domain:infonomena.substack.com
Tree
2hr ago
I don’t know if @Pasha is just being coy or if I’m more of a culture warrior than he is, but it seems to me that the real story is that the politically correct media, as usual, dishonestly presented a black man’s evil deed as a collective failure (in this case, apathy). This innovative lie immediately made it into textbooks.
SigurdsSilverSword
2hr ago
- You should turn on your turn signal every time you switch lanes or otherwise would be expected to use it, even if nobody is around.
- I generally do now since most cars I end up in have some form of lane assist that shouts at you if you drift over a line, even when you're doing so to change lanes on an uninhabited highway at 1AM, unless you throw the blinker on. That being said there's no harm to anyone if you don't, so I don't stress about it. There's no harm in doing so, and it's good to keep the habit of using them, so while it's not necessary I'd still recommend it.
\2. Stop signs and red lights need to be fully stopped at, even if nobody is around and you know there isn't a red light camera.
- Red lights, absolutely. Stop signs, a slow roll through is fine at a 4-way if you confirm there's no one around - but you need to slow down to do the slow roll anyway.
\3. Speed limits should be followed to the letter when possible.
- No. All speed limits at least near me have a built-in range where it's acceptable to go over - going 65 on a major highway in the left lane is not acceptable, even if that's the speed limit.
\4. The left lane is for passing only, and also, if you are in that lane and not passing and someone cuts you off or rides your bumper, that is fine.
- The left lane is for higher-speed travel. If you're blocking traffic in the left lane by going under the speed limit, you should expect to be followed closely.
\5. If someone does not make room for you and you need to come over (and properly signaled) you can cut them off guilt free.
- You should never cut someone off in an unsafe way. If the other person's being a dick and not letting you in*, it's ok to force your way as long as you do so safely (ie inch your way in slowly, don't just cut right in front of them then slam on your brakes).
* if you've been trying to get in since you saw traffic started. If you're cutting in last-minute, you're the dick and it's unacceptable.
\6. I can break some of these rules (or others) but other drivers should not.
- I don't claim to be a 100% perfect driver, but I do try to follow my own rules.
JarJarJedi
2hr ago
Maybe deescalation would have been possible but was seen as too risky, or undesirable for reasons that elude me
The reason is simple - all indicators point to Iran being committed to reaching nuclear strike capability, and considers all the talks and agreements as a sideshow, while remaining strategically committed to this goal no matter what. Iranian government also confirmed multiple times that their strategic aim is to destroy the state of Israel. For Israel, with it's tiny territory and high population density, even a single nuclear strike - even via a smuggled small-scale device, for example, let alone a ballistic missile hitting practically anywhere - would be absolutely devastating, extinction-level threat. Israel does not see any situation in which Iran could be convinced to genuinely desist from reaching this capability, so the choice is simple - either strike, or place the very existence of the country into the hands of Iranian regime and hope the ayatollas are kind and gentle. I don't see how any de-escalation is possible until one of these factors change - either Iran changes its thinking or it becomes incapable of achieving its goal of nuking Israel, at least in the near term.
Which is probably why most of the Christians here don’t like it. It’s pretty heretical! Mostly the Jesus parts. When you downgrade Jesus from “God incarnate” to “guy who did the best at being good” then it’s going to be more palatable to atheists (since it keeps God in the mysterious “ground if all being” box where he’s not likely to do anything to offend*) and less palatable to Christian’s (the guys whose hope is salvation through the intercession of Christ).
*Lewis wrote on this in his autobiography (emphasis mine):
"The Absolute Mind—better still, the Absolute—was impersonal, or it knew itself (but not us?) only in us, and it was so absolute that it wasn’t really much more like a mind than anything else. And anyway, the more muddled one got about it and the more contradictions one committed, the more this proved that our discursive thought moved only on the level of 'Appearance', and 'Reality' must be somewhere else. And where else but, of course, in the Absolute? There, not here, was 'the fuller splendour' behind the 'sensuous curtain'. The emotion that went with all this was certainly religious. But this was a religion that cost nothing. We could talk religiously about the Absolute: but there was no danger of Its doing anything about us. It was “there”; safely and immovably “there”. It would never come “here”, never (to be blunt) make a nuisance of Itself. This quasi-religion was all a one-way street; all eros (as Dr. Nygren would say) steaming up, but no agape darting down. There was nothing to fear; better still, nothing to obey."
ace
2hr ago
I have similar experiences, but the LLMs will correct their correct answer to be incorrect. I now just view the whole project as useful for creative idea generation, but any claims on the real world need to be fact checked. No lab seems to be able to get these things to stop confabulating, and I'm astonished people trust them as much as they seem to.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
2hr ago
As a somewhat reformed Angry Internet Atheist, this is certainly the most interesting and palatable form of Christianity I've encountered.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2hr ago
Well, he didn't find that out till he was dead did he? Plus he does work on his "soul", or ways to preserve it like the Spring Autumn Cicada. Unfortunately, it came with severe risks, so it's not a reliable means of indefinite life extension.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2hr ago
Hey, I might not be a Real Fan™, but even I know about the whole Qatari stadium thing that Gooners moan about! Unfortunately that's an issue more than 2 decades old now, so I'm not sure how seriously people will take me if I complain about how things have been since I was less than 10.
JarJarJedi
2hr ago
The goal is not to overthrow the regime (though it'd be nice) but to set back the nuclear program (and ballistic missile capabilities while we're at it) significantly. Israel is well on its way to achieve that. Whether or not that would eventually lead to the regime collapse it's up to Iranians.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
2hr ago
"so is it an actually new variant of Christianity or just the Arian heresy expressed in pompous language again?"
laughs and says "it is a good belief system"
look inside
it is the Arian heresy expressed in pompous language again
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2hr ago
I would assume so, but note that the author's real name is Gu Zhen Ren, which translates to "Gu Immortal". There's probably layers to the pun here.
There are also direct allusions to the concept of Gu in the story, in the sense of people talking about making real insects fight till the winner, an "insect king" , is the only one standing.
Most Xianxia novels aren't quite so zero-sum. But a ruthless focus on cultivation and self-improvement without regard to the cost is common enough.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
2hr ago
In my circles on twitter, the Mystical Christianity conversation is cropping up again. It tends to come around every few months, at least for the past year I've been on the site.
Tyler Alterman writes a long post on it that is mostly summed up here:
There’s an emerging branch of mystical Christianity that is very intriguing. I think of it as “Imaginal Christianity” (IC). You could also call it Mythic Christianity or Jungian Christianity
IC’s main selling point is that it’s compatible with a scientific mindset. I list the tenets I’ve observed below. By doing so, I try to document what I see ppl practicing. (I am not an Imaginal Christian.)
God = the ground of being. It is both presence and void, shows its love by embracing all things that exist & affording the path to salvation through communion with it
“The Lord”: a useful anthropomorphism of god. ICs use imagination to turn something incomprehensible (god) into an imaginal presence that we can speak to and which speaks to us through words, silence, and beyond
Jesus of Nazareth: a person who came much closer than most people to theosis – ie embodying how god would behave if it acted in human form with full recognition of its own nature. By doing so, Jesus genuinely did show us a path to salvation. (Although – here’s the heretical part – other people like Gautama Buddha might show us a complementary paths.) Thanks to the degree that Jesus was charismatic and the degree to which his followers admired him, they created and/or realized an imaginal being called Christ
Christ: a mind that continues to guide humans to salvation, directly inspired by Jesus of Nazareth (whose body is now dead). There are many names for the nature of this type of mind: thoughtform, tulpa, egregore, archetype, living symbol, yidam, memetic entity. His metaphysical status is similar to the way Tibetan lamas seem to regard their deities, as manifestations of Mind. This doesn’t make him less divine; he represents a latent divine potential available to all people. We see archetypes similar to Christ manifest across cultures: Osiris, Dionysus, Krishna, etc. However, Christ is is our culture’s instantiation of the archetype – his specific teachings and the story of his life are meaningful to us
Now to broaden this outside of just Christianity, I'm curious what the Motte thinks of symbolism as a whole? I will admit my own path back to religion came via a symbolic pathway, although I believe it goes far deeper than this.
That being said, from my short time here it seems like most of the Christians on this site aren't that into symbolism, and tend to be more "rationalist" and materialist in their worldview. Again, might have a mistaken impression.
I know this is a rationalist offshoot forum so not sure I expect a ton of mystical/symbolic discussion, but I'm kind of surprised by how little there is given how many professed religious folks there are here. And I do think from a Culture War angle, that materialism is definitely losing steam (especially amongst the right) as we see more and more cracks form in the edifice of Expert Scientific Opinion(tm).
On a deeper note, the symbolic worldview is all about seeing the world through the language of God (or meaning if you prefer), in a way that helps people bind together and understand events in the same way. Right now we are in "darkness" symbolically because, well, nobody can interpret events the same way! I personally think a return to the symbolic is inevitable given how confused everything is at the moment, although the transition may not be smooth or easy.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
2hr ago
That is not quite true. if I tell you to read the wheel of time up to book six (if we are generous) and then jump directly to the gathering storm will I be giving bad advice?
Yes, because the entire series is great. Books nine and ten are some of the best material in the series in fact.
Fourth was total slog to read - you could remove 3/4ths of the book and improve it.
No way man. The fourth book was one of the best in the series. The Navani scenes alone made that book riveting and well worth reading, let alone the other good stuff on top of that.
And the fifth was both weird and the big secrets revealed and payoffs of mysteries were ... meh at best. And let's not start at the ending. The fifth was cringe in everything but the adolin parts. And even there was substantially weaker than similarly themed Coltaine's chain of dogs.
The fifth book has issues (I've touched on them before), but it still was decent. If Sanderson keeps putting out books that have the same issues as the fifth has, then I'll be more concerned. But for right now it's one single aberration in a series which has otherwise been uniformly excellent.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
What exactly did you mean by "blood feud"? Because I don't understand how what you're saying it is related to that.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
3hr ago
And the fact the French he was talking about did push things so far it destroyed them and Europe doesn't move you at all?
Lizzardspawn
3hr ago
That is not quite true. if I tell you to read the wheel of time up to book six (if we are generous) and then jump directly to the gathering storm will I be giving bad advice? If I say to stop reading dune after the messiah/children/god emperor - is it bad advice? Or witcher after the second.
Brandon Sanderson has enough time to get back on track and fix things. Series do have ups and downs. Fourth was total slog to read - you could remove 3/4ths of the book and improve it. And the fifth was both weird and the big secrets revealed and payoffs of mysteries were ... meh at best. And let's not start at the ending. The fifth was cringe in everything but the adolin parts. And even there was substantially weaker than similarly themed Coltaine's chain of dogs.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3hr ago
Jolani is at least pretending to be an ex-terrorist. Iran is steadfast in its hatred of the US.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3hr ago
This is all correct and an important improvement on what I originally commented.
Taking the issue up one or two levels of analysis, I believe there's a fundamental and close-to-irreconcilable tension between being Catholic and being American. I was listening to an SSPX sermon on the drive home from my Dad's last night and the priest points out that America is a protestant country founded on and steeped in protestant principles. Catholic integralism has approximately 0% shot of taking root in the American Federalist system. (That being said, however, Catholic political leaders, especially in the judiciary, have, for decades, punch above their electoral weight.)
The overwhelming majority of the time, voting in America, for theologically serious (TM) catholics, is a choice for the lesser of two evils. My guiding light, for some time, has been a candidate's perspective on religious liberty. Never their voiced position, mind you - religious liberty is one of those issues everyone always says they are for, but their voting behaviors often betray them later on.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3hr ago
· Edited 3hr ago
It's fascinating how a person's favorite stories are so often a direct window into their soul. It's almost like a cheat code. If you want to understand what someone's all about, you can dispense with almost everything else and just ask them what their favorite books/games/movies are.
(Not at all saying that you, self_made, are an "amoral sociopath" or anything like that; it's just that, if someone had asked me what your favorite novel was, this is exactly what I would have imagined.)
faceh
3hr ago
I will say that one of my favorite fictional tropes ever is when a small group of people who each have a particular skill/expertise that is world-class in their field get together and coordinate an insanely precise, unprecedented yet completely plausible set of actions and circumstances long enough to achieve a very particular effect, and such effect sort of has the appearance of magic because your average Joe or team of average Joes has no clue on how to replicate it.
That is, all the years of research and development of skill are implied in each character's backstory, and now they just have to apply those to the plot's problem in a unique way, which may only takes weeks or days or minutes, so maintains the 'fun.'
Michael Crichton novels often use that sort of trope, and more recently, Daniel Suarez.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3hr ago
The current Iranian regime has always been hostile to the US, they have always been open about it, and they have consistently made this clear in word and deed. There is no reason to believe otherwise, except perhaps the polyannaish idea that one can always smooth things over by diplomacy.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
3hr ago
Welcome back.
Lazuli
3hr ago
Better to not read the books at all if they really do go downhill to such an extent.
I agree with this. Read the Mistborn trilogy instead, @Lizzardspawn. You get a full story, still set in the Sanderson world, in a tight package.
wayfarer
3hr ago
I think that burden on arguing that murder is actually fine is on people claiming that vastly higher murder rate would be an improvement.
And that you would not like world where "significantly interrupting my life" would result in murder. I assure you that nonzero number of people think you are significantly interrupting their life.
1 Corinthians 15:13-14,19
Why bother calling it Christianity if you're going to hollow out the most fundamental claims of Christianity? It's just secular humanism wearing Christianity as a skinsuit. It doesn't provide a way to be forgiven of your sins, it doesn't even think sin is real! It doesn't provide for resurrection or life after death, it doesn't believe in life after death!
So long as we're coming up with skinsuit religions, I hereby propose Pigfucking Islam, I-Want-To-Achieve-The-Opposite-Of-Nirvana Buddhism, and Do-ALL-The-Harm Jainism.
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