urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
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User ID: 226
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
11mo ago
I'm in shock. It certainly occurred to me that someone might try to do this, the logic of @Quantumfreakonomics seems like something someone could easily come to follow. The people who have repeatedly described Trump as a "threat to democracy" aren't responsible for this and I don't hold them responsible for this. But you need to be really damn careful throwing around words like that.
Seeing a major political candidate shot at on live TV in front of a crowd of people is so raw and real that it's hard to comprehend. I wasn't alive for any of the other attempted political assasinations.
Three weeks ago, there didn't even seem to be an election. Now, the President is incompetent and his opponent is being shot at. I fear for my country if Trump wins. Will people keep trying to shoot at him? Will they start trying to shoot at anyone else?
And the Trump political ads write themselves. "They hate you and our movement so much they tried to silence me. First they attacked me with phony prosecutions. Now they've pulled out the guns. Our enemies are lawless and violent. Vote Trump for democracy and order."
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
2yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
2yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
19d ago
I strongly believe the “gung ho liturgy go hard fasting is hard everyone must follow rules originally followed by monks” energy of Orthodoxy, which attracts the competitive male converts to it, is also the greatest problem for the Orthodox Church. The “standard” practice is incredibly high — and in service of an incredibly high goal, total union with God. Literally to “have everything that God has.”
I often feel like the Orthodox Church sets up people to fail. All the models of faith that the Orthodox Church offers in modern times are very hard to approach, and many are claimed to literally work miracles. The impression I get is that the goal for the laity is to be a monk. Even the supposed basics involve going vegan for half the year.
And yes, I know the objection: ask your priest! The rules can be changed! Economia!
Gee, thanks. I always wanted to be a charity case, a special exception, because I don’t want to be moaning on the floor of the parish hall on Easter Sunday because I was finally able to eat a cheeseburger. This also understandably raises questions of moral inconsistency and clerical power.
My earlier post about the Orthodox Church, the AAQC one — I guess what I was trying to get across in that rambling diversion was that it’s really hard for me, and people I love, to imagine actually living an Orthodox lifestyle.
Every ex-orthodox rant post I’ve ever read boils down to that — the demands of the Orthodox faith are incredibly high. Perhaps that’s what God asks of people. But perhaps not.
I believe the Western approach, of mandating a low minimum and permitting more intense asceticism as spiritual directors and the Spirit himself guides, is a more human and fruitful approach. It sets up people to succeed, not to fail. And it remains open to sanctity in lay life, in a way I think E. Orthodoxy struggles to do.
Just some disorganized thoughts. But my general posture towards Orthodoxy is this — they can have all the theological points they want, but I have to find the way where I can actually follow Christ. And I’m not convinced the Eastern Orthodox Church is that place.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1mo ago
· Edited 1mo ago
Yeah you can expect emotional outbursts on occasion, but the literal "I love you more than anything" one day to "You mean nothing to me whatsoever" the next 180 turn feels like something humans SHOULDN'T be capable of doing.
I have to thread the needle very carefully on this -- this is obviously very bad and dangerous behavior that endangers other people, sometimes severely. It's very bad, to the point of profound evil.
But I also can't help but feel a real sadness in my heart for people whose internal life is so utterly dichotomous and disintegrated that anything resembling this appears like appropriate behavior for them. I can't imagine the internal anguish this must reflect. That's really what distinguishes BPD from APD: psychopaths will hurt and manipulate you to get what they want from you, and feel nothing, while borderlines will hurt and manipulate you as a part of hurting and manipulating themselves, and feel everything.
It doesn't make their behavior and the damage they do any more justifiable, but I just imagine borderlines as bundles of suffering so radiant in their suffering that the rest of the world gets sucked into their black hole of anguish, a kind of anti-divinity. It's no wonder people are so attracted to what is essentially a dark god! The pervasive feeling of being around a borderline is much like being around a prophet -- everything is extreme, the world is transcendent, and wrong is evil. If you are appreciated by them, you're given a rare gift, a precious pearl of great price. (This is the male equivalent to the "I can fix the abusive husband" meme.) I never dated one, though I certainly wanted to date at least a few before I realized their deep flaws, and for that I am grateful.
Extreme behavior often summons extreme adoration and affiliation, even if temporary, which is almost certainly the evopsych explanation for the existence of all the cluster B personality syndromes (psychopathy, narcissism, histrionic, and borderline). Crucially, the cluster A and C syndromes... are rather less adaptive even at subclinical levels, since they universally include behaviors that actively turn people away even without a "turn" (and avoidant PD sufferers, for instance, believe no one could ever like them, while schizoids don't really like anyone).
I guess what I'm saying is... remember that every extreme behavior has some sort of function, in moderation, and that people with extreme problems like this aren't ontologically different from the rest of us, even if, tragically, the only thing that can often be done for them is to keep them from harming others. My point is to demonstrate the reason why these traits persist and have attraction, while not endorsing the exaggeration as the truth. This is how people are made to feel -- in other words, those around a borderline sufferer are drawn into the cycle of intensity and delusion as much as the individual is. And so both sides are understandable, but in the way that a plane crash is "understandable."
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1mo ago
There’s so much there, and it’s so rich and dense with detail, but I find myself noting one thing in particular — every relationship dispute you describe there concentrates around sex.
Given that Lana has had fallings-out with both a man and a woman over sex, is it possible that she just has a very low sex drive, and believed this to be indicative of lesbianism even though it might actually mean she’s just not very sexual towards anyone? “Well that jerk only wanted one thing, and it’s disgusting.” “Well that hoe only wanted one thing, and it’s disgusting.”
Maybe she doesn’t really want to have sex with anyone, but attributed it to male perversion, or something, which the lesbian falling-out gives the lie to?
They pointed me toward a post (now removed) on a subreddit I'd never heard of--a "suicide watch" subreddit. It is apparently a place for people to post their suicidal inclinations and get "non-judgemental peer support ONLY," whatever that means in the context of an anonymous internet forum.
The suicidewatch subreddit has always struck me as weird, in that it expects incredibly specific behaviors from posters that are in line with the way suicide hotline call center workers are trained, but from anonymous redditors. I argue that this makes it strictly worse for the people who go there feeling hopeless — the median post gets almost no responses because the rules are so strict no one wants to reply, and the responses someone does get are very vague, non-specific, non-judgmental and therefore useless. There’s no authenticity in it. You might as well talk to ChatGPT.
When you say she’s (or was?) a “religious Protestant” — what do you mean by that? Because it strikes me as very odd that she would hold the views she did and be a member of an evangelical church. I know of feminist evangelicals in that mould, but I always think of them as people who are simply in the process of leaving, as Lana eventually did. I find it shocking that she wouldn’t be able to find a home in the mainline Protestant world, where her views are extremely common! And I wonder if perhaps the extremity of her behaviors reflects the zeal of an evangelical-to-agnostic convert, a type with which I am very familiar. But perhaps she was mainline, which would make this moot and frankly make her behavior and the opposition of the church (the mainlines couldn’t enforce sliced bread remaining sliced even if they tried) even more concerning.
A sad story. But I wonder if the object lesson is not so much about intolerance of dissent as it is about the characteristic Christian calling of humility: humility before morality, before duty, before other people, and ultimately before God. If tolerance comes from anywhere, it comes from understanding in humility that you may be wrong; and that others, in their humility, may also be. And that neither of you may — I say “may” here advisedly — be wicked and perverse for your error, but simply human.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1mo ago
Something is just off in the first world, and COVID and AI accelerated it. I don’t know what exactly died. But the US, in particular, seems to be dealing with the kind of crisis Western Europe did in the previous century, a loss of faith in all institutions and the massacre of all meta-narratives. Neither my progressive or even conservative friends care much about the Constitution or the framers or the civic religion any more. I don’t know anyone who’s optimistic about the future. I certainly know some people who have optimism about their own future, or who are making the best of their lives as they exist, but about the social fabric people feel… trapped, like we’re already six feet under and there’s no escaping it.
People want to put this at the feet of wokeness, or Trump, or communism, or atheism, but I don’t know what it is. Even those narratives seem snuffed out.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
2yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
10d ago
· Edited 10d ago
Also, "Increased experience of meaningness in day-to-day life." - yeah, making major life changes, having a new project, and potentially a new social group, can do that for you.
I have an acquaintance from college who transitioned male to female. They once showed me a picture of a neckbeard with acne, saying "this is what I used to look like, then I transitioned and I'm so happy with how I look." Well, no crap my friend, you shaved the neckbeard and started taking care of yourself!
Whacking it to not being able to do math is a common AGP pastime.
Now I want to know whether "being forced to find the derivative of an integral" is someone's kink. Surely not?
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
10mo ago
We hear a lot from people who are romantically struggling. I don't want to belittle that experience, which I know can be incredibly painful and lonely.
But it would be good to hear from people who are satisfied with their romantic life for a change. Are there any Mottezians with happy love lives who want to share their experience?
Also congratulations to @2rafa on the engagement and @Gaashk on the new baby.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
2yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1yr ago
I think I recall a Louis CK bit where he said modern marijuana is much more potent than stuff back in the day. Does that ring true to you?
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
2yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
10d ago
Their description of what testosterone does to their mental processes sounds completely alien to me. I cannot relate to it whatsoever.
Can you give some examples? What I can recall is trans men talking about becoming incredibly and uncontrollably horny after starting T, and, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but that seems reasonably accurate to the experience of any man who’s ever gone through puberty.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
11mo ago
· Edited 11mo ago
Private religious colleges are forbidden to “require a faith statement” from enrolling students.
This is a particularly bizarre law. Was it really necessary? I mean, really?
The reality is that private religious colleges generally provide a lower-tier and more expensive education in exchange for providing students an environment where they're surrounded by their co-religionists. The faith statement requirement is the actual selling point of religious colleges.
And with the exception of a few institutions like Notre Dame, I can't imagine a scenario where a person applies to various institutions and the least expensive or most prestigious option, or even the option with the best cost-to-benefit ratio, is a religious college. (Insert jokes about Notre Dame being as religious nowadays as the owners of the similarly-named cathedral in Paris.) Attending a religious institution is always a sacrifice on the basis of explicitly wanting a college environment that requires tests of faith.
I guess maybe it's oriented towards closeted atheists, kids whose parents don't know their religious beliefs and who push them into attending a private religious college, and who fear for their future should they openly resist. But while I'm more sympathetic to the clash of conscience-vs-convenience such a scenario invokes than you might think, the idea that we're going to prohibit a practice that provides benefits to people of diverse religious backgrounds on the off chance a closeted deconvert has to have a confrontation with their parents just doesn't pass the "compelling state interest" test.
More realistically, it's just an attack on the existence of religious colleges at all. Which is shameful. Though it's probably tied to funding requirements, which make such things more thorny. I believe in the freedom of association to create religious colleges and require a faith-based test for admission, but I do have skepticism that such institutions should receive state funding except for strictly secular safety-and-utility matters a la Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, and my feeling is that Espinoza v. Montana DOR was wrongly decided precisely because state payments to religious institutions creates government leverage that can be wielded against the conscientiously-held doctrines of the religious. The separation of church and state is not about protecting the state from religion, but about protecting religion from the state.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1yr ago
To mirror Scott's ACX survey: In the past 24 hours, have you thought about the Roman Empire? If so, what was the context of that thought?
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
This thing sounds like something that could be written by a leftist, with just a few words changed. I mean, imagine something like this:
Compared to my early 20s self, I am a lot less prone to ingrouping with the kind of Liberal people who deliberately shut themselves off from the world by retreating to the ‘burbs—people who just want to be comfortable and don’t have a burning desire to change the world. I’ve also lost any protective instinct toward people who stay in a shitty poor area with no opportunities just because they have a sentimental attachment to their ghetto hometown. My experiences have taught me that these people want nothing to do with my vision for the world and aren’t my comrades in any meaningful sense.
Actually, this sounds more believable than the original text. It's certainly more likely to be somewhere in ChatGPT's training corpus.
It's no wonder this man hates the Midwest -- he's basically a progressive activist, just with one or two ideas swapped around! The actual conservatism (and the pragmatism and realism he labels as "smallmindedness") he found there is as alien to him as it is to the woke moralist, and he rejects them for the same reason. They, in turn, reject his utopian vision -- because they're stupid and reactionary and the world is going to leave them behind. They're not on the right side of history. Don't they realize how much work there's been in academia right-wing internet forums about the systemic racism against Black people White people deeply ingrained in American society? Just do another search-and-replace of "smallminded" and put in "prejudiced."
@FiveHourMarathon and I have gotten into arguments in the past about the nature of conservatism, but regardless of where one draws the line between conservative and reactionary, this guy is on the other side of it. This is not the writing of a conservative, desiring to hold on to the lasting traditions that have been gifted to him by his upbringing. This is an ideologue, a radical, someone animated by the same spirit of the age that motivates the Communist revolutionary or the social justice activist. And he has the same smug self-assurance that, if empowered, would drown his neighbors in a lake and call it baptism.
Everything this guy writes is just a massive argument for Hlynka's position -- the strong form, not the way-too-far version he started saying later on -- that white identitarians are schismatic progressives, not really conservatives. I know he made some very strong and silly claims that extrapolated too far from the connection he saw. But guys, this right here is exhibit A.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
2yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
3mo ago
· Edited 3mo ago
In Warcraft III the story - the best I can tell about it was that it was manufactured. I don't think that anyone felt any kind of connection to any of the characters. It felt that the story was trying to tell you what to feel about the characters and not make you (btw - problem of the woke movies too) feel it.
Yeah, Blizzard's writing has always been more like a series of events that happen to occur chronologically rather than any kind of story with a plot. Sometimes you get the sense they expect something will have a big emotional payoff and give it a big cutscene, and it's just a character introduced 20 minutes ago randomly doing something for random reasons invented on the spot.
The Warcraft universe kind of feels like if you trained an LLM on Tolkien, D&D, and heavy metal lyrics, and then had it create a fantasy story. Everything is an exaggerated version of the shared consciousness about what a "dwarf" is or what an "elf" is or what medieval fantasy looks like. And sometimes is just an exaggerated version of the real world for some reason, so we get New Jersey gangster goblins and Jamaican Trolls who love the Loa, mon.
This is why we got the terrible terrible surreal God Of War 3 ending (kratos is hope he is chasing a little girl to the light), terrible Mass Effect 3 ending( little girl and the light) and the whole gears of war.
A lot of this stuff just feels like the 1990s-early 2010s. Anyone remember early Five Gum ads? Or heck, Bionicle. There was a trend towards hard-edged and tryhard atmospheres, everything had to be edgy and serious even if it didn't warrant it. People praise those Playstation 2 ads, but they seem like surrealist nonsense with no actual connection to video games. It really does feel like the "burgers?" meme.
Exhibit A was The Matrix, there were so many neat elements of it and it's remained in the popular consciousness for that reason, but it had to go eerily spiritual in a film series about technology. Who the heck was that grandma, anyway? What does this chosen one nonesense have to do with robots using humans as batteries?
I wouldn't say I'm into hard science fiction, but I think you need to be careful about inserting vague spiritualist nonsense in a story about technology. The spiritual and humanistic elements of a story about technology have to arise from the impact of technology on people and how it changes their perception of the world, not from spiritual powers imposed from the outside.
I enjoy stories about technology, but the problem with science fiction is that its authors have always been too Big Five Open for their own good and have squirted strange new ideas onto the page alongside the thoughtful reflections about the future of science and tech. I will say, for a cluster of people so committed to materialism and atheism, science fiction authors seem strangely compelled to write about beings of pure spirit and gods.
You can tell a compelling genre story about characters struggling against evil, but you have to think about characters and their motivations and have them act accordingly. I don't understand why game stories leaned so heavily into pseudo-mystical elements to add depth (poorly) instead of character motivations, which is the way in which deep stories actually stick with people. Your game will not be the source of a spiritual awakening, but it might inspire someone to strive for what is just and right, which is an important message that's easily possible.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
11mo ago
I think Biden's popularity is lower than Harris's because his weakness and mental frailty has been in the news for a month. Meanwhile, she's been mostly out of the spotlight for years now, which is good, because when she's in the spotlight we're treated to monologues about the significance of the passage of time unburdening us from what has been.
Her favorability will go down once she has to speak extemporaneously and people have to actually evaluate her as a potential president rather than just someone with a pulse.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
2yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
2yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
I had to tune out at the first commercial break, I can't stand any more of these two.
It's pretty clear Trump's lost this one, he made so many simple errors that he could have avoided by simply staying on message.
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