America first", only to start sending billions of tax-dollars to Israel. Of course this results in a spike in anti-semitism, anything else would be strange. The reason that even Reddit has some anti-semitism is likely because jews overplayed their hand.
You know a lot of things, so you should have a clear picture, and yet you discard the most likely conclusion. Of course, you may have valid reasons for doing so. Have you heard the translated speeches of Hitler? They don't sound old, they contain things which are still relevant today, and Hitler blamed them on the jews. Given the jews strong representation in positions of power, and their high average IQs, I find it unlikely that there's somebody above the jews who is manipulating them.
You focus a lot on recent events, but most of these issues started decades ago.
TwiceHuman
15d ago
Asking here because I don't have the time to effort-post enough to post in the main thread.
Does anyone know of manifestos or books with worldviews and principles which have weight to them? Most I can find is half-assed disinterested knowledge. There's too much beating around the bush, self-censorship and conforming. I did enjoyed reading Ted's manifesto and "Setting the record straight". Max Stirner's takes and Julius Evola's books are good too. I don't care which ideology people believe in, it's just nice seeing somebody actually believe in something. And lets be honest, fragile beliefs are mediocre.
Alternatively, share any strong beliefs of your own, some of you must be tired of walking on egg-shells by now. I'll start:
All the suffering you'll ever experience does not add up to much of a big deal. Only the lack of meaningful experiences is a problem. The focus on reducing bad things rather than causing good things is a symptom of illness.
Most modern "sexualities" are mere fetishism and trauma responses. Also, 98% of modern psychologists are utterly incompetent and most common psych knowledge is wrong. Is nobody else concerned that even art styles are getting domestication syndrome?
In-group favorism, gatekeeping, discrimination and all the like is all based, as long as none of it is done "in bad taste". Corruption, manipulation, finding loopholes and other such indirect, cunning, malicious and exploitative mindsets is done by those who lack the strength to compete fairly, making them inferior. Also, no favoritism, support or bias requires malice onto the excluded in the first place. Society has a habit of making the worst examples of things out to be the standard (which is also why it demonizes the ego)
Every culture should be respected and left to do its own thing. If the culture turns out well, then it cannot be called immoral. If it does not turn out well, then foreign aid and other attempts to save it would be immoral.
All virtue is costly and one must have abundance in order to be a good person without destroying themselves, and it's a sad to see good people destroy themselves.
Trans-humanists are better described as anti-humanists. If you love something then you don't seek to escape it or to change it into something else. Video-game modding sometimes makes games better with 'more of the same' and I find this to be acceptable (hence my username).
You can't have the good without the bad, and if you reduce one you reduce both. Taken to an extreme, the desire to decrease the bad leads to nihilism or a preference for non-existence. (Buddhism and statements like 'the only moral action is to destroy the universe'). Even psychological defense mechanisms which protect against pain tend to do so in ways which reduce the good parts of life (inaction, detachment, avoidance, etc).
Most conscious interference with the goal of improving something will end in failure, and Chesterton's fence is not the full explanation. Perhaps you can sometimes aid something without attempting to control it, and lessen the chances of failure. But as a general rule, just let things go their way and they will solve themselves.
TwiceHuman
25d ago
High trust is fairly natural when people live in the same place for many years or even multiple generations, and when the population density is low enough that people can keep track of one another and remember their actions. Also when you have concepts like "honor", and everyone has lots of children resulting in large families. If you think back to the past, it makes sense. Even if you could get rich by scamming those around you, the results wouldn't be good.
Things looks different now. We're still tearing down Chesterton's fences today and calling it "progress", while claiming that the remaining fences are what's causing all the problems we're seeing, and I'm afraid we'll keep doing this until we live in a dystopian world, and that the vast majority still won't be able to wrap their head around what went wrong.
I'd call high-trust "Good faith" or "Investing into ones local environment, rather than exploiting ones local environment", a sort of presumption of alignment. Psychology plays a role too, when people treat me as if I'm a kind person, that makes me want to be more kind. Which reminds me, everything is probably made worse by modern media
I'm not confused about anything, and I meant it all literally.
I did touch on the why, but I also made some strong arguments. I will lower the level this time, let me know if I should lower it further.
There's many classes of equivalence. Simulating somethings output does not require having the same parts. An LLM which acts like a human is not conscious merely because it produces human-like output. Even if you cannot measure any differences, there might still be differences. If I tell you that I have a computer function which takes in "2" and returns "4", you won't be able to tell me the exact code of the function from this information alone.
You assume that, because a word exists, it actually points to something in reality. But a culture which never came up with the concept of randomness in the first place would not have philosophers who struggled with determinism and indeterminism. You assume that either one or the other must be "true", and yet such a culture would not know either concept, and it wouldn't even bother them or hinder their ability to think about other things. Now, this culture might think that reality depends on the nature of "flobx" (a word I just made up which means nothing to us) and that there's no more important concept than this. But because we never came up with that word, we don't think "flobx must be true or false", we don't think about flobx at all. In short, I want you to imagine minds so differently than your own that you realize that all the tokens you use for thinking are arbitrary rather than pieces of an objective reality.
Have you read Nietzsche's Will to Power? He says that our belief in cause and effect is because of quirks of our language. "There is thinking: therefore there is something that thinks": this is the upshot of all Descartes' argumentation. But that means positing as "true a priori" our belief in the concept of substancethat when there is thought there has to be something "that thinks" is simply a formulation of our grammatical custom that adds a doer to every deed. In short, this is not merely the substantiation of a fact but a logical-metaphysical postulate- Along the lines followed by Descartes one does not come upon something absolutely certain but only upon the fact of a very strong belief. If one reduces the proposition to "There is thinking, therefore there are thoughts," one has produced a mere tautology: and precisely that which is in question, the "reality of thought," is not touched upon-that is, in this form the "apparent reality" of thought cannot be denied. But what Descartes desired was that thought should have, not an apparent reality, but a reality in itself."
So the fruits of all Descartes philosophizing ended up being a small sentence which was actually riddled with errors. I believe that you're assuming no such errors exist in your original post because you haven't done much in the way of questioning the language with which you think.
Do you disagree with this quote from "A short history of decay" (1949)? "The compulsion to preach is so rooted in us that it emerges from depths unknown to the instinct for self-preservation. Each of us awaits his moment in order to propose something—anything. (...) From snobs to scavengers, all expend their criminal generosity, all hand out formulas for happiness, all try to give directions: life in common thereby becomes intolerable, and life with oneself still more so; if you fail to meddle in other people’s business you are so uneasy about your own that you convert your “self” into a religion, or, apostle in reverse, you deny it altogether; we are victims of the universal game..." It seems to me like each human being is compelled to make their own values survive memetically, but this is merely a form of self-replication, not an instinct for truth-seeking. An instinct for knowledge-seeking might exist, but that's more of an instinct for increasing ones power and reducing uncertaincy (predictive processing theory).
I do realize that it's ironic to accuse you of being deceived by your own instinct and your own implicit knowledge, while also warning against the dangers of destroying these illusions. But I think this is an argument in my favor - that there exists truths which we're better off not knowing.
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