Friday
I have a very annoying medical mystery that I would appreciate some help with. I've had acne since my adolescence, not just whiteheads but the uncomfortable hard ball underneath the skin, and my nose would get very red and inflamed. I had no idea how to get rid of it and tried lots of dermatological interventions that did not do much. A couple years ago I was experimenting with ways to improve my athletic performance and tried a carnivore diet (only beef). I was surprised to discover that the acne and redness completely went away almost immediately.
Since then I have eaten a diet of mostly beef and a few other very simple things (a starchy carb like potatoes, some basic green vegetables, even some dairy now and then). When I'm on this diet, my skin is pretty much clear. When I try to introduce other things, even very basic ones, it tends to lead to a big problem. I tested some salmon last Friday and am currently dealing with another one of those hard balls that I otherwise never get.
Based on the testing I've done over the past 2 years or so, I am completely confident that this is related to food. It only occurs when I deviate from the basic diet that I have confirmed works for me. The difference is visible and dramatic.
I need to find a better solution than just eating beef for the rest of my life. It's expensive, a hassle, makes traveling and socialization difficult, and I'm not sure how healthy it is for me in the long term. But I have not been able to find any medical or scientific knowledge related to this phenomenon. It seems like I'm dealing with some kind of highly idiosyncratic intolerance to vast groups of food and nobody knows what might have caused this or how to help with it. Is there any medical specialty or institute that might be able to help me get to the bottom of this?
The Washington Post reports: Florida schools drop AP Psychology after state says it violates the law, a good example of the media getting as close to lying as you can get while still remaining in not-quite-lying territory.
As far as I know, this all started last Thursday, when the College Board issued a statement regarding its AP Psychology course and Florida law. In this statement, the College Board wrote: "The state has said districts are free to teach AP Psychology only if it excludes any mention of [content on sexual orientation and gender identity]."
Citation (desperately) needed! Contrary to what the College Board says, I have been unable to find any source on the internet prior to the College Board's statement corroborating their claim about what the Florida department of education requires. The Washington Post claims that the statement was based on a "conference call" between the board of education and school superintendents, but again, I have found no stories where the reporter interviews someone involved in the call in order to confirm the College Board's characterization of what was said.
On the contrary, on Friday, the day after the College Board published its statement, the director of the Florida Department of Education wrote a letter to the school superintendants, clarifying that
In fact, the Department believes that AP Psychology can be taught in its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate and the course remains listed in our course catalog
As far as I know, this letter is the only official statement from the Florida Department of Education regarding the application of the Parental Rights in Education ("Don't Say Gay") law to the teaching of AP Psychology. And yet a google search of "ap psychology Florida" returns headline after headline of major news outlets reporting the College Board's interpretation of this law as if Florida had gone out and "banned" the teaching of AP Psychology in its schools.
Without knowing anything about the conference call (because no reporter bothered to check), I have to caveat that maybe Florida did suggest that some parts of AP Psychology could not be taught, only to backtrack after being called out by the College Board. But for me, it seems like a dishonest characterization of the law intended to make Florida and DeSantis look bad.
EDIT:
Okay, having done a bit more research by going back to read the College Board's previous statements on this matter, I have to admit that my characterization was mistaken. In particular, in their June statement on the AP Psychology course, they reference correspondence from the Florida Department of Education Office of Articulation (what a name!), asking the College Board to affirm that their AP Psychology course conforms to the new Florida law. Still not a "ban," but definitely the College Board is not engaged in the unprovoked attack on Florida that I was imagining. There was definitely some provocation.
I do still think this is more about grandstanding by the College Board than a straightforward application of the law, but I was wrong in thinking that the College Board was one-sidedly attacking the Florida Department of Education.
No_one
2yr ago
children to single mothers (mothers married to the state) preform worse on all most all metrics.
..because of bad genes, not single status.
Maybe not on the first Friday night, but with a bit of effort, most women should be able to get pregnant with a real hunk.
...ya think they'd agree to that?
functor
2yr ago
This option is hardly new. You can get free sperm from a hot guy for free at a bar. As long as she isn't absolutely hideous a women should be able to sleep with a top 1% man. Maybe not on the first Friday night, but with a bit of effort, most women should be able to get pregnant with a real hunk.
The real step father is the government who protects, provides and parents the child. This isn't stable, as the people paying the taxes aren't getting the benefits. She wants men to pay taxes but not have any obligations as a wife. The state is a terrible husband. Children to single mothers (mothers married to the state) preform worse on all most all metrics. I find it mindblowing that there are people who have such faith in the system that they believe that the state will provide for them for decades to come. The welfare state is a ponzi scheme funded by debt that clearly isn't meeting its expectations already.
As for good genes this won't work as well either. Good genes is less about having some super mutation and more about not having negative mutations. A person with few harmful mutations and no unusually beneficial ones will be far better off than someone with a mix of stellar and subpar genes. With a rather aesthetically displeasing mother it is likely the child will inherit some unfortunate mutations.
FtttG
2yr ago
I adapted and expanded my reviews of Barbie and Oppenheimer (which I originally posted as comments here and here) as a blog post: https://firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com/p/movie-review-barbenheimer
Oh, it was a great loss. And the irony of it was that the IDA at the time was selling our young, educated (and cheaper to pay than the equivalent in your company, American multinationals) workforce as the reason to invest in Ireland - the Young Europeans campaign.
The irony, I say, is because people have stories of "As I was leaving for the airport to get on the plane to emigrate, I saw the Young Europeans billboards and I was one of the people in that photo":
UCD engineering graduates were to the fore in the 'Young Europeans' campaign by the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) in the mid-1980s. Designed to showcase Ireland's highly-educated cohort of engineering and science graduates, the campaign was very influential in the development of Ireland's profile within the technology sector internationally. Professor Liam Murphy, one of the Merrion Street graduates featured in the campaign, recalls 'I'm not sure we realised at the time how widespread the picture would become. But it was great to be a part of something which helped to raise awareness of the quality of Ireland's high-tech workforce!'
The economic reality of Ireland in the mid-1980s saw many of the most highly-skilled graduates leave the country in search of opportunity. This famously included many of the graduates from the iconic IDA advertisement. However, subsequent years saw many emigrants of the 1980s return to Ireland, bringing the skills and experience they had acquired abroad and contributing to the transformation of Ireland's industrial base.
Since the Famine (and before, but not as badly), we've been bleeding our young and our talented. The eldest son got the farm, the eldest daughter got the dowry, the rest of you look for work and that usually means emigration. Goes double if there is no farm or money to be inherited. My parents were the youngest of their respective families and the ones to stay at home; most of my father's siblings emigrated (three stayed behind besides him) and the same for my mother. My mother actually planned to go to America but her parents were elderly and she was left to look after them.
We can argue history, the Church, the economic climate, all the rest of it as to why this is so - but the brute force reality of Irish life was that you were likely to have to leave if you wanted work, any kind of work. And if you wanted to make anything of yourself, the opportunities are abroad. People are still contemplating that - the cost of living is too high, the salaries too low, no chance of buying a house. In the USA, that mostly means "move across the country". In Ireland, that means "emigrate".
And I struggle to imagine that - had emigration not been a possibility - this group of people would just have accepted their minimum wage jobs and not worked to improve things in the country. They would have set things up, built things, started businesses, even as capital was very scarce.
"Starting a business" was another programme pushed by the government, with limited success. Capital was non-existent, as opposed to very scarce, unless you had some kind of influence or assets or pull to get loans. Ireland is not the US. There was (is) a cerrtain amount of political corruption which favoured certain people in their business dealings and enabled them to profit.
And when Irish entrepreneurs get successful, they leave the country - look at the Collisons. Part of that is if you want to grow, you have to go to the US, to Silicon Valley and the venture capitalists there. But also part of that is wanting to make money and advance in your field, and Ireland is just too small:
In 2007, he set up software company 'Shuppa' (a play on the Irish word siopa, meaning 'shop') in Limerick with his brother John Collison. Enterprise Ireland did not allocate funding to the company, prompting a move to California after Silicon Valley's Y Combinator showed interest, where they merged with two Oxford graduates, Harjeet and Kulveer Taggar, and the company became Auctomatic.
On Good Friday of March 2008, Collison, aged nineteen, and his brother, aged seventeen, sold Auctomatic to Canadian company Live Current Media, becoming millionaires. In May 2008 he became director of engineering at the company's new Vancouver base. Collison attributes the success of his company to his win in the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.
FarNearEverywhere
2yr ago
This is late and I should wait for the new Friday Fun Thread, but if I do, I'll forget it.
So I'm reading a biography of Chesterton, and come across a reference to his sister-in-law, Ada 'Keith' Jones (she got this name because she published her journalism under a male nom-de-plume, John Keith Prothero):
All this must be kept in mind, when we come to more crucial and exciting events in connection with the Eyewitness; I only mention this incident here to indicate the lively manner in which the lady in question conducted the endless comedy of Fleet Street. In connection with the paper above mentioned, of which my brother was first the sub-editor and then the editor, there were a hundred such anecdotes and amusing episodes. I fancy I can trace the lady's hand, as well as the editor's, in one of the most admirably absurd correspondences I have ever seen in the columns of journalism. It all began, if I remember right, with my brother writing something about the meeting between H. G. Wells and Booker Washington, the famous Negro publicist in America, in which some doubt was thrown on how far Mr. Wells understood the difficulties of Mr. Washington, and by inference those of the White South in which he worked. This view was enforced and exaggerated in a letter dated from Bexley, which warned everybody of the real dangers of racial admixture and intermarriage; it was signed "White Man." This produced a fiery letter from Mr. Wells, humorously headed, "The White Man of Bexley," as if the man were a sort of monster. Mr. Wells said he did not know what life was like "among the pure whites of Bexley," but that elsewhere meeting people did not always mean marrying them; "The etiquette is calmer." Then, I think, a real Negro intervened in the debate about his nature and destiny; and signed his letter, "Black Man." Then came a more detached query, I should guess from some Brahmin or Parsee student at some college, pointing out that the racial problem was not confined to the races of Africa; and asking what view was taken of intermarriage with the races of Asia. He signed his letter "Brown Man." Finally, there appeared a letter, of which I remember almost every word; for it was short and simple and touching in its appeal to larger and more tolerant ideals. It ran, I think, as follows:
"Sir, May I express my regret that you should continue a correspondence which causes considerable pain to many innocent persons who, by no fault of their own, but by the iron laws of nature, inherit a complexion uncommon among their fellow-creatures and attractive only to the elite. Surely we can forget all these differences; and, whatever our race or colour, work hand in hand for the broadening of the brotherhood of humanity. Yours faithfully, Mauve Man with Green Spots."
This correspondence then ceased.
MadMonzer
Pedo! Pedo! Pedo! Out! Out! Out!
2yr ago
In the preface to Speaker for the Dead Orson Scott Card writes about "adolescent" vs "adult" main characters. He doesn't deal with it in those terms, but in effect what he is saying is that the Campbellian hero can't be someone who is already playing a fully realised adult role in his community (in his worldview as well as mine, this is approximately synonymous with "married with kids") because the hero arc doesn't make sense. So to write a heroic story with "adult" main characters (OSC's goal in Speaker/Xenocide/Children of the Mind) you have to do something else.
In my view, OSC fails - but I still love the books for HFY/superversive type reasons. Speaker and Children are both carried off by "adolescent" heroes - the still-single Ender in Speaker with a number of pequinino "brother" pigs (who we later learn are literal adolescents when the pequinino life-cycle is revealed) as supporting characters; and young Peter, Si Wang-Mu and Jane-as-young-Val in Children. Xenocide is a relative stinker because it doesn't have this - the central plot conceit is that Ender's struggle to bring harmony to the Ribiera family as stepfather turns into a metaphor for the broader struggle to restore harmony on Lusitania and in the wider galaxy. It almost, but not quite, works.
As a separate point, in last week's thread we had the Barbie discourse which talked about the idea of the fundamental male (hero's journey) and female (abandon your demons and embrace your inner fabulousness) character development arcs as being about SMV increase. A happily married man who goes on a hero's journey is not going to develop into a man who gets the girl, he is going to develop into a man whose wife loves him less than the man she married. This works well as the apotheosis arc where the hero who we saw complete the journey and get the girl in series 1 is called away from "happily ever after" to perform one last act of heroism to pull out the good guys win in series 2, and normally gets himself killed in the process. (Think Tony Stark in *Avengers: Endgame). But it doesn't work well as a regular hero story.
Quantumfreakonomics
2yr ago
Kino Review: Oppenheimer
Last week in the Friday Fun Thread, I posted my first reactions upon seeing the film, written literally from my car in the parking lot. My initial negative reaction was almost entirely because I sat down expecting to like the character of Oppenheimer. I went in mostly blind. The only thing I knew about J. Robert Oppenheimer was that he ran the Manhattan Project, said the meme words, and invented the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, so when he turned out to be a pretentious asshole from the first scene it colored my whole experience. I saw enough glowing reviews in the following week that I decided to see it again with fresh eyes, in IMAX this time, just in case that was the missing ingredient.
I liked it much more the second time. In fact, I think this is the best film I've seen since 1917 (2019). The nonlinear storytelling works well overall, but on first viewing some of the early sequences are confusing as it's not obvious when they occur chronologically. Not having to concentrate so much made it much easier to relax and let the music and cinematography wash over me.
I liked Nolan's treatment of science in Interstellar, and I like his treatment of science here. I'm the kind of guy who would have enjoyed a 30-minute sequence figuring out the fission cross-section of plutonium, so I was a bit disappointed in the lack of technical details. Still, the film adequately captures the feel of science. There's an early scene where Niels Bohr asks Oppie, "Can you hear the music Robert?" It sounds like the kind of cliché 'math isn't everything' line you would expect in a dumbed down Hollywood film, but everyone who's ever studied quantum mechanics knew exactly what he meant. The disbelief when the first reports of uranium fission come in is perfect; everyone knows splitting the atom is impossible. Next they'll telling us they've synthesized a room-temperature superconductor.
My favorite character in the movie was Ernest Lawrence. I felt a spiritual connection with how he too is pissed off that everyone in Berkeley is a communist. What's he gonna do, leave academia and live amongst the proles? Roll your eyes at the leftist Jews running the show all you want, they're legitimately the smartest people around. At least he, as a native-born American, was able to see which way the wind was blowing and bail on the Oppenheimer hearing, unlike Teller, who naively told the truth and ended up blackballed.
The one creative mistake that stands out (other than having the setup for the Bhagavad Gita be a sex scene) is the use of practical explosion effects for the Trinity test. The buildup to the test is fantastic -- I was on the edge of my seat both times -- but the explosion itself is a bit anticlimactic. It's very clearly a gasoline fire in certain shots. There's just no way to use practical effects to replicate a white-hot ball of glowing plasma growing by radiation diffusion. Nolan almost makes up for this by delaying the arrival of the shock wave. The observers were miles away, and it took a long time for the sound to reach them. By the time it finally hits you've almost forgotten it was coming.
There are some minor thematic issues, particularly in the last act. It's not entirely clear how we are supposed to feel when Oppie loses his security clearance. I had the same reaction as Richard Hanania to the plain text of what is on screen, but the subtext as conveyed by the score and cinematography is that his wife is a hero for pretending to not remember if she ever got an official Communist Party USA membership card. I do think we needed an extended sequence after the bomb test to wrap up the Strauss storyline, but they definitely could have cut 10-15 minutes out of it.
Overall 9/10. Surprisingly worth seeing in IMAX, despite most of the scenes consisting of guys talking in rooms.
celluloid_dream
2yr ago
I don't think it's that difficult to drop Hammerlock-style hints and not treat it as a big deal, especially if it wouldn't be a big deal in-universe.
Example, minor spoilers for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, also tagging @TowardsPanna , who asked about it in the Friday thread.
There's a NPC character who is a "trans" woman. I put that in quotes because this is a universe where you can literally take a magic potion and permanently transform into the opposite sex (or, presumably, like, a giant spider if that's more your style). You only find out if you pick up some random junk item, then ask the character's spouse about it (spouse wants to keep it private and won't tell you the details), then ask the character about it again much later in the game. You could easily finish the game and not come across that detail.
That seemed totally fine? It respects the worldbuilding and doesn't come off as unrealistic, or in your face.
Contrast with the Hogwarts Legacy character that stood out like a sore thumb, not so much because she was a non-passing transwoman, but because the HP universe has transformation magic, and if that exists, why would any transwoman not avail themselves of it?
You could also do ambiguously-trans, like this character in the recent pokemon games. When I saw this market, I was pretty baffled - hadn't even considered that when playing through the games - but reading the evidence, it does seem plausible.
ZorbaTHut
2yr ago
So, here, I'm gonna post this in the main thread, but I'll show it to you first (and I guess anyone else who checks my comment page, hi there!) Here's the current prototype for the single-issue-poster rule:
We occasionally have trouble with people who turn into single-issue posters, posting and commenting only on a single subject. We'd like to discourage this. If you find yourself posting constantly on a single subject, please make an effort to post on other subjects as well.
This doesn't mean you need to write megaposts! This can be as simple as going to the Friday Fun Thread once in a while and posting a few paragraphs about whatever video game you last played. But this community is fundamentally for people, and if a poster is acting more like a propaganda-bot than a person, we're going to start looking at them suspiciously.
This rule is going to be applied with delicacy; if I can find not-low-effort comments about three different subjects within your last two weeks or two pages of comments, you're fine.
Does that work?
Is @fuckduck9000 correct that I should be more vociferously calling out apparent bad-faith posters who purport to share some funhouse-mirror version of my views?
Honestly I'd like it if everyone did that more often :V
SecureSignals
Training the Aryan LLM
2yr ago
https://cdapress.com/news/2023/jul/21/patriot-front-members-jailed-banned-cd/
Prosecutors had recommended the maximum fine of $5,000, as well as the maximum sentence of a year in jail, with 10 days of actual jail time and 40 hours of community service.
Wes Somerton, chief criminal deputy city attorney for Coeur d’Alene, suggested the Patriot Front members could be made to volunteer at a human rights organization in order to show them other viewpoints.
“Other people’s rights and voices do have a place in the fabric of America,” Somerton said.
In court Friday, the defendants each addressed the court, saying they respected the jury’s decision but maintained that their intent was to peacefully protest in Coeur d’Alene, not incite a riot.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
2yr ago
Damn, I thought everyone knew Friday I'm in love by The Cure. You should give it a listen if you like 80s pop, it's the same sentiment as your post, except about love.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
2yr ago
Would you say that you don't care if Monday's blue, Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too, Thursday you don't care about me, but Friday, you're in love (with multiples of seven)?
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
2yr ago
I'm not completely incapable of find aesthetic pleasures in certain weird number sequences but I don't think of MRNA vaccines or neural imaging techniques as beautiful. I think "hey, neat!" or "that's an impressive feat" but beauty never comes top-of-mind for me for a lot of scientific advancements. You and I are probably operating off entirely different definitions of what's beautiful.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
put a time on my calendar for friday. will get to it then.
do_something
2yr ago
Where did Putin ever claim as much? Go ahead and quote him. I’ll wait.
I have not claimed that Putin personally did so, but I think that https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-unveils-security-guarantees-says-western-response-not-encouraging-2021-12-17/ is enough
Russia said on Friday it wanted a legally binding guarantee that NATO would give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine
"withdrawal of multinational NATO battalions from Poland and from the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that were once in the Soviet Union" alone is a nonstarter. And given that Polish army existing at all is also NATO military activity in Eastern Europe this is a total nonstarter.
Oh, and we have
Russia has denied planning an invasion.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2yr ago
- We already have a top level comment about it in the Friday Fun thread.
- Making a new one today might not even be a bad idea... if you waited for the current week's CW thread to come up...
So, what are you reading? (Another book thread in the Fun Thread here)
I'm starting Lisa Herzog's Citizen Knowledge. It isn't out yet, but there's a PDF online, and will be open access when it comes out on September 1st. It looks like a mainstream yet academic take on the misinformation debate. I've recently been taken by a desire to learn how these people who say they know so much think (I mean this with only some sarcasm- these people do know a lot which I don't).
Paper I'm reading: Bannister's "The Survival of the Fittest is our Doctrine": History or Histrionics?
I think I've misinterpreted Kendi on "whiteness." It seems fair to give him the last word:
And yet racist power thrives on anti-White racist ideas- more hatred only makes their power greater. When Black people recoil from White racism and concentrate their hatred on everyday White people, as I did freshman year in college, they are not fighting racist power or racist policymakers. In losing focus on racist power, they fail to challenge anti-Black racist policies, which means those policies are more likely to flourish. Going after White people instead of racist power prolongs the policies harming Black life. In the end, anti-White racist ideas, in taking some or all of the focus off racist power, become anti-Black. In the end, hating White people becomes hating Black people.
He also says there's nothing wrong with white culture, only the "cultures of modern imperialism and racial capitalism."
To be antiracist is to never mistake the global march of White racism for the global march of White people.
Felagund
2yr ago
I have a sort of pet theory about what might have happened on/after Good Friday that I can share if you want
I'd love to hear it.
transfiguration of Brigham Young
Yeah, this is a good point. I'd have to look into the claims, but it does sound like eyewitness testimony is less reliable—I don't know that a large delay between Christ's death and the birth of Christianity is reasonable, though, so they at least had enough to act on.
The portion of 1 Corinthians is usually considered to antedate the writing of the epistle by a good measure, so that limits the measure of corruption.
Well, that’s what Matthew says the claim was.
I seem to have been wrong, I thought it was attested by non-Christians, but it looks like the earliest other attestation is Justin Martyr, who could well have gotten it from Matthew.
In any case, it seems less likely that he would put in such a thing when there were no people saying as much—why even bring it up, then?
I think they were written after AD 60.
I'm inclined to push it earlier, since Acts ends abruptly, but I get that that's not the scholarly consensus.
You can accommodate anything, but the more accommodations you have to swallow the less convincing the whole thing becomes.
This is definitely true, I'm just not sure that these are especially substantial accomodations—Jesus ascending up (keep in mind elevating has other effects as well—it fits much better with Jesus reigning, etc. than the opposite), and a reference to a "third heaven" don't seem too significant to me, and to have much less weight than some of the other things you've said.
which I think is surprising.
Yeah, this is a good point, and agree that it does seem like they were only told obscurely that a final resurrection would be a thing. I think this is seen to some extent in the gospels themselves—the surrounding people are expecting one type of messiah and get another.
Yahweh’s enemies are always human
Well, there's an exception in Daniel, but you've established that Daniel doesn't hold much weight in your eyes. What do you think of Genesis 3, or maybe Job 1-2? I know you think those aren't quite the same as the new testament accounts.
False predictions of end of age
The Matthew 16 and Mark 8 is immediately followed by the transfiguration. This is very straightforward.
The others are more difficult—fair point about 2 Peter possibly being a 2nd century polemic on precisely this point. 2 Thessalonians also claims that it's not yet, but it's less strong about it compared to 2 Peter.
Here's one take (well, more like three compatible takes) I found—I think the main points are that in Christian history, we're basically in the end phase, and we should expect the end whenever, even if we don't know the day or hour.
I'll take a second to point out that the canonicity and inerrancy of any part of scripture is a different question from whether Jesus rose from the dead.
I wasn't aware of the expansive language referred to the other various gods.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
2yr ago
Yes, but somehow only the Friday is aesthestically pleasing to me. Don't care about the rest, don't know why. Yes, I'm sober why do you ask.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
2yr ago
Every Friday this month is a multiple of 7 and I find this aesthetically pleasing for some bizarre reason.
What would be uncommon, I would certainly assume, would be a group hallucination. Paul, the synoptics, John, all testify that he appeared to the twelve (well, to the eleven). Do you think that didn't happen, and they misremembered or misconveyed?
I don’t think there were ever any group hallucinations. I think initially probably one or two or three people had (individual) visions of the risen Jesus, and the more spectacular stories in the gospels are the result of legendary accretion and invention years later. I have a sort of pet theory about what might have happened on/after Good Friday that I can share if you want (I started to write it out here but it got too long), though of course it is just speculation.
But for now, to see how an initially not-particularly-remarkable experience can snowball in memory (even something that took place before dozens of witnesses, even in the memories of those witnesses themselves), consider the ‘transfiguration of Brigham Young.’ To be very brief, this was an event in which Brigham Young supposedly demonstrated his right to succeed Joseph Smith as LDS prophet by giving a speech before the ‘saints’ at a camp meeting. While speaking before them, he was supernaturally transfigured so that he was identical to Joseph in speech and appearance.
The problem is that the earliest accounts, from weeks or months after the event, don’t mention this wonder. They talk about Young's speech, but with regards to the supposed miracle, they at most talk about “the mantle of the prophet” falling upon Young, or say that he appeared to take on Joseph’s mannerisms.
But within a few years/decades, dozens of people claimed to have witnessed firsthand the marvelous transformation. Some claimed only that the voice of Joseph came out of Brigham’s mouth, but many claimed that he literally took on the features of Joseph, a few even that a glowing light shone out from his face.
I don’t think any of these people were lying; I think over the years, they genuinely came to believe they had seen this miracle.
It's supported, though, by hostile testimony—the claim in response was that the body was stolen, not that he was never buried there.
Well, that’s what Matthew says the claim was. Was that what people in Jerusalem the morning after Easter Sunday were actually saying? Did anyone in the early months even care enough to dispute Christian claims? Maybe. Or maybe not. There’s no actual Jewish or pagan polemic against Christianity until Census 200 years later.
(Also, I'm not sure what mechanism would cause that to originate, if you both think that early Christians, including the twelve, were sincere, and the gospels are old.)
Depends on what you mean by “old.” I think they were written after AD 60. Thirty years, even twenty or ten, is more than enough time for stories and rumors to circulate and grow. “Jesus was buried” (Paul) easily becomes, “Jesus was buried in a fancy rock-cut tomb,” (Mark) easily becomes, “Jesus was buried in a fancy rock-cut tomb and the governor even set a watch on it!” (Matthew)
else it doesn't give Jesus an opportunity to walk out the tomb.
You’re assuming he has to. Elsewhere in the gospels the risen Jesus can teleport and walk through walls. Matthew may have even believed Jesus was assumed directly from the tomb up to Heaven. The rock seems to have been rolled away as much for the benefit of the witnesses as anything (“come and see the place where he was laid”).
Accomodation seems adequate for the other one.
I disagree. You can accommodate anything, but the more accommodations you have to swallow the less convincing the whole thing becomes. After I certain point for me, it becomes easier to just say the authors were wrong about things.
There's a little more than nothing, for eternal life or a resurrection.
There are a few verses here and there that look maybe-sort of resurrection-like if you squint, but I maintain the single verse in Daniel is the only clear articulation of this doctrine in the whole OT, which I think is surprising.
Yahweh's also responsible for everything in the new testament.
Yes but also no. From the NT down to the present day there is a tension between affirming that Yahweh is sovereign over everything but that also somehow, the evil spirits are genuinely his enemies and fighting against him in some real sense. The tension doesn’t exist in the OT. See the “lying spirit” Yahweh uses to deceive Ahab in 1 Kings 22 or the “evil spirit” he sends to torment Saul in 1 Samuel 16. These spirits aren't rebellious or anything like that, they’re just members of Yahweh’s heavenly court that do his “dirty work.” In the OT (with the exception of a few vague references to the defeat of the chaos monsters in primordial history, Yahweh’s enemies are always human).
Not especially familiar with Daniel.
The problem is mainly with the prophecy of the “King of the North” in Daniel 11. I didn’t want this post to be too long, but I can go into detail if you want.
well, it explicitly says a thousand years is like a day, so it internally moderates.
Jesus’ claims that “the generation” of his disciples would not pass away before the fulfillment of all things (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). He says some of his disciples will not “taste death” before the Son of Man comes (Matthew 16, Mark 9). In the olivet discourse he explicitly places the final judgment following the destruction of Jerusalem. Paul says that the time is so short that those who are married should live as unmarried, those who are mourning as if they were not, etc. (1 Corinthians 7). He also refers to himself and his generation as those “upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10). The entire Book of Revelation is a promise that God is going to destroy the Roman Empire. Once you see the imminent apocalypticism in the NT IMO it’s hard to unsee it. It’s everywhere. John saying that “already the axe is at the root of the tree,” the epistles referring to their time as “the last days,” the periodic admonitions in Revelation that these are things “which must soon come to pass.”
Yes, there are apologetic answers to all of these problems, but I don’t find any of them particularly convincing, and again IMO the simplest answer with the greatest explanatory power is that Jesus and the early church expected the speedy wrap-up of history, and they were wrong. I actually think the famous “one day as a thousand years” line in 2 Peter, represents a very early example of apologetics on this precise issue. The author says that people have been mocking Christians, asking them, “where is the promise of his coming?” This of course would not have happened unless Christians were preaching the parousia as something in the imminent future, and now the author has to explain why that has not come about, hence the “thousand years” apologetic.
IMO this makes the constant promises of “soon” and “very near” and “at the door” throughout the NT meaningless. Okay, well that’s not human time, it’s God’s time. So why say it? Why this sense of urgency? Might as well have said “not very soon,” “pretty far away” and “it’s gonna be a while.” This would have been significantly less misleading to 1st century Christians, who presumably thought “soon” meant “soon.”
Monotheism is different.
More and more I think “monotheism” and “polytheism” are not especially useful categories.
In Assyria, Assur was called “God beyond gods,” “the lord of all lands” who “fashioned the vault of heaven and earth.” Enlil in Sumeria is called “the god of all the foreign lands” who “alone is exalted.” In Egypt Amun is “lord of the thrones of the earth, the oldest existence, ancient of heaven” and “the one, maker of all that is.” Even Zeus, who is often thought of as being simply a guy on a mountaintop with superpowers, was often viewed in a much more exalted way. See Cleanthes’ hymn to Zeus written 300 years before Christ, which calls him “ever omnipotent,” and says that “the whole universe” obeys him and “all the works of nature” happen by the power of his thunderbolt. “Not a single thing that is done on earth happens” without him and it is even said that man “bears his likeness.” Yet the religions of the Greeks, the Sumerians, the Assyrians, and the Egyptians, are never considered “monotheistic,” while Israelite religion is, although this is the exact same sort of language that is regularly applied to Yahweh in the Old Testament. It’s not supposed to be rigorous theology, it’s just “praise language,” a way to say “my god is great.”
“I am that I am” is a strange passage. It might be more like “I will be who I will be,” not a philosophical statement of divine self-sufficiency but a deflection; “none of your business what my name is.”
Part Deux of this post
The return commute from work is more hectic--the crepuscular calm of the 5:03 (edit: I realize belatedly that crepuscular actually means twilight, which would be the opposite of dawn, but I am not changing it because I like the consonance.) is miles away from the rush hour bustle of the late afternoon trains--I avoid the buses on this end, usually walking the leisurely half hour to the station, then again walking home on the last leg, which takes about 20 minutes. I do a lot of walking, every day. I have come to understand that although walking burns just as many calories as running (at least in the brief walks I take), it doesn't provide any real sort of cardio unless the walk is strenuous, and even then, once you reach a certain threshold, in order to get the benefits you may want you probably have to go ahead and run. I don't. It's just too damn hot.
We are in summer now. Started June 21st. It hit 90 on my walk to the first return station the other day. I had foregone the jacket and tie for a polo shirt like Daniel Craig in Haiti in the misjudged and underrated film Quantum of Solace. When I am LARPing in that particular getup I like to scrape my keys off the table in Craig fashion, and wait patiently for someone to ask if someone is a friend of mine, so I can remark without humor: "I don't have any friends." As it happens I do, but the line was a good one. If you haven't seen the movie you have no idea what I'm on about.
The first train ride takes me to a commuter hub, where you can actually travel to one of the international airports in my area. You see a lot of Chinese, Korean, Thai, probably other Asians as well. I recognize the first three first on dress and style, then usually on language--I don't understand Chinese, Korean, or Thai, but I know them when I hear them. The Chinese tend to sit on the train expansively, two members of the family on one side, two others on the other. They speak in regular speaking tones on the train. They don't make themselves small or seem to care if anyone else needs a seat (perhaps they do care, and care very much, but they don't show it in any way I can understand.) The Koreans are usually wearing expensive watches and rather fashionable clothes, if of a sort of nouveau riche type often with conspicuous labels and such (very similar to many Japanese, though the labels are slightly different), and have smart haircuts and very well done plastic surgery, in particular the women. The Thais are louder and fewer, and probably much more fun to talk to. Often any of the above will, if I scootch over (my computer is telling me scootch is not a word--maybe I am spelling it wrong?) anyway if I move over they will say "Thank you," to me in very well-pronounced English. Japanese people never respond to me in English--well, almost never.
Once I am at the hub I stride purposefully through the crowds--I have learned over the years to walk quickly and with confidence through massive crowds, like a character in an action film who finds himself in a rousing nightclub--you ignore everyone and everything around you, no matter how interesting, and push your way through as if towards something much more important than the carnal rabble writhing around you. I take a subway, which takes me past the oldest brothel district in this part of Japan, and one of the oldest in the country. If I am lucky, one of the girls has just finished and is getting on the subway home--she will be wearing something either very provocative and ignore everyone--once I saw a girl in a tan/flesh-colored skin-tight one-piece wearing a fucking bucket hat--or will be with another girl and wearing clothes that are almost nondescript, but I always know. Or convince myself that i do. Once I am positive I saw a girl headed to work, though if you were to pin me and ask me "How could you possibly know?" my best answer would be Intuition.
The brothel district is a long street which, at night, has poles with white globes on them. There is a poster on the side of at least one building which says something similar to "Let's keep our brothel district clean!" There is a police box one block outside the district, and police on bicycles cruising through are not unheard of. There is a rather massive apartment complex just east of this block or two of whorehouses, and if you were enterprising and lived in these apartments nothing really would stop you from buying a telescope and camera and documenting exactly who comes and goes. But it's Japan, and something tells me no one does this. I probably would, just as a diversion.
I wrote that it's a street. It's not, really, it's a block or two of parallel streets. These have nicknames, if you must know. One is known as 青春通り (seishun doori or "youth street"). Here you will find girls who are very likely university students somewhere (probably somewhere at least mildly distant) and who are making some extra cash. The signs say the smallest amount of time you can pay for is a 20-minute booking. I have had a discussion with one of these girls, and learned that she gets 60% of whatever is paid. For 20 minutes the price the last time I bothered to look was 16,000 yen, which is roughly 115 USD at current exchange rates.
You walk down the street and you see the genkans--which means the doorway where in a normal house you'd take your shoes off and hang your coat. In these establishments the genkan is open to the air, and while there is a place to put your shoes, instead of a coatrack you will see a girl sitting in a zaisu, a chair flush to the ground with a back, and she may have a blanket modestly draped over her thighs if it's cold. If not, she may be in a bikini, may be dressed like some sort of fairy, may be in a maid's costume, a balldress, even, yes, and you knew this was coming--a high school uniform. In other words, some type of thing that is geared toward the fetish/fantasy of the dudes who end up here. And Japan is nothing if not a fetish/fantasy wonderland. Or cesspool, depending of course on one's perspective. What is remarkable to me is that the times I have beheld this tableau the women have almost all been strikingly beautiful.
Anyway. I don't want to bog this account of my commute down too much with prurient description of the brothel area. I am by no means an expert on the area but I probably know more than a lot of people simply because I have lived here so long, have walked down the street several times, etc. (These stories are less interesting than they probably sound.) Anyway I will leave this whole part of the story in stasis for now. Thank Christ for anonymity online--I only mention any of this because no one on here knows who the hell I am. One reason I like the "privacy" filter or whatever it is. I used to write all sorts of stories on reddit and have now deleted them all (in as much as reddit would allow me). For a long time I liked writing about my life, and I was approached by randos in DMs asking to use my stories in their podcasts. I always agreed with one caveat: Tell me where I can listen to it. They always agreed. And none of them ever got back to me.
Subway takes me to yet another train--my first of the morning, last of the day. Again, in the late afternoon it is very crowded. If I go at a certain time of day and board the right car there is a woman with what I am sure is Proteus syndrome, or what they suspect Joseph Merrick had--her face is incredibly, implausibly distorted. I expect the COVID wave of mask-wearing was a boon for her. She wears a prim blouse and either a skirt or slacks of some sort, and has a bag, and always stands and faces the door, perhaps so she doesn't have to look across the aisle and pretend she doesn't notice everyone forcing themselves not to acknowledge her.
The cars are almost always crowded. There is one woman who always gets on the same car as I do if I have timed it wrong, and she will lunge for any empty seat like a jackal for a wounded bird. Opportunistic bitch. I do not say this. Like everyone else, I stare into the middle distance, or at my phone, or wherever else is convenient to not acknowledge the actions of others. I often will wave another to a seat that comes available and which is within my ass-reach. I have some sort of mental scale which tells me whether I should just sit down or give the seat to someone else. I am sure if I were more Motte-y I would calibrate exactly what quantitative values I weigh in my head in this process. I'm not going to.
When I get to my terminus station I always see two women, striking in their beauty, whose lives appear to be in the reverse order of mine--which is to say where I am going to they are coming from, and vice versa. I wonder if anyone ever notices me in this way. Neither of these women ever look at me and I never say a word to either of them nor do I acknowledge them in any way. But they are milestones on my daily journey. And, oddly, I notice if they aren't there on some days. A cold, perhaps.
Oh! You're talking about normals. The surfaces do have a texture, but to save resources they're only drawn on the "forward" side (defined by the normal vector). I think you can actually use that for validation, though I still can't think of an obvious traversal algorithm that could do the check. It might be a solved problem for all I know (or not, lol), but I can't think of the right terms to google it. I'll let you know if I find anything.
Before jumping into Skyrim, I'd try to do a proof of concept in something like Unity. You can import a bunch of meshes there, set them up in an invalid way, and try to write a script that detects it. If it works, you can try looking into applying it to Skyrim.
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