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sun_the_second

could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server

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joined 2023 October 31 11:26:45 UTC 

				
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sun_the_second


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2023 October 31 11:26:45 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


First, the idea of sin isn't that you avoid sin because God will punish you for it, but because sin is bad in and of itself:




Well - yes, that's mostly what I said. I avoid [bad thing], because [bad thing] is bad in and of itself, when you dig down to the root of it. And I understand that in the Christian tradition, doing good things and not doing bad things is also thought to bring man closer to the state of Heaven.


The issues begin when people's intuition of what is good [joyful, peaceful, knowledgeable and powerful] starts coming in conflict with what the Good Book tells us is good [mostly focusing on what God said is good], and somewhere in the middle the church muddles things further. I as an atheist do not grok "sin" because "sin" to me is specifically something that a Higher Power has ontologically, fundamentally deemed to be Bad and which is separate from what a human might deem bad for their own purposes and with their own frame of seeing things. Because I do not believe into a Higher Power, or that even if a small-h higher power exists it does not hold fundamental authority over morals, I am not moved by condemnations of sin. As I said elsewhere, if a thing is harmful you don't need the S word to justify its harmfulness.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Cooking is simple (like going to the gym), but it's a hassle until you're just used to doing it. And for many I assume the calculation goes "I'm less assed eating a lazy meal/paying for takeout than I am instilling a habit to cook".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I suppose that hasn't been the solution, no. I do on occasion feel guilty about being spiteful, jealous, cowardly or mean. But I do not seek to fix those flaws so that I might not be judged as harshly by God. The closest thing to it is that I would not feel just in judging God, as Lewis describes, for allowing war, poverty and disease, if I myself allow it in my small ways.


There's also the entire thing about framing sin as sickness - if I am sick, I might seek remedy for my own good, but why in the world would I feel guilty about it? Least of all before God, who is often described as the one who sends sicknesses down on people to test them, humble them etc.


Maybe all that compulsive society-scale guilt tripping is good for society in the long term, but I do not see why I should willingly submit to it where my own conscientousness suffices.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I suppose male friends can, in theory, account for all the interpersonal interaction a man needs while women solely provide the occasional intercorporeal fling. It seems, however, that many men desire more than their male friends can give, or are willing to give in the age where male friendship is notably less intimate in many aspects than it had been.




And hell, with most one-night-stands among people similar in age... what are you going to talk about, if the whole intention is not to see one another again?




I wouldn't know, I've never had a one-night stand that I intended to never see again.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do you think Bezos didn't think of simply doing a Di Caprio, or was afraid of the backlash?


I've often heard an opinionoid about the idea of older guys dating 18 year olds that goes something like "there's nothing we can talk about after fucking", and while lately it does look like sour grapes/Havel's groceryism when it comes from older guys, there might be something to it. Of course, if it was revealed that Sanchez is actually not particularly good intellectual company, then I'd be at a loss.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The end of the conflict between pure blood anti-immigrationists and their opponents is far behind us. Everyone else doesn't have a leg to stand on other than "the kind of people I don't like look sort of like this, please remove them (other than the good ones of course)". When push comes to shove, I do not expect the winning side to hold to their words of "blood is the most important".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"A people" might be. A country is not a people; most countries are too big to be anything but a collection of peoples tied not by blood, but by a language (not always), an army (sometimes not their own) and a flag (usually their own).


A midwestern farmer and a coastal urbanist have no common blood between them. Memes might tie them closer than blood does some tribes. But not blood.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think a cult of personality is when a statesman is treated not merely as a statesman who did a great job, but an exceptional, well, personality. It's when sycophants say "Stalin raised this country from its knees (and no one else could)", not "we raised this country from its knees under Stalin (he was a great help)".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am aware of your gripes about overly optimistic and/or liar proponents of Materialism that were alive a few hundred years ago, and I do not believe they are much relevant to the discourse today. Coincidentally I have not studied them. This appears to me to be a deflection/smear akin to "John Money who coined the term 'gender' was an icky pedo" if taken uncharitably, and if taken charitably it seems that you are arguing with dead wrong Materialists whereas I expect you to be arguing with me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The problem is that people do not appear to understand the difference.




I do not believe this is the problem here - the problem is that your explanations for the current gap in Hard Determinism that is the lack of user-friendly brain interface are, in their structure, no different from explanations that had at various points been raised against other gaps that are resolved by now.


Resolved by you yourself, in the case of comparing LLMs to human brains! We know the building blocks of LLMs, and have the control capacity to inspect and manipulate their state in less complex iterations, but not in more complex ones. We know the building blocks of organic chemicals, which resolve to DNA, which resolve to live cells, some of which are neurons, and the earlier less complex iterations of those structures we can not only predict but manipulate and recreate. Nondeterminism simply does not make a convincing enough case that the latest iteration, the live human brain, is somehow so qualitatively different from a silicon-based neural network that hoping to grasp it with determinism is hopeless hubris.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


and you cannot control behavior to any significant degree by manipulating the brain's matter directly.




I recall a notorious manipulation of brain matter that had been popular just a century ago and demonstrably controlled behaviour. Destructively so, yes, but, again, not any more a debunkment than medieval amputations were of modern surgery.


As for mind reading, developments appear to be underway on that front.




All we can say, from a strict materialistic perspective, is that all attempts to demonstrate the deterministic nature of the human mind have failed, and history shows a clear pattern of Determinism of the Gaps, where accumulating evidence forces empirical claims to steadily retreat into unfalsifiability.




When I look at the pattern of history it appears exactly the opposite of what you said - it is non-determinism that has steadily retreated, from inscrutable fate woven for each and every object in the world by deities beyond our reach or understanding to sub-atomic processes that light is too big to observe and constructs with states too fluid, ephemeral and non-uniform to categorize. Many aspects of the world that we considered unfathomable and/or random are now predictable. I do not consider myself married to Scary Capital Letter Materialism, but the odds simply appear to be largely in its favor.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, from my point of view, the Jedi are evil the female attraction in the extreme is insane. (I won't quote the specifics, but you can check out some of the more out-there fanfiction on the web to see what I'm hinting at). You say thinking a flap of flesh is important is trippy, but that's not really much different from thinking food or water are important. Isn't it just weird and kind of gross how digestion works, if you look at it through a lens?


You describe intense seriousness and urgency, and I fail to see how women wanting lavish marriages and being bridal carried to bed and less tame things aren't serious and urgent. Do you just pretend you're serious about enjoying them while in your mind there's "heeheehee" on loop?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I recall reading about awake brain surgery experiments where interacting with certain parts of the brain produced phenomena in the consciousness, as reported by the person having their brain prodded with electrodes. That seems like a straightforward case of pointing to gears and doing gear things with them.


Now, there hasn't been to my knowledge any proof of reliably producing very specific effects or decisions. This doesn't look like as knock-down a deboonk of materialism as opponents of materialism seem to think, to me. If you take a soldering iron to your PC's CPU and RAM, you won't be able to do anything useful either, yet we do know PCs are material and, barring the occasional bit-flip by radiation, deterministic/mechanistic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To give without restraint does not warrant taking without restraint; that should be obvious to anyone without terminal legalism of the brain. Retvrnist rightwingers don't get this when they harp on about marital rights this and women are property that. You sound like women who think that just because their husband has pledged his provision and protection, they can drain his savings on stupid shit or pick a fight with 15 thugs on his behalf just so she can feel protected. Now, you haven't said you want to fuck your wife literally whenever, regardless of sickness/pain/sleep/unwashedness of dick, and maybe you don't. The hyperfocus on muh marital rights certainly gives that impression off.


If you want to be Muslims then I don't see any difference between being replaced by Muslims and becoming like them. I prefer us being better or perish trying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"I don't have time for your stupid questions, go look up the answer in the textbook" is two lies for the price of one: first, the person does in fact generally have time to answer questions, they just don't want to, and second, the textbook doesn't have the answers either. The equivalence you are drawing is non-existent.




Well - if I understand "we're not always capable of evaluating deep connections" correctly, the Christian answer is not even "I don't have time for your stupid questions", it's "I don't know how all of this works myself, but I trust the textbook and you should too".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If it's always harmful then you can always explain how it's harmful, rather than relying on "the Bible explains what actions are sinful" and "sin is what God said is wrong" to do the work for you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If "sinful" just means "harmful" then say harmful.