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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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The reason it feels alien to you is because it is alien to you. The theistic superstitions have mostly gone away, but the religious inclinations have not, and the influencers in the EA space are looking for a sort of fulfillment that they feel they can no longer get with traditional religion. Tikkun Olam is interesting though in that it exoterically presents as "healing the world" and social justice, but esoterically is in fact a command to destroy all idolatry and "false gods" offensive to the jealous tribal god, Yahweh.

Translation: "to speedily see Your mighty splendor, to cause detestable (idolatry) to be removed from the land, and the (false) gods will be utterly 'cut off', to takein olam – fix/repair/establish a world – under the Almighty's kingdom"

In other words, when all the people of the world abandon false gods and recognize God, the world will have been perfected.

Among modern liberal movements, A common but more modern understanding of this phrase is that we share a partnership with God, and are instructed to take the steps towards improving the state of the world and helping others, which simultaneously brings more honor to God's sovereignty

EA and AI alignment are interesting to consider in this duality of their conception of "healing the world".