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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Second reply for different topic:

I do sometimes wonder if it's worth it to try to psy-op myself into a belief system. Not sure if I could though.

What do you know (and how do you know it) that would stop you here?

Putting on my atheist hat, what I see is something like this:

Being is. Something exists, rather than nothing. The nature of Being is structured such that conscious life arises and starts thirsting for a relationship with a Creator beyond the bounds of the universe. Probability is a silly thing to bring into this matter imo; this is simply what is.

Meanwhile there's plentiful reason to suppose the simulation hypothesis, our status as Boltzmann Brains, etc. or at least to collapse into methodological solipsism. What doesn't make sense is to assume that the external world we perceive is as we perceive it, or that our faculties allow us to satisfactorily observe and evaluate its nature or scope.

Our existence is fundamentally incomprehensible. Within this scenario we either don't have free will (in which case, whatever, we're just going to do what we're going to do and the consequences if any will find us) or we do in which case we're left with the question of what is worth doing.

The two options would seem to be 1) temporal hedonism or 2) reference to an external source of value, e.g. a Creator who provides a possibility for ultimate consequence to exist and for some choices and outcomes to be objectively better than others.

Given 1) I would agree with Camus that suicide is the only interesting question.

Given 2) I find that all kinds of amazing possibilities open up and suddenly life is full of wonderful (and terrible) potential.

This choice is an individual one, but I've never quite comprehended those who choose 1).

6.10 (i) Mixture, interaction, dispersal; or (ii) unity, order, design.

Suppose (i): Why would I want to live in disorder and confusion? Why would I care about anything except the eventual “dust to dust”? And why would I feel any anxiety? Dispersal is certain, whatever I do.

Or suppose (ii): Reverence. Serenity. Faith in the power responsible.

From Aurelius' Meditations.

What doesn't make sense is to assume that the external world we perceive is as we perceive it, or that our faculties allow us to satisfactorily observe and evaluate its nature or scope.

This is the kind of thing you hear when someone's peddling something that they know will never be made distinguishable from non-reality by any demonstrable method whatsoever. Maybe it sounds good to believers eager to quit getting kicked around by observations of reality, but you could use lines like this to argue for literally anything

Yes, literally all belief is faith-based and we should be very careful about where to place that faith.

All maps are wrong; some maps are true. If it's blurry but gets you where you're going it's better than technically-accurate but leaves you stranded.

Anyone who would complain about this state of affairs had better take it up with Reality.

Who said that the unity, order, design of (ii) are going to be favorable to you?

Hence the 'terrible' and the 'faith' in my post.