coffee_enjoyer
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User ID: 541
coffee_enjoyer
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8d ago
Men fighting and women not fighting makes sense when the social role of women is to provide abundant healthy offspring for your culture. If the women are instead opting out of making babies, moving to other countries, and not possessing in-group preference, there is no longer any moral reason to allow them to abstain from fighting. Ukraine should institute an immediate draft where women who are not pregnant or rearing children are drafted into the frontlines, and women who are raising a soldier’s child get a stipend.
coffee_enjoyer
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9d ago
If you had read your own link, you would have found that Meinecke settled in a protesting location and subsequently counter protestors came to his location to disrupt him. We can turn on our thinking caps and realize that in our example at Yale, the Palestinian protesters are the original protesters.
Protestors surrounded Meinecke after about an hour.
and
Eventually, PrideFest attendees noticed Meinecke's presence.
If you continued reading your link, you would have found that one of the Court’s advised remedies was to make the counter-protestor step back from the original protestor.
there were several less speech-restrictive alternatives to achieve public safety. The officers could have required the protestors to take a step back from Meinecke. They could have called for more officers — as they did after Meinecke was arrested. They could have erected a free speech barricade.
These are the same actions taken by the original protesting unit to prevent confrontation with the Jewish student: he can counter protest mere steps away from the protest, just not where the original protestors are packed like sardines protesting. They self-barricaded themelves to prevent confrontation. It is commendable, but not exactly surprising, that these intelligent Yale student performed the exact actions that a Court had recommended to a police department, while using completely non-aggressive means (holding hands chained together). As to why there weren’t police officers doing this already, that’s a significant question that the admins should answer.
Do you really think that if the police were there to ensure the safety of student both protesting and counter-protesting, that they would have allowed both protestors and counter-protestors to stand side by side in a dimly lit courtyard? I just find this totally unreasonable, as there is no benefit at all to that, unless you are neurotically obsessed with the idea of punishing protestors who don’t get their little protest stamps confirmed for not following legal minutiae.
coffee_enjoyer
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9d ago
I had asked the OP for evidence regarding Columbia but yeah, the video in the Twitter thread is from a Yale courtyard. There is no evidence he is being blocked from entering a building (at 9pm).
about access to a building
No, it is clearly a courtyard. We would need a longer video to prove anything more than that.
It was great, for the one side able to use it, isn't the most compelling argument for neutral access to public fora.
You would have to argue that regarding the obvious and clear special concerns of a student-led protest movement
court case
Well, Meinecke did not engage with any counter-protesters and had his own location where he was protesting.
coffee_enjoyer
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9d ago
norm where whatever protest group that takes a public forum first gets to exclude people who disagree with their message
This is already the norm for legally-sanctioned protests, though, right? As I mentioned in other replies, it is common for police to prevent counter protestors from intruding on the space of protestors and vice versa.
a public forum
The video looks like it is taken at a courtyard, one of a dozen around the University. They aren’t holding captive the main amphitheater at Columbia or something, where yeah there would be a concern regarding the reasonable use of university amenities. Ironically, you could even argue that the courtyard is seeing greater facility during this protest, given the population density from the looks of it. But I’m not familiar with the layout of the university and where the video is taken.
coffee_enjoyer
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9d ago
Not at all, we can ask reasonable questions like:
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does the protest movement actually represent a serious concern among a significant number of students? (Concerns like: segregation, corruption, genocide, or etc?) (Yes)
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does the protest movement occupy a small space, and are there a sufficient number of protesters to occupy that space? (Yes)
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is the space unnecessary for reasonable facility at the university? (Yes)
If you don’t want this textbook example of protesting, you are saying you only want protests when they get permission by the party in power (state and/or administrators or an institution). You would be denying, for instance, the implicit right of Jewish students to protest if (hypothetically) a university would ban their synagogues. You would be denying the utility and morality of all the protests that occurred to end segregation. Genocide is as serious as any of these concerns, and apparently a number of students — with negative financial interest and negligible social interest at play, students at our top university — want to protest about it. There are a lot of ramifications to that belief and it involves a superstitious belief in the omnibenevolence of those in power.
coffee_enjoyer
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9d ago
desiring to record all of their faces
What do you think the devout Jewish man was attempting to do by walking into the small, dense protesting square with his phone recording? We can make rational inferences here, this isn’t an SAT problem. His compatriots online are threatening to ensure none of them get a job after graduating.
cop uniform
That’s my fault, replace that with a pro-cop outfit
coffee_enjoyer
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9d ago
Nonviolent protesting is historically treated as a legal grey area in American history, which the admins of Columbia are well aware of, their own university having a history of it. It’s treated that way because the alternative is non-nonviolent protesting, which is much worse. Not everything moral and immoral is codified in law
coffee_enjoyer
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10d ago
Ah ok. My intuition is different: in either case, the one actively attempting to enter the de facto designated area intends to harass the people in the area, whether or not it meets a legal standard of harassment. There is no plausible reason for their entrance into the area which doesn’t involve starting a confrontation. It should be discouraged because that’s how confrontations begin, and as evidence for this the police routinely separate protesting camps for this exact reason (and whether or not the protests are legally done).
coffee_enjoyer
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10d ago
A Muslim man in a Palestinian keffiyeh and thobe is attempting to enter the sequestered area of a vigil held by Jewish students for October 7th victims, desiring to record all of their faces on his phone. It’s 8pm and there’s no other reason for him entering the area. If Jewish students passively prevent him from entering the grounds of the protest, do you want the Jewish students charged for harassment?
coffee_enjoyer
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10d ago
I think what made original WoW so great is that the races/classes neatly represented the divisions of fantasy. Dwarves for LOTR-inspired fantasy, the undead for horror/grim fantasy, the medieval-themed human storyline for medieval fantasy, etc etc. This meant they by playing a new race or class, you were actually exploring a new major division of the fantasy genre, and thus a new and distinct aesthetic mode. The expansions kind of ruined this, as did “every race can play ever class!” silliness. Future MMORPGs should focus on this aspect, representing the entirety of fantasy through divisions involving race/class/region.
coffee_enjoyer
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10d ago
The dress of that particular Orthodox Jew tells us more about his identity than merely “Jewish”. How many Chabadniks would consider themselves unaligned with the interests of the Israeli state? While they may not be religiously Zionist (maintaining that the current instantiation of the nation is the long-awaited true return from exile by G-d), it would be very rare if one of them were to protest alongside Palestinian activists. The orthodox groups who do that (like 1-2) are totally ostracized from mainstream orthodoxy, and few in rank.
coffee_enjoyer
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10d ago
I can help you imagine. If a group of BLM protestors have sequestered themselves into a square to do their BLM chants and so forth, then someone dressed in a police uniform with his phone out to record is clearly the provocateur if he attempts to enter the zone when there is clearly no interest in the zone other than provocation. (Notice the square is densely packed and it is evening.) It is crybullying to call it harassment if the BLM people hold their arms to prevent your incursion. Of course, I’m saying this as someone who thinks BLM was the height of American stupidity. This is why it’s ubiquitous during protests to separate the two sides, and the police will often prevent a member of one side from entering the other side.
coffee_enjoyer
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10d ago
Yes, Chabadnik hat + phenotype + context clues (smirking as recording a group of Palestinian protesters).
coffee_enjoyer
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10d ago
Looks like they are stopping that (Zionist) student from recording the faces of the protestors, by preventing him from entering into the protest square with his phone recording. This would be evidence that Zionist students want to harass the protestors, but not evidence of protestors harassing Jewish students.
coffee_enjoyer
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10d ago
videos circulating of protestors harassing Jewish students
Where are these videos?
coffee_enjoyer
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12d ago
Augustine says
For in that day the Jews—those of them, at least, who shall receive the spirit of grace and mercy [are saved]
And there’s 200 years from Melito to Augustine where there is never mention of corporate salvation
coffee_enjoyer
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12d ago
If I want to benefit my identity group, how can I rationally go about this without thinking in terms of ”ingroup utilitarianism” (which you dispute in your OP)? You don’t offer any alternative to rule-based utilitarianism for ensuring the mutual benefit of an identity group among the members who wish for mutual benefit. Do you believe that people should just do what their instincts tell them to do? Do you believe it is unknown? Do you ever talk about splitting the bill with friends, or ever get mad when a favor is not reciprocated?
I don’t consider “there are layered ingroups” to be a serious criticism of communal utilitarianism; it would just imply that there is not one rule but there are different rules which mediate one’s ingroups. I agree with most of your criticism of utilitarianism but not here.
coffee_enjoyer
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12d ago
The problem is that the sequence of thought in Paul goes against your idea of remnant + corporate salvation. Paul begins the topic in Romans 9:3 introducing unsaved Israel. “I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people […] It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” (1A) Occam’s razor is that when explaining why God’s promises still apply, we should provide the most inclusive reason. If corporate Israel is predestined to convert, that is the most inclusive reason for why God’s promises weren’t reneged but still apply (“Did God void his promise to Israel? No, they will one day convert as a nation, and some of us already converted”). Paul mentioning the small remnant would only be a minor part of the explanation which has nothing to do with most of God’s promise and most of Israel. But the remnant is the only thing talked about when asked “did God’s word fail?”. Again, in Romans 9:24 we have the perfect time to talk about some predestined corporate salvation, but this point is not brought up.
When Isaiah is quoted, Paul includes the words that speaks of completion and finality, which he did not need to include but which are included for a reason. “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.” Those who are not of the remnant have a final sentence, being foremade as “vessels of destruction” which Paul speaks about. When Paul specifically answers the question, “did God reject his people” in Romans 11, he again speaks in terms of a remnant, rather than something like ”God will save all his people in the end”. He quotes Elijah, where God says he has kept 7000 only of Israel to save.
There has to be a preexisting tree for a branch to be grafted into, but the "Israel of faith" did not even exist prior to the birth of the Gentile church
The root is God, or even Christ who is preexistent (hence “the vine”). Ethnic Israel cannot be both roots and “broken branches” as branches cannot be a root.
children of Abraham
I recall a certain person who called the the Pharisees who believed they were children of Abraham “children of Satan”. There is indeed a predestined children of Abraham, but there are also those who claim to be but are not.
It is a very common belief among "traditional" Christians
It is not found in the church fathers. Read what Melito or Origen have to say. Hence, it is not found in traditional or historic Christianity, per my post.
Another thing that must be understood is the corporate theory relies on a passage which is predicated on a mystery. When Paul speaks about mysteries they always defy a literal understanding, for instance —
Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet
“Mysteries” require us to think more about things. The “mystery” that Paul introduces should not be taken in its most literal, unthinking form.
coffee_enjoyer
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14d ago
since in the sentence immediately preceding he explicitly contrasts "Israel" with "the gentiles."
We can read until that sentence starting with 11:20
Jews were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you
Who are the natural branches that are not spared, which causes gentiles to be afraid lest they share the same fate? If all are spared, then there are no natural branches who are not spared. The phraseology explains that the verdict on Israel is more severe, hence “fear, for if God did not spare natural branches he will not spare you”, but your reading has it that Israel’s verdict is less severe. If gentiles fear a loss of salvation, and Israel’s verdict is more severe, but all of Israel is saved… this is a very silly interpretation which is all over the place.
Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off
Just continuing the reading, gentiles must fear God’s severity toward those who have fallen.
And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
This supports my view given the conditional if. We are now back to talking about the grafted in Israel, the Israel by faith, which was defined two chapters ago. If Paul believes that they will all be saved, why is it if and not when? Why is it “God has the power” rather than “God will”?
Finally we have
a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved as it is written
The key to understanding the above is clearly the sentence that makes zero sense in your theology: “It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel”. This makes no sense in your theology because it necessarily implies that not all of born-Israel are saved. There are (A) those descended from Israel, who (B) are not Israel, (C) which is important to know for the purposes of salvation, and we know (D) all of Israel will be saved. Your theology requires something that conflicts with (B) because you allege that all descended from Israel are Israel, whereas Paul specifically denies this. (C) is also a stumbling block to your theology because Paul specifically mentions (A+B) in the context of salvation and in the context of understanding the prophecy of saved Jews. An additional point (E) is that Paul writes “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved”, which against conflicts with an all-inclusive salvation. If all are predestined to be saved then never can there be only a remnant saved.
it will be much easier for them who are "natural" branches
That’s just saying that the natural branches would have an easier time fitting into Christianity than a Pagan Greek, given the monotheism and the shared scriptures which they are familiar with
This does not necessarily mean every single Jew
So which ones aren’t?
not just a small remnant
Then why does he specifically mention a remnant?
coffee_enjoyer
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14d ago
“All Israel” in that passage does not mean something like “literally every proclaimed Israelite”. In Romans 9 you find:
For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel […] it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved”
These are instrumental to understanding what Paul says in Romans 11, preceding it in the same epistle (an epistle without original delineations nonetheless). Israel != flesh, and Israel = a saved remnant. If not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, then when we read in 11 that “all Israel will be saved”, we must take this to mean the aforementioned real Israel rather than descended Israel by flesh (otherwise there would be no point in making the distinction beforehand).
This is why there’s a theme of a remnant Israel and a “broken off” Israel. Consider how pointless Paul’s effort would be to “save some” of his brothers by preaching if, at the end of the day, literally all of them are saved regardless of his preaching.
This may come off as mere miscellany to any non-Abrahamist readers but the consequences are serious for keeping the gospel stable. If every Jew is saved at the end of days, then there is no reason to convert to Christianity as a Jew or to preach to Jews (which the original apostles did). And Jesus’ threats of hell make no sense. It destroys the integrity of the Gospel in the same way that someone saying “you don’t have to follow the mitzvahs to be rewarded and saved” would destroy the integrity of Judaism.
coffee_enjoyer
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14d ago
Romans 11 says that the “natural branches” have been broken off due to their unbelief, and that there is a small “reserved” remnant who believe by faith. That reserved remnant are the Jews who believed / will believe in Christ. I don’t believe any early Christian theologians interpreted this differently
coffee_enjoyer
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14d ago
You are highlighting one passing sentence of his out of a ~100-sentence post about something else. The highlighted sentence is a bash against Christians too. In any case his bash is incorrect; traditional/historic Christianity believes God simply chose to begin his revelation via a covenant with the nation (not an ethnicity yet) of Ancient Israel, and that this covenant is cut off with the induction of the Christian Faithful (with the exception of a remaining few who were yet to convert). So, traditionally speaking, Christianity does not hold that Jews are privileged by God in any way.
coffee_enjoyer
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14d ago
The moral instinct itself functions as a way to secure the genes of the moral person’s group. That is the evolutionary purpose of morality. If moral people are coerced into doing good to everyone equally, then (1) this would decrease morality on the whole [moral genes] because behavioral energy expenditure is zero-sum and so amoral or immoral genes will flourish [see sociopathy], and (2) it would be unjust because they are owed the benefit of their own nature (moral in-group formation). As an example, members of Group A have strong moral interests in the form of guilt and pity and care for others, whereas Group B evolved such that this cognitive expenditure is spent on self-interest or family-interest. If Group A and Group B have to live together, and if Group A is pressured into giving moral help to Group B, then B is parasitic off of A, and in the future there will be less of Group A. In order for Group A to secure its genes, given that it spends cognitive energy on moral interest, it must direct its moral interest only to the in-group. Otherwise those genes will fade into oblivion. Anyone telling Group A to share its moral concerns (and this includes some mainstream interpretations of Christianity) are fundamentally against moral development, what may simply be called evil or satanic. If moral genes are enhanced from in-group interest, then moral in-group interest is better for the whole world. We can call this the trickle down theory of morality if we want to be cheeky, except in this case it’s real.
[in-group based rules-based utilitarianism fails because] each person is, after all, a member of multiple overlapping communities of various sizes and levels of cohesion, whose interests are frequently in conflict with each other
This is your brain on 20th century propaganda . jpg. More seriously, nobody in the past had any problem understanding what their in-group was. It was ethnicity and religion. This is the most natural way to develop an in-group such that it secures genes. The only exception you find in the favoring of ethnicity is when people join cults, like early Christianity, but consider that this cult was unusual in its promotion and selection for morality, and in any case these were region-specific churches which didn’t do a lot of charitable intermingling with each other.
Utilitarianism as a practical framework comes with huge benefits for an in-group, just not when seen as a top-level explanation of morality. I was writing about the Amish yesterday so let me use them as an example again. One of the rules they developed is that when you make a lot of money you give it back to the community. What is an ineffectual platitude in mainstream America is a gene-enhancing practice among the Amish. The recipients of the charity are all similar to the giver, both ethnically and religiously. For this reason, the Amish have the highest rate of charity and the lowest income disparity among all ethnic groups. Here, you see that a utilitarian rule works wonders. But note that this moral action would be wasted if not for the fact that the Amish select for moral genes via their cultural practices. Once you stop selecting for moral genes, then a moral person giving away money even to his own community is reducing sum-total morality over generations.
Another way that utilitarianism can help us practically is by creating rules which govern interaction between groups without privileging any one group. For instance, “in the case of a disaster, every nation should spend 2% of their resources on the affected nation”. This is a great rule and motivated purely by self-interest, because (1) we can all imagine being the struck nation, (2) it does not harm any moral nation by making them spend more. This is essentially insurance. People don’t take out insurance because they are moral but because they are self-interested. So maybe this shouldn’t even be counted as utilitarian, but we can imagine moral scenarios where this occurs.
There’s an interesting question of, “should we send malaria nets to Africa if we knew for certain they would not send aid to a different poor nation if they could” (in other words, if they were in our shoes). I would say absolutely not. If this intuition is shared, then it hints to a reciprocity rule undergirding morality between groups. Note that we can still send malaria nets, we would just require something of interest for ourselves: a territorial claim, resources, investment, etc.
coffee_enjoyer
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16d ago
The Amish are not parasitic for the simple reason that they pay more than they take out. This makes them less parasitic than other groups. They pay taxes, except social security, because they do their own thing for that, and they pool money for healthcare expenditures. They don’t really need roads in perfect conditions, they don’t spend a lot of time in jails, they don’t require a lot of policing, they don’t go into troublesome college debt, etc. They have solved the criminality problem without need for the military or police. And what makes them much less parasitic than normal American culture is that they don’t wastefully spend resources on fleeting pleasures. When a normal American makes a lot of money they might waste that money for their own pleasure; when an Amish makes a lot of money more of it goes into their community because they don’t do a lot of consumerism or debauchery.
The military point misses something important. There’s something called IW alternative service where conscientious observers aid the country in non-violent ways and the Amish used this during the Korean/Vietnam war. So the labor they would have spent as soldiers may be spent as factory workers. The economy does not stop when war occurs, even the deadliest wars need people to work factories, which the Amish work without committing to crimes or vice — possibly the best possible factory worker profile.
I found this study on Amish criminality and genetic selection . It argues that the Amish criminality rate is too low to be explained purely by criminal gene outflow and that there is also an element of cultural transmission. Another way we can measure this (which I don’t think has been done) is to search for homicide offenders in Ohio and filter for Amish-associated first and last names, as well as birthplace location. My intuition is that there are not a lot of formerly Amish homicide offenders.
Note that the question of gene outflow must answer to how America receives criminals. The Amish ostracize their criminals; were they the only people in America, the ostracized criminals would have to live in a makeshift criminal colony far away from Amish areas. If America lacks a solution to criminality like the Amish solution, that’s not an Amish problem, that’s again an America problem.
This is visible in the fact that there are very few converts
This is entirely explained by the lack of knowledge about Amish QoL. People don’t move to countries without knowing the job market and quality of life, neither do they buy kale without information about its health benefits. The average American might find the Amish quaint and cute, but they absolutely do not know how successful they are in terms of generating a high quality of life. (I, a 99th percentile Amish aficionado, was myself greatly surprised when I began checking all the metrics of Amish QoL. For instance, that the women are quite happy, feminism not included.)
Re: 5, I imagine the gay Amish can’t have sex and instead have to rely on loving platonic friendships with their male friends. Even so, we can imagine an Amish possible world where the gays get to form couples. My post is not intended to imply “let’s copy Amish 100%”, but rather to imply that all of our social progress since 1710 has not allowed us to live as good as our friends stuck in the past. In fact, it makes us and our progress-worshipping seem pretty silly and backwards. How much money and talent has been wasted on feminism when this does not appear to be a requirement for female happiness?
The elements of Christianity which would lead one to believe that antiracism is important to the faith were historically counterbalanced with deeper readings of the text and studies in ancient history and philosophy. The ones steering politics were exclusively men who were well-educated in these texts. The decline of Christian literacy coincides with the decline in the emphasis on ancient classics with its brutal realism (“the strong do what they will and the weak do what they must”), and the extolling of false political science (no racial differences as a matter of assumption), and the dominance of a largely non-Christian media influenced disproportionately by non-Christians. Everyone believed in unique racial characteristics before the 19th century, but science came in during the 20th century and told everyone this has been debunked actually.
Islam has a much stronger emphasis on anti racism than Christianity, see here
it’s simply that only highly educated men decided things in Islamic nations. Even today, if only men decided politics, it would be difficult for democrats to win an election. If only men trained in theology and the philosophy / history of the classics decided things, who knows what things would look like? I suppose you could say that, like Adam, the West’s original sin was a combination of pride + being persuaded by womankind, which changed who decided things and then led to all sorts of issues downstream.
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