domain:alethios.substack.com
Lorian_Aristedes
1d ago
Good luck with Less Than Zero, I felt dead inside for a week afterwards.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
1d ago
The Reverse of the Medal. I will do a badly written synopsis later once I get into it.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
1d ago
You know, your record is pretty awful too, and for exactly this kind of low-quality growling and contempt. The discussion was "Who was Hlynka and why was he banned?" not "Take free shots at Hlynka because he's banned."
To round out His Broken Body I would recommend the works of James Likoudis, a convert from EO to Catholicism. Eastern Orthodoxy and the See of Peter: A Journey Towards Full Communion is the most like His Broken Body in scope.
His Broken Body is also old. At least, a lot of developments in the dialogue have happened since then. There's this moment where Cleenewerck says something like, "No Catholic apologetics ever addresses eccelestiology before talking about the Petrine Doctrine," and I had to check the publication date, because Joe Heshmeyer's book on Peter did exactly that. I also find it fascinating that he explicitly states that he's not going to engage with scholarship on the Petrine Doctrine, only popular apologetic work.
He also exhibits the common misconceptions surrounding Papal Bulls and what is considered infallible. For example, he considers Exsurge Domine to be infallible (which I won't argue) and then takes that to mean that all the things it condemns are considered infallible heresy. But that is not what Exsurge Domine says. The text is they are "either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds." There is a huge difference between capital-H Heretical and "seductive of simple minds." This point goes over Cleenewerck's head. He makes the same mistake with Unigenitus.
There are many parts where he confidently states that "Catholics believe X" and I'm like, "What?" For example, he takes as authoritative something that was actually a well-known swindle. It was common in the 19th century for publishers to claim that certain prayers carried indulgences or promises from apparitions with no actual authority.
His Broken Body is certainty an ambitious project but Cleenewerck doesn't do a great job of expressing actual Catholic thought. I think he did his best and tried to be charitable, but I would consider it as really good arguments for the Orthodox side and mediocre arguments for the Catholic side.
RustySunset
1d ago
Where did you come upon this idea of the pagan gods? I recently learned of it from the Lord of Spirits podcast, but it's the only place I've ever heard it before.
No. In order for the mission to be fucking accomplished, you have to accomplish the fucking mission, which is to reform sufficiently to go unnoticed.
TequilaMockingbird had already drawn attention repeatedly for being antagonistic and obnoxious. If Hylnka actually managed to create a new account, behave himself for a year, not get repeatedly modded for being his usual jerk-ass self, and then say "By the way, it's me," well... we (mods) would probably discuss it.
Same for any past troublemaker who actually comes back and shows better behavior. It is not (as @The_Nybbler keeps dishonestly claiming) that we want to see someone "hat in hand" and begging, but that we'd want to see evidence of change.
You can't create a new account, be your old antagonistic self, and then make a pikachu face when you're banned as soon as we realize who you are.
And it's also worth noting that you did not ban TequilaMockingbird for past posts, or even any rule breaking aspect of this post.
It's fine if we have abandoned the 'Mission fucking Accomplished' paradigm on this site, as long as we're clear of the change of paradigm.
anti_dan
1d ago
I mean, I strongly oppose public school teachers being required, or even permitted, really, to hang the Ten Commandments in a classroom. Public schools should not endorse an establishment of religion.
This boils down to banning public schools when you look at it at all. Every school teaches a religion, it just depends what flavor.
wemptronics
1d ago
If you didn't freeze edits at that point as well, yes.
I don't think they should remove edits or deletion because of one or two serial delete guys. Freeze edits and deletes after a week. Allow authorship to disappear on account deletion. A balance of considerations.
Noting that when I paid dues to The Motte's Conservative Party treasurer I was told the motto was "Change? No!" All these so-called suggested "improvements" are making me a little uncomfortable.
I don't really think this is a malady unique to young women, nor do I think the dating market is just men being "degenerates" and taking advantage of women all the time either (these stories just tend to get disproportionate amounts of attention, including on this forum among conservatives who are often very in favour of policing male sexual behaviour for the benefit of ostensibly strong and independent women). I've seen people of both sexes put up with shit I really wouldn't have; being down bad is quite the drug.
In fact the studies I have looked at on the topic seem to indicate that the reality is the opposite of what many people in this thread seem to think. Here is one of the early studies which indicate that. "The data suggest that women were less "romantic" than men, more cautious about entering into romantic relationships, more sensitive to the problems of their relationships, more likely to compare their relationships to alternatives, more likely to end a relationship that seemed ill fated, and better able to cope with rejection." It also contains the clinical impressions of a psychologist who counselled young people, noting that "The notion that the young adult male is by definition a heartless sexual predator does not bear examination ... some of the most acute cases of depression I have ever had to deal with occurred in attempting to help young men with their betrayal by a young woman in whom they had invested a great deal and who had, as the relationship developed, exploited them rather ruthlessly".
The skewed perspectives typical among women in the dating market primarily stems from them looking at the attractive lotharios who make them horny, not the experiences of the majority of men out there. In addition, I highly suspect that many of these women who get into relationships with players absolutely know what they're in for (women are not that epically stupid and such men barely even attempt to conceal what their intentions are), they just milk the high for all it's worth. It's fun until they realise they will not be the one to tame the rogue, that pigs will fly before that happens, and start regretting their decisions. But just because you didn't like the aftermath doesn't mean all that candy didn't taste fantastic when it was going down.
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
1d ago
These Islamic societies were not majority Islamic- Islam degrades HBD capital over the long term by encouraging cousin marriage. As a scientific racist I'd expect you to pay attention to that.
Doesn't pass the sniff test since the great men of the Islamic golden age were, as far as I know, all Muslims. Any hard evidence for this position?
aqouta
1d ago
I think that, too, causes unease: some eager-beaver surgeon pushing for declaration of death while the patient is literally still breathing in order to get the organs as fast as possible.
I understand this is a common fear and I'm supposed to identify the doctor as some kind of monster for being insufficiently respectful of the likely dead. But, like, they're not chomping at the bit for those organs because they want to turn a profit, they need them to save other people's lives. I definitely do want safeguards put in place and to ensure the false positive rate is very very low and am in no way saying we should take healthy people's organs in some kind of utilitarian maximizing nightmare world. But sometimes the cynicism in this type of post rubs me the wrong way. We should all want the same thing here.
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
1d ago
This is useful reminder about people in the present as well.
erwgv3g34
1d ago
That was the edit window on Slate Star Codex. But it takes 24 hours before scores become visible; surely we can allow that much?
Supah_Schmendrick
1d ago
Where were they for the four years of nonstop gaslighting and censorship we endured?
One theory is that they might have some sort of relationship with the Bidens. I don't know if there's any true merit to the idea, am not endorsing it, and haven't seen more than idle speculation on this, so caveat emptor. But basic googling does reveal that Kevin Morris, who called himself one of Hunter Biden's "closest friends" and who loaned/gave Hunter Biden at several million dollars to tide him through his tax and legal issues, also has a long-standing relationship with Parker & Stone.
Very much YMMV, but frankly pulling punches for personal reasons makes as much sense to me as the idea that somehow the same guys who did "the snuke" suddenly converted to the resistance.
solowingpixy
the resident car guy
1d ago
~6-7 years. At some point /r/themotte was linked on /r/drama and I found it that way. God, I miss seriousposting on Drama.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
1d ago
· Edited 1d ago
So it is not as big a deal as one might think. Got it.
Well, no, it's... a very big deal. It's the deal. But asking for a comprehensive explanation of how psychoanalysis relates to introspection and the problems thereof is kind of like asking "what does physics say about matter and how it moves?" How much time you got?
Can I ask for a recommendation on Freud and/or Jung here?
For listening material, and also probably the easiest place to start: look at the backlog of episodes for the Why Theory podcast, pick one that interests you (quite a few of them specifically analyze different works by Freud and Lacan), and just dig in. (Lacan was another important psychoanalytic thinker who took himself to be developing and expanding upon the work of Freud.) They're fun to listen to and they usually stay relatively grounded in terms of concrete examples.
For reading material:
For Freud, many of his works are self-contained and you can start almost anywhere, although I'm fond of Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Totem and Taboo.
The book that actually turned me onto psychoanalysis in the first place was Bruce Fink's A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis. It... does have a decent amount of woo jargon, but as the name implies, it's focused on showing how psychoanalysis works in a clinical setting, so you can skip the theory parts if you want and just read the case studies, if you want to get an idea of how this stuff actually works as a therapeutic practice using real life stories.
The Jung book that MBTI was based on is called Psychological Types.
TwiceHuman
1d ago
I've had some success with making contracts with my own subconsciousness.
It's simply not possible to run away. You either decide that you're going to do something, or that you're not. You decide once, do you actually want to do X, or do you not want to do X? If you decide to do X, then simply do it. Figure out how you'd do that task in concrete steps, if there's a step you don't know, list the steps to figure it out (force applied in the direction of a vague thing simply doesn't feel good, and pushing any harder doesn't automatically turn a goal into a plan if your system 1 cannot do this without the help of system 2) As for the things you've decided to do, you might need to do them more densely (that is, don't waste too much time between them) until your pace is fast enough that your future dreams are archived fast enough for your liking.
In return, you get to feel no stress (perhaps you need to catch up on what you neglected before this happens). Also, the more you control your own life, the more you get things in order, the more decision-power your subconsciousness should give you in return (since you can be trusted with said power). What else can you demand in return? Confidence, peace of mind, energy, whatever you want.
Unhappiness is simply an a contract that people make with themselves without realizing it. It's called "I will be unhappy until I achieve what I want, because I can't trust myself to work hard if I don't feel unhappy". Keep in mind that this doesn't have to be true - some people might be more productive when they're in a good mood. Negative emotions are simply a signal that something is wrong, kind of like a fire alarm. If your brain does not think that something is wrong, the signal does not get triggered.
By the way, a thing you might have accidentally done to yourself, is attempted to break out this loop - and then interpreted the attempt negatively. For instance, if you had limited success, then rather celebrating it as a small victory, you might have considered it a small failure, but punishing your attempts at improvement is dangerous, it's conditioning yourself into believing that change isn't worth it. Some even say that chronic depression is this kind of meta-level learned-helplessness.
By the way, you might want to try energy-drinks / coffee. If these calm you down and help you get stuff done, you might have ADHD.
wraelk
1d ago
Wouldn't keeping editing but removing deletion be pointless? You could just edit your post, change it to the text "[deleted]" and get effectively the same result as deleting it.
Gaashk
1d ago
I got it to write some emergency (and therefore generic) substitute plans, and it produced a downloadable doc, which probably saved me three hours, so I appreciate that. Apparently Teachers Pay Teachers is now a bit scammy, and also I'm unwilling to spend my own money on that kind of thing.
I tried getting some advice on a personal project a month or so ago, and GPT 4 kept saying things like "that's awesomely profound and deep!" with each step, which was annoying, but I hear the new model might be better, and also it does better when just told to knock it off, which I didn't try.
GPT 4 hasn't been very useful for conversation, since by default it produces essay length answers (and sycophancy), but I haven't tried any other models.
It's been reasonably useful for summarizing light research and making concept art.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
I’ve always read Caplan as mostly talking about college specifically, not really anything K-12. And I agree to a large measure, that the current model of
- Get credential
- ???
- Get hired for tons of money
- Profit
Is flawed for a number of reasons. It doesn’t work for those kids incapable of attaining the diploma. It encourages the dumbing down of educational standards to allow the stupid to get on the path toward a diploma, and allows banks and schools to get rich financing this. It creates a ratchet for the actual talent who now must get ever higher degrees to prove “no im not just here because I paid tuition I actually learned something worthwhile in school”. And it wastes lots of time that could be put to better use.
I argue that at this point higher education credentials are a fetish. They are not worth something for their intrinsic value, but because both the holder and the person reading about the diploma on a resume believe it means something. It doesn’t.
gakles
1d ago
The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt was published in 2007 and blew up the polisci academic space, it was the first book to openly address the odd relationship Israel has with the US (and the groups which make it possible). I think it gives a pretty good cross section of US-Israel relations as they were in 2007 and previously and is a great help explaining many of the current institutions/habits that have been placed under a great deal of stress since Oct. 7. While groups the like ADL have smeared it as antisemetic, it very much is not, it's not some conspiratorial "expose" but an academic investigation (one of the authors is a jew, too). Not very much emphasis wrt Gaza but they authors spend some time on Palestine.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
1d ago
Why do we need God
We are social creatures who pursue social things; that is 99% of our existence and joy, we are fish in social waters. God is a kind of social perfection which allows for optimal human flourishing (or the pursuit thereof) via social cognition. God is conceived in such a way that He supercedes all other social pulls and pressures. Functional descriptions of God, in which He is heard and obeyed because of His social force, are both prior to any philosophical speculation about divinity, and primary in the theistic world religions. Functionally, God is that which demands full attention and allegiance. If you have a community which has full attention and allegiance to God — the Blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to Him be honor and eternal dominion — and that God is good, even Love, then you have a good community. Everything else is implementation detail or distraction.
Why do we need the Christian God
The Christian God is especially good. The will and interest of God is shown in Jesus, who is widely considered to be one of the goodest persons ever, even by anti-theists. Christians have been at the forefront of relieving social and moral ills for centuries. There are 2000 years of odes and elaboration upon Christ which can be read by Christians (though some of this is theological, meaning it is worthless). There are 3800 years if you assume that Christ was foreshadowed in Genesis and Job, and if you subscribe to the ancient idea that every culture has a shadow of Christ, then you can see Him in every world myth. Even more importantly, Christians have the best and most reverent music.
The competitor to Christianity is just Islam, which has serious problems in terms of effecting wellbeing. Its liturgy is required to be in Arabic; its music (they don’t call it music) is set in stone; the figure of Muhammad is not as pristine as the figure of Jesus; its emphasis on Hadith makes it too legalistic and ritualistic to be truly utilitarian; some of the Surahs are no longer relevant; etc. This God is not your Father, but the Christian God is (ideal in an evolutionary sense).
Buddhism is irrelevant. Something like compassion meditation is awesome, and I’m sure there are some good stories. But this really isn’t good enough. Its not prosocial enough, its not dramatic enough, it doesn’t test us enough. If Christians wanted, they could steal all the good parts of Buddhism, but the opposite could not happen.
What were/are the flaws in previous/current societies that had at least surface level success (outside of the Modern West) that could be remedied with Christianity
I’m not sure precisely what you mean. Outside of the West, I can see Koreans enjoying better communities through Christianity, by inducing more sharing and fewer conspicuous status purchases. It could probably induce family formation. More selflessness means more philanthropy and less waste. That kind of thing. The current feminism hysteria could be cured by (1) revering the Mother of God, (2) revering Christ as the Saving Victim.
I second this approach of thinking, at the end, the goal of school is to pump out students actually capable of reading and understanding. Pumping out illiterate students contradict the function of school, school is NOT day care facility and we should not treat them as such
A school pumping out illiterate students should do worst on stats, State A's school (0.7/year) in @odd_primes's example is a worst school than State B's school (0.6/year), even though State B's school has less effective teachers
Just like a company, the administration stucture matters, it might increase or decrease the overall profitability of the company, and State B's school's administration makes their school more functional at their goal, depite less effective teachers
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