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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1808 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 1, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Edit: A mis-post.

Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man’s hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man’s worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand is thereby removed from existence. This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one’s will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence.

Reminds me of one of my favorite movie dialogues:

Warden: Did you enjoy God’s latest gift?
Teddy Daniels: What?
Warden: God’s gift. [points to the sky] The violence. When I came downstairs in my home and I saw a tree in my living room, it reached out for me like a divine hand. God loves violence.
Teddy Daniels: I…I hadn’t noticed.
Warden: Sure you have. Why else would there me so much of it? It’s in us. It’s what we are. We wage war, we burn sacrifices and pillage and plunder and tear at the flesh of our brothers. And why? Because God gave us violence to wage in his honor.
Teddy Daniels: I thought God gave us moral order. Warden: There’s no moral order as pure as this storm. There’s no moral order at all. There’s just this; can my violence conquer yours?
Teddy Daniels: I’m not violent.
Warden: Yes, you are. You’re as violent as they come. I know this because I’m as violent as they come. With the constraints of society we’re lifted. And I was all that stood between you and me? You would crack my skull and eat my meaty parts. Wouldn’t you? But Cawley thinks that you’re harmless, that you can be controlled. But I know different.
Teddy Daniels: You don’t know me.
Warden: Oh, but I do.
Teddy Daniels: No, you don’t. You don’t know me at all. Warden: Oh, I know you. We’ve known each other for centuries. If I was to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before I blinded you?
Teddy Daniels: Give it a try.
Warden: That’s the spirit.

Always wondered if he wasn't based a little on Judge Holden.

It might be, but I feel like this theme of naked violence superseding all other concerns is rather universal. It pops up pretty much regardless of time and place. It's in the Iliad and it's in Roman history and it's in Mein Kampf and it's in The Wild Bunch. There may be situations in which it seems out of place, but none in which it truly is out of place. Like the good book says:

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.

Hard to dispute. If God wanted, we could live in Winney the Pooh physics where nobody gets seriously hurt beyond saying 'oh bother'. An omnipotent can do anything.

Uh, could you repeat the question please?

Well crap. It was meant as a reply to https://www.themotte.org/post/2013/smallscale-question-sunday-for-june-1/331790?context=8#context, but I fumbled. I have corrected my error, in so far as any error can ever be corrected.

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