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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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I'm not Catholic either, but I am a perennialist which is really all that's required to hold such a view: to recognize that there is an immutable (or at the very least very very slowly mutable) human nature.

I'm also of the opinion that part of this nature makes humans unwise, and certainly unwise enough that them being in charge of their own condition is the harbinger of catastrophe. We suck at planning, everything we do has unforeseen consequences and the Enlightenment, which is most essentially the project to organize the world using reason, is a massive failure.

Like I'm fond of saying around these parts, the Jovians are the good guys in Eclipse Phase.

I don't see any reason why peaceful coexistence isn't possible.

Because I don't think you would leave us (and by us I mean humans) alone. Hence why the strict minimum of North Korea strong borders and armed neutrality is required.

This is simply drawn from the experience of history. Progressives can't help themselves from being universalists and try to insert their agenda in literally any traditional project. Ask any country colonized by Europe. Or more recently, Afghanistan.

I am unclear on what this human nature is. Humans seem very different to me all over the world such that it would be difficult to ascribe some specific nature to all of them.

I'm also of the opinion that part of this nature makes humans unwise, and certainly unwise enough that them being in charge of their own condition is the harbinger of catastrophe. We suck at planning, everything we do has unforeseen consequences and the Enlightenment, which is most essentially the project to organize the world using reason, is a massive failure.

Can you quantify the "humans" that are unwise enough such that being charge of our own condition is catastrophe? With an existential quantifier it seems trivial (surely some humans are so unwise it is catastrophic for them to manage their own condition) and with a universal quantifier it seems clearly false (no human is wise enough to manage their own condition). Indeed, unless you're an anarchist it seems like you believe some humans are wise enough to manage the condition of others, let alone their own condition.

Because I don't think you would leave us (and by us I mean humans) alone. Hence why the strict minimum of North Korea strong borders and armed neutrality is required.

What do you mean by "leave [humans] alone?" Like, we're not permitted to interact at all? To evangelize alternative ways of being? Are humans permitted to do the opposite? To decry why us not-humans are inferior and no one should be like us?

Humans seem very different to me all over the world such that it would be difficult to ascribe some specific nature to all of them.

That's funny because Humans seem very similar to me all over the world. They all have the attributes Aristostle and Confuscius independently identified them as having.

Can you quantify the "humans" that are unwise enough such that being charge of our own condition is catastrophe?

That's easy, the number is zero. No man is wise enough for such a task. The wish to be as gods is always and forever delusional hubris.

unless you're an anarchist it seems like you believe some humans are wise enough to manage the condition of others, let alone their own condition.

First, the human condition and society are different things. Humans have to manage society as a pragmatic necessity, and yet it's established that you can't just hand this out to a single person's whims without ending up with what we call tyranny. All successful societies pretty much have complex methods to eliminate these problems, and none of them have ultimately succeeded in avoiding catastrophic failure. Which is why societies, like humans, are always dying.

But the part we're talking about isn't the cultural aspect we've already fucked up pretty bad. It's biology, and the consequences of fucking with that are much more definitive and far reaching, not to mention our wishes around it extremely influenced by irrational pulsions.

Like, we're not permitted to interact at all?

Policy is of course contingent on practicality, but it would indeed be up and including that. Subversion is an existential risk that must be prevented regardless of it being done through hard or soft power. I reserve the right to suffer not the xeno, the mutant, the heretic if necessary.

Are humans permitted to do the opposite?

That's not for us to decide.

They all have the attributes Aristostle and Confuscius independently identified them as having.

Such as?


For the rest of this comment I feel like I need some clarification on "the human condition", biology, and the relation between them. It seems to me humans already manage our biology in ways great and small with mostly positive results. The person with cataracts who gets surgery, the deaf person who gets a cochlear implant, the diabetic who takes insulin, the person with a lethal allergy, are all managing their biology. Sometimes with life or death implications!

So what parts of our biology does "the human condition" consist of such that we are incompetent to manage these parts?

Such as?

The exact list is the object of philosophical debate of course, but generally it includes the ability to use reason and language, pair-bonding and the building of couples and households, the practice of politics and the development of societies, and the ability to practice mimesis and create art through imagination. ALl with the underlying issues that come with them, of course.

Of these both Chinese and Greeks independently derived similar forms of morality based on natural law, but I'm here drawing more from the underlying reality than these extrapolations.

So what parts of our biology does "the human condition" consist of such that we are incompetent to manage these parts?

All of them.

None of the examples you give, which are of course good restorative practices that can heal the sick, are equivalent to their natural counterparts and it is not even totally clear that their existence is a good thing in the absolute. I personally do not see our increasing reliance on industrial technology to survive as a good thing.