somethingsomething
No bio...
User ID: 1123
somethingsomething
5mo ago
I agree that the mainstream media environment is not trustworthy and I don't go for them for unvarnished truth. But again I think there's a good comparison on the other side, so many on the left believe that Trump can never be right about anything, so they believe the opposite of whatever he says, which creates a huge blind spot that ultimately degrades societal trust. It can be a similar problem regarding what the right believes about mainstream media.
somethingsomething
6mo ago
I think Galatians 2 emphasizes the kind of separateness Paul has with the Jewish sect, you have some calling Paul's authority or teachings into question, probably because of not following the law and the other ideas of Paul, so he goes to get the blessing of the James etc. (who he says added nothing to his message), and they decide to accept what he's doing, but then that's it and he goes back off on his own. I don't think the groups were enemies or cut off from each other, just that they were different groups with differences of belief and that there was probably some tension there.
Specifically I think Paul's peculiar beliefs were in the holy spirit which I think he invented, how rapture/apocalypse works and ideas around afterlife which I think draw from Greek philosophy and Platonism, and not needing to follow Jewish law.
I don't have a ready explanation for the unclean foods thing, but I tend to think that the more visions are involved the less I'm inclined to believe it. It's one thing if Paul has his visions and I think that probably happened, since he seemed very intently motivated by whatever he experienced. I don't think all the other apostles were also getting visions from god, nor do I think they were actually healing people in miraculous ways etc. after Jesus' death. This story is also very convenient for Paul if you have Peter have a vision that confirms that you don't need to follow the law if God says so. Compare that to James 2:8.
somethingsomething
6mo ago
I think there a few seemingly fundamental mysteries of existence that make the universe a bit more than the dark void that atheists typically characterize it as, but I would bet against those mysteries pointing to some kind of 1 identity "god" type, I don't really know what the other options are, but it's a difficult question. But if I was in a worshipping group, and some people saw it in the "god" style, and I left things more open for myself, it wouldn't be a problem for me. It becomes a problem for me when it's worshipping a human being, or some subset of humanity, as God, because that seems very unlikely to me to be true.
I think there was a lot of intellectual Jewish and Greek thought at the time that an educated Jew like Paul was drawing from, in addition to certainly being inspired by Jesus. I think he clearly responded to Jesus' death differently than original apostles, not having been part of the original group and having visionary experiences afterwards, and I think intellectually he brought in platonic ideas to make sense of them and spread them through his followers. I don't think these ideas were incorporated in the Jewish Jesus groups and I think it was probably a point of tension.
And I just think his attitude in not following Jewish law went beyond Jesus' teachings and was his own innovation. Any of the original 12 could have taken Paul's role as the gentile baptizer, you could imagine half of them or more taking that role considering how many gentiles there are compared to Jews. But it's the outsider who does it and appears to mostly do it on his own. For me that strongly points to Paul having a lot of his own ideas and following them on his own accord, rather than being a outreach plan devised by the original Jewish movement.
somethingsomething
7mo ago
I'm a lifelong democrat voter who would vote Haley, but I do think it's up in the air how much better she'd do. Trump does energize Democrats too.
somethingsomething
9mo ago
I think the error here is comparing yourself to an entire nation. If you are making an argument like "Sure it only affects my family and friends," then you're rationality is poorly calibrated.
Voting does particularly stress this because you're personal affect really is so small, and in presidential elections the electoral college schemes to reduce it even further in most cases. In this case I think it is worth finding some other process than number crunching to justify the effort because it does break down if everyone stops doing it.
somethingsomething
11mo ago
How it plays is people thank God we finally have a normal candidate and no one cares how we got here (even if Kamala is a bit of an oddball) (just my prediction)
somethingsomething
1yr ago
look them in the eyes, ask short open ended questions, have a concerned, serious expression on your face, help them move towards a conclusion that they feel like they can move forward with, and thank them for opening up with you.
somethingsomething
2yr ago
My instinct though is that if critical theory would evolve to refute itself, it would be a positive evolution, and would be a kind of completion of the original theory, as in more critical theory, not less.
I haven't thought through too much the actual way it plays out in the real world. It's possible the modern critical theorists have immunized themselves. But on the other hand, you had a similar situation with the Marxists in France in the time of Foucault, and that evolution is kind of what I am proposing could happen again today. Similarly, it might be a philosopher who is "inside" the system that hits at the right time during some slump in their power, that speaks their language while subverting them.
somethingsomething
3d ago
I have depression as well, which I blame mostly on a stressful, lonely childhood that gave me attachment issues, using marijuana as a go-to coping mechanism through young adulthood to the present day, and failing to land in some kind of realm of family/community in adulthood to smooth over the various psychological rough edges I have. A little over a year ago I did a ketamine sequence over 7 weeks which I found to be beneficial, but it didn’t quite result in a lasting fix for me, and I ended up going on an SNRI about half a year ago which has felt more reliable in the long-term so far.
The ketamine experience was truly beautiful and fascinating though, and I will probably do it again, but I want to have a significant amount of time between using it to avoid it feeling like a crutch or a recreational drug experience.
I got into meditation in the past, and doing so I feel like really benefited the trip because I was able to go into that zone and really relax, while following different paths my brain was going on. I had explored Jhanas on my own in an amateurish way, and I was definitely able to experience some piti eruptions in ketamine land. I felt a connection to the Eleusinian Mystery rituals, and in moments of awareness I felt a lot of appreciation that I got to live in a time where this mystical state was accessible. It reinforced a feeling that life has meaning, because I was experiencing “meaning” in such a profound-feeling way, that it seems truly odd to imagine a universe devoid of meaning that could produce such states.
All that wasn’t enough to really deeply change me, as I was still spending days alone feeling like my life is still “shit,” so to speak. Possibly that’s because I already kind of knew these things that ketamine was revealing to me through past meditation experiences. Once I was on the SNRI, it felt like the non-marijuana coping mechanisms I had developed were easier to implement, like understanding feelings are temporary and not getting too attached to negative spirals. I don’t have a feeling of why they are easier, they just kind of are, which I’m thankful for, although I’m not sure what the future holds in terms of actually trying to make a better life happen for myself.
Definitely not unique, this is a component of ascetism, Buddism, Schopenhauer(ism?). You can try Nietzsche as a embodiment-affirming response to these feelings.
somethingsomething
5mo ago
Thoughts on Fellini's Casanova?
somethingsomething
1yr ago
Yeah I edited with what I think is a better estimate, I don't know where the app is getting calories from, possibly just adding to some baseline. Never really bothered double checking the number since I was losing weight anyway but now I know!
somethingsomething
1yr ago
Fair enough, I may have to update my model, but I still believe that in some sense there is a conspiratorial mindset towards to modern use of patriarchy, and I believe in some sense there is some feeling of things getting "worse" in a way that is behind it, see the negative reactions to the Stephen Pinker view of the world coming from the far left. And I do think there is an inconsistency between the loudness/anger/direness of the attitudes on the social justice left and any understanding that things are getting better. And I think that reflects the reality that things are more mixed than you portray, where you have the rising depression rates, higher loneliness rates, and how those are pressured by various gender-defined experiences (instagram for girls, school for boys, etc.)
(FWIW I know woke is largely defined by the right, it really doesn't matter, what matters is is it a clear/useful way of looking at what I'd call the loud social-issues-focused progressive wing of the left)
I see self-loathing as less central than self-pity right now. I think the basic definition of "feeling sorrow for someone's misfortunes" is what I mean by pity. So to fit my example, some bad memory trigger makes me anxious, I pity myself to cope with the pain (feel sorrow about the past, about what it means about me as a person, etc.), a critical feeling enters judging me of not being worth pity, and I turn that around and say, oh, what a misfortunate situation it is that I should feel shame from pitying myself , and from there you have that recursive cycle. And that is potentially one of many strategies to sustain the pity, self-loathing can enter as another strategy, etc.
It seems like what has worked for me lately is a very strong belief that I will not benefit from striving to pity myself, which would short-circuit this process if I am right that this is what's happening. It may be that others can pity themselves healthily, or I might regain the ability to do so. But I believe it's possible that because I used it so reliably as a coping mechanism, I developed a unhealthy dependency on it that it is best to quit.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
That kind of effect was also very prevalent in my own experience and is something I'm still very on guard for. In brief, I currently see it as a powerful way of accomplishing the goal of being pitiable. If that is my goal, then it's a powerful, recursive move to pity myself, and then use that as an example of how pitiable I am. I think the counter-move is to be vigilant about recognizing when I have that goal, and have a strong will to discard that goal as it comes up. But that's just in brief, I think there is a lot I could write to expand my ideas on this.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
I would imagine that yes, there are a lot of strategies that different people could find more or less effective. I would like to go deeply into the strategy of having a solid belief system that makes doing those 2 things fairly automatic. And this doesn't have to mean fooling yourself, if you buy the premise that depression is a delusional state, where you are spending your precious time on Earth moping unnecessarily out of confusion.
So I'm going to go into what that process looked like for me, which was somewhat accidental. It's funny though, I know red-pilled can mean a lot of things, but just going through the left wing disillusionment after so long just felt such a powerful deprogramming, and was such an important part of the process for me.
That was an interesting article, and I think some of my thoughts could translate well into that way of thinking. That said I am a very non-visual thinker, and that may be giving me trouble with really accepting that lens. I read the article on that site about rejecting-not-accepting and did find a lot of that to be relatable.
somethingsomething
2yr ago
I don't know much about other instruments, but playing guitar is physically painful for a while. Less so with electric but if men go electric more than women by default do to tech bias or harshness bias then that cancels that out.
somethingsomething
2yr ago
There's no contradiction between these being sincere efforts to take Trump down, and also that Trump benefits from these investigations, and acts in a way to generally make them more likely to happen, and in my opinion, intentionally so. That's the point of a bait, to say "come and get me," and then turn that into an advantage. It's what DeSantis is trying to replicate, but he isn't so bold as Trump as to actually bait intelligence agencies, settling for the media and Disney instead.
Trump has only been doing better in the primary polls since people have been getting in the race, and the only noteworthy thing he has really done is get indicted. so it's not clear what evidence there is that these latest cases have caused any issues.
It's hard to say for me whether Russiagate overall harmed him because it was bored into everyone's brains, but it also imploded. The worst thing it did really was edge the Democrats who then went totally nuts, and some undecideds got swept up in it. I think there were other ways the establishment got their jabs in and actually made Trump's life worse. But I think the investigations are where Trump wins because that is actually where you have to put up or shut up, it's an actual game that Trump can play, and he's won every time.
As a long-term phenomenon I think the cases look even better for the anti-establishment right (and left even) because there's a immediate effect where people get swept up in them and want to see Trump lose, and then there's a tail effect where people become bitter and cynical towards the prosecutors who are bringing faulty cases they can't win. Biden's win was at the height of one of those anti-Trump pushes, but I think things look incredibly dire for the Democrat establishment going forward, since they have spent so much political capital on nonsense.
somethingsomething
2yr ago
I've only sometimes run into this and it's usually with people who have some personality issue, so I'd wonder if there's some culture thing happening where you work. I am probably more nitpicky than most, and I know more and less nitpickers where I work, but nitpicks are usually brought up and dropped pretty quickly. Larger conversations are usually based around some kind of confusion. And we have a idiomatic consistency to the code to generally fall back on.
My issue has often been people not taking some concerns I have seriously, so again that makes me look like the nitpicker. On the other hand, I really feel little agitation when I'm getting nitpicked, usually because the reviewer has at least some point, or if not they are a junior dev who is confused about something. But I think my workplace has a good culture about these things in general and so I rarely feel bothered by reviews.
somethingsomething
2yr ago
Ah yeah that almost seems like a developmental psychology problem of some kind at that age. I can understand wanting to have a standard just to give kids direction or expectations but that's out of my realm of expertise at that point. Good luck!
somethingsomething
2yr ago
I think you could do good gradeable art tests using human proportions and perspective work, both of which can be made to have "right answers". Possible using graph paper if the student needs to turn in a drawing. Then have quick ways of counting tiles uses for proportions etc. And just as an artist I would feel way more comfortable grading that than various stylistic choices.
somethingsomething
2yr ago
I'm not sure what you mean by your question
somethingsomething
2yr ago
I appreciate the link, I'll have to spend more time digging through the previous sections but the page you linked helps me understand where you're coming from.
There are a few threads that interest me that I think expose weaknesses in CRT related to your reply here.
-
If you accept the capture of French philosophy and academic elites by communism in the 60's as analogous to CRT, its collapse could point to similar ways CRT could collapse in the future. And part of that was surely the political situation, but I'm also curious how much of that was Foucault, who possibly gave the academics something to "chew on", a less obviously activist, more wide-ranging theory. I'm sure that's a simplification, but I do think there was this kind of new breed with him and others of something more sophisticated that allowed communism to be kind of moved on from, something passe.
-
As far as the abusers go of critical theory, like that legal theorist, I'm curious how much that is a kind of perversion or simplification of something that is more useful when treated with maturity, and not just useful to the left, but against the left's power. And it doesn't necessary have to be useful in a sense of persuading them, but instead of disillusioning its sort of fair-weather followers potentially.
-
The other thing is something that I've had a hard time expressing, but I feel like CRT can't escape it's intellectualist roots, which is a point of failure it shares with communism. It wants to be pure activism, all about changing minds, but its identity demands that it take an intellectual root, and it sort of has to assume that the most effective activism is intellectual (or even pseudo-intellectual) activism, which I think is far from true, because I think you can argue most people bounce off that kind of thing, if not now then after it outstays its welcome.
Anyway I'll read your other posts but those are the threads of thought I've been pursuing
I think that the idea that critical theory is an activist philosophy is self-contradictory and that those who practice critical theory to change the world in some way, or motivate action, are basically destined to have an incomplete, irreconcilable worldview.
(edit for clarity: Modern critical theory obviously is often activist, and believing that is not self-contradictory. But believing that critical theory at its core is activist, and should be practiced as a kind of means-to-an-end to affect social change, as many critical theorists believe, I think contradicts with the actual core of critical theory philosophy)
I started coming to this idea watching the Foucault/Chomsky debate, where Foucault is suspicious of Chomksy's Anarcho-syndicalism as a way to bring out a kind of ideal human nature, because he thinks the formulations we make about an ideal human nature, or society without political violence, are informed by the society we live in, which makes violence and non-ideality kind of unavoidable.
This argument is interesting in terms of the political spectrum because on one hand, it "out-criticals" the critical activist, but it also echoes the basic conservative reaction to leftist societal transformation projects.
There's no reason to me that a critical theory couldn't exist critical of social justice projects, BLM, modern Marxism, etc. The modern leftist capture of critical theory appears arbitrary.
But the Foucault debate led me to think, that conservatives, or just anti-progressives, could be a lot more bold in using their own critical theory against them in a way. I think it would be a field worth studying as a way to deconstruct leftist idealism and activism in a way that, like Chomsky, would leave them looking kind of pathetic in debate.
Doing that would kind of require doing the Nietzschian thing of acknowledging power, political violence, etc. and working with it in the debate, which I feel like is probably a step too far for most politicians. But I think specifically that rather than debate competing visions, there's room for a thinker to basically just deconstruct modern "critical theory" on its own terms, argue that it is self-contradictory and unlikely to do anything but breed new forms of political violence and power imbalance.
To tie it back to Nietzsche, it seems his works have an irony to them, even a self-aware irony, and that is what makes his calls for action "work" in some sense. It seems to me that a modern critical theory text that calls for action with no sense of irony is not thorough, and has a huge blind spot by basically not applying self-criticism.
I've been kind of working this idea out on my own, not sure if this is well trodden ground elsewhere, apologies for the half-baked quality.
Well the "uncalled for" quip does kind of point at a question of who started it, the easiest way to avoid that is to describe the smear campaign sans judgement. I feel like on this site you constantly get reminded of all the reasons why the innocent conservatives just had to rebel against the mean democrat which conveniently ignores how dems felt under his predecessor (and "we hated him too" doesn't quite make up for it)
More options
Context Copy link