Sure, you can also say that you are atheistic theist and that they both have in common that they discuss God and that it makes you feel good as part of your CBT. I am not denying that, I am just arguing that saying I think rationalism is kind of like stoicism is incoherent, that is all.
georgioz
13hr ago
Their similarity is in following logical, thought-out principles. The real opposite is normiedom, i.e. just do whatever everyone else is doing, and "we do it like this because we've always been doing it like this, my father and his father did it so as well" and I live my life like this because that's what everyone else expects and they would point their fingers and laugh at me otherwise
This is actually a false dilemma fallacy, you can use the same logic to show how any coherent philosophical system has more in common with one another compared to "normiedom". Additionally it is self-defeating specifically from rationalist perspective. Adhering to tradition and proclaiming normie beliefs is absolutely a rational thing to do. One can argue that these norms are just highly-optimized and time tested heuristics. My argument is that following stoic as opposed to rationalist philosophy would lead to a completely different heuristics and norms.
Both Stoicism and rationalism are about taking control of your own simpleton mind and applying superior individual control over it using one's own willpower and superseding the trappings of regular normal-people thinking. I know that this is a broad umbrella, but "just be a normal person and do what everyone else is doing, go with the flow, don't ever be weird" is the true opposite pole.
There is no need to sneer at it. In fact stoics did not sneer at simpletons, they saw them as agents with spark of logos fully capable of manifesting it. Additionally one of four cardinal virtues of stoics was wisdom in both senses - Sophia as understanding of math and logic, but also Phronesis as practical wisdom rooted in tradition. Plus again stoics were interested in personal virtue, many of their individual or societal prescriptions would be sneered at by rationalist as backwards and "irrational" in Yudkowskian utilitarian/consequentialist sense.
georgioz
1d ago
They are not only different, they are opposite to each other in all ways that matter. They are bitter enemies.
I think rationalism is kind of like stoicism (both philosophies I like and try to practice, though I don't really "identify" as either a rationalist or a stoic)
They are absolutely different philosophies. Ethically, Stoicism (similar to Christian ethics) is virtue ethics system, rationalists/Yudkowskyans are utilitarian consequentialists. Stoicism is focused on individual and it teaches how individuals can lead a virtuous life. One of the principles is Hierocles’ Concentric Circles (similar to Catholic subsidiarity) where responsibility flows from virtuous individual to virtuous broader society. Yudkowskyian rationalists have completely opposite system, they ground their morality in "greater good" of Effective Altruism, where they obsess about macro level and maximizing utility for maximum number of conscious beings including those not yet born.
Rationalists are reductionist materialists/physicalists. The universe is dead, intelligence is emergent property of unthinking universal wavefunction, morality is accident of evolutionary engineering of biological computers that gave birth to human intelligence. Stoics believed that the universe has telos, that it is a thinking organism and by being virtuous you align with this universal telos - it is similar to Thomistics natural law philosophy.
Those two systems could not be more different. In fact it is one of my main criticism of Rationalists.
The problem is with the wife and husband to be. If they are both Catholics, for a valid catholic marriage they need to be married by a properly ordained catholic priest. If two Catholics get married by protestant pastor, their marriage is invalid from catholic perspective. This is an interesting situation - for instance if there are two atheists who married in front of Elvis and who later convert to Catholicism, their marriage is considered as valid natural marriage and it is automatically promoted to sacramental marriage upon baptism. If one of them was atheist but the second one was baptized catholic in apostasy and they both married in front of Elvis, then their marriage is null and void from catholic perspective, they are just living in concubinage as lovers. They need to remarry right after baptism of the atheist and after the apostate goes through general confession (the special confession taking into account his whole life).
This seems strange, but from the standpoint of Catholic Church the Catholics as soon as you are baptized you are bound by the canon law for life. You agree that the Church is providing the legal structure to your life. Protestants or atheists did not do that, so they are not obligated to follow it.
It’s helpful to look at the history; old Catholics did originate with a handful of individuals who disagreed with papal infallibility, one of whom was a bishop.
It is more complicated than that. The whole succession of bishops goes back to 1723 where Jesennists had dispute with Vatican regarding ecclesiology, the remnants just joined forces with other rebels over time. These things tend to split and merge, for instance even Union of Utrecht had merger with Polish Catholics who then left after they saw the push toward liberalization. In a sense these wandering rebels just use random bishops to create their own priests.
The SSPX does not have mercenary origins. It continues to deny Mel Gibson communion for adultery despite his fame and large donations. It does not endorse whatever is fashionable on the political right(much to the chagrin of some members), and only cooperates with secular politics when it thinks it needs something.
Nevertheless they are strictly radical. They go hard against Vatican II and demand that the Catholic Church declares at least parts of it as in error. This never happened in Catholich Church for 2000 years. Even most egregious doctrines like Doctrine of Discovery are not outright dismissed as erroneous, they are declared as "product of their time" or some such. This is by the way exactly what Benedict XVI offered with hermenautics of continuity: interpret church documents in a way that gives primacy to more important dogmas and doctrines thus basically castrating them.
All in all SSPX are absolutely boneheaded:
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The whole crusade against Vatican II is by itself one of the most radical and modernist stances currently available. If Pope can annul results of ecumenical council such as Vatican II then why not Trent or Nicaea? This only gives ammo to radicals. Vatican II will stand, there is no way it will be overturned or declared as erroneous as it would mean that the visible Church was in error for over 60 years now and counting. This creates orders of magnitudes more problems than it solves.
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It will not even help. There are older documents like Summi Pontificatus and Plane Compertum Est by Pius XII in 1939, which (re)introduced concept of incluturation - incorporating local customs into Catholic life. This is at least as radical as Nostra Aetatum or Dignitas Humanae as it basically makes what "traditionalists" considered as idolatry permissible directly overturning Ex quo singulari from 1742 by papal fiat. And BTW SSPX consider Pius XII as a good and traditional pope and they have no problem with Summi Pontificatus, they just obsess over Vatican II. If you specifically focus on the inculturation vs idolatry doctrine and Magisterium, there were several 180 degrees turns at least since 600 till Vatican II and beyond. There are dozens or hundreds such historical documents for this or other topics, that can be used by progressive pope to bash over peoples head, Vatican 2 is not some unique aberration that changed pristine history of church Magisterium.
I studied SSPX and I even have some sympathies toward them. But I concluded that they are bunch of morons who at this point just revolt for revolt's sake. Their arguments are circular, illogical and ultimately come from place of pride - they use strong language more suited for online CW as opposed to theological disputes inside Cathoilicsim. They will never be a better deal than the one offered by Benedict: having personal prelature (bishop structure under pope himself sidesteping local diocesan bishops), just having to pay lip service to accept Vatican II as a valid ecumenical concil that is to be interpreted correctly, having full right to be custodians of Tridentine Mass and all that.
Instead SSPX chose confrontation. There will for sure be more splits and arguments inside the SSPX, the whole thing is unstable as it is self-defeating, the whole movement is based on personal reading of what the church teaching means and it will be their undoing.
Punishing people for not having children is a bad idea. If you are single woman, a harsh tax + good benefits is going to result in you having children out of wedlock.
There is no material difference, single people will be always punished. It does not matter if you let's say have $10k tax for both and give tax credit of $5k to family with children or if you have tax $5k and gather extra $5k tax from childless family. Single person pays $10k and family pays $5k in taxes in either case.
But that's not the sort of society Bezos got married in. In the one he did, monogamy is the law and women are considered partners in a more substantial sense by both the feminists and Christians, even if they manage it differently. It's dubious if Western civilization has suffered from treating the one wife as more important and precious, even if the idea of giving away half your earnings to someone now incentivized to take it is galling.
There are two different arguments here. On one level, we can look at relationship between man and woman overall, which ranges from whores, suggar babies/daddies, friends with benefits, situationships, cohabitation, common-law marriage to secular marriage or religious marriage and many other forms between. The modern secular western view constantly blurs difference between these relationships, just look at so called toothbrush case from Australia 16 years ago. So if a regular escort like Aella has toothbrush in your home, she can be your defacto wife. That is the actual legal minimum when a whore "deserves" half of your wealth for her "partnership", so who are we kidding here.
I as a Catholic also agree with you, but I am also much more strict even than many of my fellow believers. I do not consider anything other than religious marriage as such, I do not see a point why should I in any way respect the aforementioned bastardization of this sacred institution. I do not care about "she is my monogamous partner" and other such nonsense - including divorced couples - which is something that should not happen in the first place. It is all just heathens doing their depraved shit, up and including gay "marriages" and various polycules and some such. I take it as a wordgame, where degenerates appropriated the word and completely inverted its meaning beyond recognition, transforming it to something completely different as usual. To me it is all just cohabitation in some concubinage and people having basically business contracts between themselves, especially if you include various semi-crazy prenups. Again, it is a farce.
So I do not see any issues for me to hold both of these points. If a supposed believer divorces her husband, she automatically falls under category of oathbreaker and I cannot find any sympathy for any case of how she deserves wealth for some vague concept of "partnership", that is not a standard I recognize or respect. The fact is, that she herself turned her sacred marriage into moneygrabbing operation as opposed to acting according to her duties.
This is just wordplay. In that sense even Aella is not just a lover or a whore, she is partner of sorts for powerful, intellectually stimulating them toward higher success. Maybe she also "deserves" billions of dollars. The word "deserves" carries a lot of weight here, even today there are countries where divorcees do not get shit when it comes to wealth - the whole Middle East and North Africa for instance. Similar rules exist for widows, where wealth is inherited by closest male relatives. All these countries apparently decided that wives do not deserve shit.
The point stands. Golddiging under various circumstances is highly profitable for women, even an utter bimbo without any hard skills outside of seduction can amass huge wealth and power that way. That is in fact vast majority of cases how women do it all around the world.
In grand scheme of things these whores like aella are the very bottom of intellectual courtesans. They are vastly overshadowed by lovers of powerful men who can amass properties, jewels or even yachts and other luxury items worth much more - cases such as Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, who was a lover of King of Spain and recieved property in Marakesh and $70 million in literal direct wire transfer. And even those are of course nothing compared to wealthy divorcees such as Bezo's ex wife MacKenzie Scott. There are many more such cases such as Jocelyn Wildenstein who got $3.8 billion divorce settlement etc. If you look in top 100 wealthiest women, almost 80% inherited their wealth often from deceased spouses. Only around 14 of them are self-made. It is almost inverse of men, who are almost 80% self-made billionaires. This is how things simply work for women.
georgioz
29d ago
As other said, there is vast difference between Christian denominations, some such as Calvinists/Reformed are more harsh, that may be why you think that. Other such as Catholic Church explains original sin as state of depravity from grace, they inherited the broken nature of humanity from Adam and Eve. It is the whole basis for Christology as second Adam who provided humanity a path to reconciliation. In a sense using the word sin in Original Sin is in a different sense, for instance Orthodox Christians choose different name such as Ancestral Condition. Which by the way is also consistent with Catholic Dogma, there is just a little bit different way of thinking about it.
That is because Christian Charity is not utilitarian, but based on Christian virtue ethics. Even people like Saint Ambrose with radical view on wealth accented the impact of lack of charity on the salvation of the giver, not only on earthly comfort of the one receiving such charity. It also flows into Thomas Aquinas hierarchy of need, where only extreme necessity requires immediate action, and even then in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity - meaning you are responsible for ever expanding circle that however starts with you. So in that sense a heathy beggar who is hungry because he is lazy, is failing in his responsibility and in fact steals from truly needy. Enabling his behavior is at best lack of prudence, and at worst you become complicit, as you trap them in their sins.
It is one of pet peeves of mine - when modern Christian Churches entangle themselves in social policies and preach about human rights or inequalities or even utilitarian systems such as Effective Altruism often calling it as strategic choice. This is secular vocabulary is alien to core social teaching. E.g. talking about American poor is absolutely stupid, they are basically yesteryear millionaires with access to everything they may need materially.
This is needlessly limiting criterion, almost example noncentral fallacy. Eugenics is not only a government policy, it is also an ideology and a social movement. Eugenicists are interested in outcome of improving DNA of the population, the means to do that can vary. There were rabidly antistatist eugenicist of old, such as radical libertarian Herbert Spencer. They had more in common with modern technocratic approach of "nudges" - moral stigma, social engineering, subtle subsidies or penalties or outright propaganda in lieu of brute coercion.
My personal theory is, that the whole identification of eugenics with fascists and statists was just a standard Progressive PR campaign to clear the stain and declare post-hoc victory of always being on the right side of the history. But underlying impulse and logic is still there. They are defacto eugenicists, they just don't want to be identified with Nazis.
georgioz
1mo ago
Sure, but I commented on the context that the OP introduced of economic relationships. Not about people grouping together to form a bowling league or moderating Culture Wars online forum etc. That is also an intrinsic social need, but of a different kind.
We mean different things, we have different definitions. To me it seems, that you look more into structure: is it limited or unlimited liability, is it solo owned or a group owned entity, is it for profit or non-profit, is it publicly traded or privately owned etc.
I look more on the function and need this institution serves. I'd consider a local mafia as a company in this sense, it is a group of criminals conducting illicit activities to earn profit. It's legal structure is immaterial to me, companies can exist absent of state. That is my point with OPs rant about what he thinks companies should or should not do - bad luck, companies are not bitches of states, they are manifestation of underlying reality of human nature.
Also profit is necessary component to me, doing something does not cut it for practical reason. For instance banding together with your wife in order to raise children is not a company, it is a different institution - specifically that of marriage forming a family. I guess we can extend the definition if we know what we mean, there definitely is some overlap especially if there actually is family business etc. But it is unnecessary.
georgioz
1mo ago
But most kids want to go to college because, pay, wages, jobs aside, it looks like a hell of a lot more fun aged 17 than becoming a bricklayer or taking up an apprenticeship as a hairdresser or plumber or carpenter or electrician, or getting a job at a warehouse, or a call center.
There are still some positions even in corporate world where you can land without university. At 18 you can land some lower-end sales job as SDR maybe with tech-sales or similar. If you are technically savvy, you can aim for presales engineer career which is pretty neat. You can land IT support position and farm certifications. These together with work history will be more valuable than some default easy college. All of these work very well especially with some referrals and recommendations.
At its core the company is an entity formed by shareholders in order to generate profit. This is intrinsic purpose of any company, be it modern LLC, East India Company a pirate crew in Caribbean with its own charter, Hanseatic guild in Baltic or mercenary company in ancient Greece. From times immemorial, people banded together and pooled labor, capital and know-how in order to generate profit for themselves.
All of those things you mentioned such as distributing goods, creating markets, creating jobs and whatnot are externalities of certain type of regulated companies. It is a result if you make it easier for strangers to put together capital and create profitable business. But it would in some form work even without that, only it would be more costly and riskier to do that in unstable environment.
I am not sure what these mythical security guarantees should be. They can be anything including ineffective guarantees for South Vietnam ("respond with full force" by Nixon) which broke within months of enacting them. Or as in case of Afghanistan, where USA simply withdrew the guarantees and just asked Taliban to behave for 14 months needed to abandon their security partner.
I am not sure why either of those scenarios cannot happen at any time. Especially if there will be multiple countries doing that - e.g. USA, France, Germany and UK being the security partner. I can imagine a new US administration asking Ukraine for mineral resources rights in exchange of guarantees in 2029 and when denied, they will just say they are withdrawing them in 2 years or some such leaving everything up to France and UK and other countries who may do their traditional Munich Agreement solution to unwanted security guarantees.
I agree, these settlements are absurd. The other thing that I recall is Alex Jones supposedly paying out $1.4 billion with court ordering to liquidate everything he owns be it InfoWars or his personal assets. Mind you there were 15 plaintiffs representing 10 victims and he had to pay from $28.8 million to $120 million. Now I am not defending Jones and his character here, but it seems excessive to me especially because of course Jones is not a billionaire and has only fraction of that money, but at the same time he cannot declare bankrupcy. So he will have to pay damages for the rest of his life. He basically became something like indentured servant to those people.
I am not sure if this is a normal practice in USA especially for verbal crime. But even for some other crime - is it normal for a criminal to be sued for billions thus becoming basically indentured servant for his victim? Surely raping or crippling somebody is much worse than ranting on internet, I guess the damages should be in trillions. It seems insane to me how arbitrary this is, but I guess this is what we get from jury system which is basically a theater where regular people can use state power for their own power trips.
georgioz
1mo ago
techniques like ‘street game’ hitting on a hundred women in public and then trying to hook up with the single one who seems receptive and gives them their number are tailor made to filter for 99th percentile promiscuity women.
It does not even has to be that, you can filter for women who are currently in manic phase of their BPD or who want to get revenge on their boyfriend who literally dumped them an hour ago etc. This is also strategy of various sneaky fuckers who embed themselves in women's organizations - they are there exactly to use any opportunity they can get. It is just game of numbers.
I am also baffled that people do not know this. We had many such cases around BLM riots - rioters were arrested, they sued the local PD for excessive violence and sympathetic government enthusiastically settles. It is now basically accepted way of financing political players on par with "learing center" frauds, US AID frauds, or frauds via other supposed NGOs that are solely financed from government to do party activism.
It is the way how parties are financed in current day-and-age everywhere including in Europe. This type of legal corruption is now baked into the society, it is how business is done and it is inevitable. Your local political activist protests with understanding, that his legal fees will be covered by some leftist activist group who in turn understand that they will get financed from some fake project or settled lawsuit with possible career moves from activism into local, state or federal bureaucracy or maybe some consultant job. This is how millions of people live and do business, it is the same system that was in place in Rome with politicians having their client network attached like leeches on tax systems and monopolies etc.
Refusing to play this game means that you will lose and then get laughed off the stage by cynical progressive wonks as a stupid moron. They can now gleefully claim for decades how the right does not have institutional brainpower and numbers and support network from low level activists to high level people in academia and other institutions. Of course they don't have them, they refused to play the game for decades, and let the opposition entrench deeply into all the systems.
he problem for the pro-gun side is there isn't much of a pro-gun constituency. You've got the 40% hard-core anti-gunners. And then you've got the squishy reasonable-gun-control conservatives, who will never find a bit of gun control they find unreasonable. The Second Amendment people are loud but a distinct minority.
This was exactly the situation of let's say gay marriage where the support in 80s and 90s was only 10% with huge part of the population opposing. The activists were not against using state courts and ultimately in 2015 even SCOTUS decision to ram that thing through many times without gay marriage actually having a popular support. Then all it took was several decades of culture waring and suddenly it is now a new normal. Similar things happened also in Europe, often it was using literal slippery slope such as in Austria where they approved of registered partnership only for Austrian constitutional court to decree that existence of registered partnership was basically unconstitutional and discriminatory and that it should be turned into gay marriage with everything including adoptions etc. No popular vote or law passed specifically to turn this millennia old institution.
Recently I am actually a huge fan of this tactic, the left used it all the time: do not be afraid to be brazen. Ask for ability to privately own tanks and missile systems and then just meet in the middle with the left to allow machine guns and RPGs. I think that there is also additional value there even if you are not that much of a pro-gun person - just by focusing on this topic it takes energy out of other stuff so you can go after other things such as gay marriage or education or some such. Additionally wage open legal warfare by every means possible even on topics that are supposedly settled, and also wage culture war. Do not be afraid to infiltrate and turn around existing movement - e.g. homeschooling movement that started as countercultural hippie thing was basically taken over by religious right by 1990s. Things like that.
It seems like a pipedream now, but I think it can be quite successful. I think something similar happened with COVID - I think that the "antivaxx" supposed extremes really blunted some of the actually extreme things that happened around the world. I believe that the politicians genuinely feared them such as when street riots in Netherlands prevented more fascist vaccine passports, Canadian convoy definitely sped up cancelling lockdowns in some states and it actually even worked in China where they reverted their longstanding Zero COVID policies. These "extremists" and "crazies" are often the unsung heroes of rightist causes, such as recently with multidecade win in Roe vs Wade or pushback against trans agenda. The left realizes that they can accommodate them, and they actually even openly sung songs to them and they turn it to eleven. Crazies are now mainstream and they accommodate even outright terrorist such as Weathermen and find safe haven for them at universities and think-tanks.
I think this is correct observation, however I do not think it as totally wasteful. Even in early days of internet you could have people sending emails only for those to be printed and then put into folders - a common practice in 1980s and 1990s. Many of these had decades old processes and legal requirements behind, including signatures etc. It will take some time of decade+ before AI will be fully integrated in businesses and there will be a lot of work for this combination of AI and old processes/people.
This is just constructing a narrative to suit your assumptions. Yes, the Southern Italy was much more stable compared to the North It did not see as much of a direct conflict but it experienced more of a silent subjugation. But this does not explain anything. Northern Italy was fractured and constantly at war as battleground of Great Powers especially during Italian wars which was also the time of renaissance. So conflict supposedly helped?
Interestingly enough tight next to Italy we have Balkans which was also literal battleground between Ottomans and Habsburgs with armies moving around, endless rebellions and revolts and betrayals - and it did not make them center of science and prosperity. Plus there is also one other place which was also safe from any direct conflict except devastating civil wars and literal Game of Thrones power struggles, centralized and ruled by foreign rulers. It was endlessly exploited to finance their continental war adventures against Holy Roman Empire and France in futile and disastrous Hundred Years War and beyond. This place is called England. And they seemed to end up okay moving to modernity.
I actually equate freedom with something completely different and it seems to be incompatible with modern state. I think freedom is to have taxation on level of 1 or 2% of GDP like in 1775 USA. I see it as ability to sell and purchase goods and services without constant oversight of taxman. I see it as being able to have contract without tyrannical book of regulations that are impossible to read withing my lifetime. In a sense of freedom, I think that the modern people are completely cucked and lulled into absolute egregious compliance.
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