Utility of Intellectualism

[EndogenousRebel]

Humans are by nature rationalizing beings. A lot of the time however, it's not strict logic that governs our decisions. I'm not proposing that it should be, as emotionality likely does guarantee some degree of security that strict logic wouldn't. We see the mainstream fear that robots will take over the world case and point. You can make the argument that the "right" logic will do the job, but that's not pragmatic today.

As someone who's first impulse reaction to a runaway emotion is analysis, I can't help but feel duped because it's not a good one. Rather not the best one.

No doubt it's useful after a lifespan of practicing analytical skills every time I get overwhelmed or feel fear. It's just that it's very easy to get caught in the weeds of analysis. For example, unless the thing I am analyzing is the actual source of my fear, I do little to resolve the emotion and thus the problem. Then, unless the model of the problem is accurate, and the I am able to concretely abstract properties of the phenomena that ails me, with properties that I have agency over, I am pretty dicked.

That approach while, when I know I have an accurate model, I can make a [X] step process to solve the problem I have, and never have the problem again, requires that I have knowledge that I may not have. So say, I have had this tendency since I was younger (I have) I would be in a perpetually state of anxiety until I would find the knowledge needed to solve the problem. God bless Google because parents aren't always there or emotionally present enough to see distress. (not to mention dynamic environments)

Not only this, but pure intellectualism won't be the nail in the coffin even when I do have all the information I need. I will need the skills to apply my theories. Threading the needle on every single thing I do will just set me up for SOOO MAAANY opporutnities to quit.

I suppose that's the flaw with that strategy. Every time you stop and take your attention away from the problem, you are basically distracted to some degree, and when you are working towards it after already investing a lot into intellectualism, you are basically someone who has done 80% of work but has progressed maybe 10% towards what you want do actually do.

It's a thought. It's basically putting all your eggs in the basket of wisdom. Maybe adaptation? Doesn't seem that- gratifying.

 

[Black Rose]

The ability to describe what your problem is exactly is the ability to gain control over it. So in analysis, you just can't get to the core and it is because of distraction analyzing things not relevant to the problem. But what can you do? The problem is relevant to you alone so the sidetrack is something NOT about you. What is it that circles back around? It as a matter of relevancy must be self-referential since you are using analytics to "discover" the problem about you.

Look at the emotion as what bothers you. Whatever "causes the most emotion" leads to the "discovery".

 

[EndogenousRebel]

The ability to describe what your problem is exactly is the ability to gain control over it. So in analysis, you just can't get to the core and it is because of distraction analyzing things not relevant to the problem. But what can you do? The problem is relevant to you alone so the sidetrack is something NOT about you. What is it that circles back around? It as a matter of relevancy must be self-referential since you are using analytics to "discover" the problem about you.

Look at the emotion as what bothers you. Whatever "causes the most emotion" leads to the "discovery".

On paper, in theory you are correct. But there is a term called analysis paralysis and it's a very real thing. This is the first time Ive looked at the wiki page and it pretty much copied me entirely.

Where whatever emotion (fear is the biggest motivator) that causes a need to act, it ought to stir you to action, but you don't because.. well that's subjective.

It's just a discordance with an ideal of logic and pragmatism. If my goal is to make the fastest decisions there is no thinking at all. But if my goal is to make the fastest efficacious decisions, then in theory you'd be strapped for time assuming your competing against other people.

It strikes an evolutionary vain, and at the same time, I think it somehow helps push the postmodern discussion further.

 

[Black Rose]

I get anxious because I don't know what to do. So the postmodern answer is that no answer exists. Any answer is a relative truth. But I want more than that.

I do know that anxiety is "located". It is in a direction. Where my weakness lies.

Sometimes you just have to bang your head against the wall until it goes away.

The point is you are not in control, you need to get back in control.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

I get anxious because I don't know what to do. So the postmodern answer is that no answer exists. Any answer is a relative truth. But I want more than that.

I do know that anxiety is "located". It is in a direction. Where my weakness lies.

Sometimes you just have to bang your head against the wall until it goes away.

The point is you are not in control, you need to get back in control.

No, the post-modern answer is that all throughout history people have been controlling narratives so we should be very careful what how we look at things. This is true. The very words we use were not created by us, only morphed from the past generation to our liking. It's not a prescription at all.

This assists us because instead of waiting to have all the knowledge we need we should just come to a conclusion already and use that as a basis to act. Or at least, well that's why I made the thread.

But the theme I'm going with is that I don't speak the language of emotions and they are supposed to be a comrade who could assist me very much. Not be completely suppressed or oppressive. There is no such thing as control outside of what I believe. That is the problem.

 

[Black Rose]

Prescriptive goes out the window that's just a given but so does descriptive. The radical interpretation is that language can be/mean anything you want because it's relative. First, you cannot know 100% what I mean by what I say. Second, you don't need to do what I mean either. (prescriptive). The two go hand in hand.

emotion is subjective, logic is objective and postmodernism is an anti-objective is all subjective.

The objective subjective split IS the modern postmodern split.

What is it that it means to me, the subject? It can never be an objective answer.

Intersubjectivity can help though. Two subjects can interact.

But I cannot give an objective answer to you only a subjective answer. Any control I have cannot control you. You must accept control outside yourself and authority and become modern otherwise remain subjective in postmodern. Because control outside is modern and objective. reason by some standard.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

You realize that you trying to ascribe qualities to post-modernism, doesn't make sense right? Like if post-modernism actually had the qualities you think it does, it would collapse under it's own logic? It's not supposed to replace truth. Truth just IS. Even the eyeballs your looking at this text right now are being fooled by tiny RBG dots. Right now we are communicating through an imperfect channel of shared semantics represented with shared awareness of constructed syntax and symbols. Me encoding this message, and you decoding it, means we lose some information in between. I might call you a fucking retard with my words with my internal logic without using the word retard and you wouldn't know.

You just don't have the vocabulary to vocalize that so you're jumping to a conclusion.

If you really want some output from post-modernism, a single definitive purpose, then it would have to benefit no one in any particular way. At what point does information lose all bias? That is the question that when answered will "end" post-modernism.

This does not mean a self ascribed "post modernist" wrote the question. Human beings in pre-modern times are still human beings if they are alive in the post-modern era. Economics, sociology, biology, we are only more wise to know that this framework will likely yield better returns than just assuming technology is going to be great, and the Japanese make good products so that must mean Japan is a good place to live.

It seems the biggest issue with people missing the point with post-modernism is that everyone is just so entitled with information they have today that you simply can't grasp that if you were living in the 70s all your information was controlled by a couple key sources that distributed information that benefitted themselves.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Some information can be always biased, the issue is there are information that can be reported truthfully with in reason.
Its also common to mislead people.
Some information is only useful to people if its reported truthfully.
If its reported wrong, it means the whole information is good as none.
Some truths are sensitive that way.
They need to be simply reported the way the are without "upgrades or agenda".
The issue is that not only is this hurting public, but it is also hurting overall politicians themselves.
See all politics is about lying to certain degree, but not all politics is completely dirty and wrong. Some of what politicians do is actually good, but it leads lot of public astray when media coverage is all just swamp of misleading information.
Some politicians get bad media coverage even if most of what they did was OK.

This goes for lots of other things. Bias is OK, but why bother with information at all if you just lead people down the road of complete information storm that results in absolutely nothing, other than manipulating public opinion.
Its the equivalent of telephone game.
Its literally lost in translation.

That obviously leads to situations where people can cherry pick whatever data they can or want, because at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, they are as correct as the next guy, they might as well believe whatever.
Which incidentally leads to these kinds of debates about postmodern world.

I think we can all agree there is difference between say a engineering and say religion.
One works the other is more about "something" metaphysical untouchable.
One gets you to travel to work in few minutes the other might give you better mood.

Now there are of course positive benefits to religion, but they are not quantifiable.
They are what you might call relative.

But this relativism is what leads people to become more dumber than they actually can afford to be.
It results not just in loss of information, but quality of life.
Now most people would argue that there is a remedy.
Internet and direct communication between people.
Cutting out the middle man.
Which to my understanding is superior to anything media or social platforms actually provide.

For example I see no commercials here, no bullshit clickbait.
Just people talking without someone intervening with stuff.

 

[Black Rose]

I was trying to integrate what I knew about that subject into a relevant response. but I guess I didn't know what I thought I knew and went into a tangent. Anxiety isn't exactly the same for everyone. There is the cause of anxiety and there is the location in the body where it's experienced. The valence can be different. I do experience paralysis but without the step in between of analysis. My paralysis is the inability of analysis. Now it depends on what you mean by that. Do you have visual or verbal thoughts?

I often drift to the side of my head and bring up an unconscious thought symbol/reference. So it is visual thought for me. The problem is I have a difficult time manipulating/transforming the image because it is an unconscious image. Because I can't bring anything up I get anxious. My eye darts back and forth I move around.

I'm guessing you literally see what you think of and comment on it in your head. Now unlike me, you have a very ordered inner world. My inner world is unconscious and random. My theory on this is symmetry. Your mind is symmetrical. Everything can be located in relation to its mirror self. But to do anything you must become symmetrical or you can't act. Analysis gives the illusion of symmetry thus paralysis.

do you sing along to music? that may help. emotionally

 

[EndogenousRebel]

This goes for lots of other things. Bias is OK, but why bother with information at all if you just lead people down the road of complete information storm that results in absolutely nothing, other than manipulating public opinion.
Its the equivalent of telephone game.
Its literally lost in translation.

That obviously leads to situations where people can cherry pick whatever data they can or want, because at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, they are as correct as the next guy, they might as well believe whatever.
Which incidentally leads to these kinds of debates about postmodern world.

Certainly. I think where the significance comes in of if the problem is objectively solved, is that going forward all political disputes are obsolete.

There are trillions of dollars in bureaucratic and broadly political phenoms. Why? Ai might assist in solving the issue somehow, but when you consider who is and isn't in the political class it makes you wonder.

Now there are of course positive benefits to religion, but they are not quantifiable.
They are what you might call relative.

But this relativism is what leads people to become more dumber than they actually can afford to be.
It results not just in loss of information, but quality of life.
Now most people would argue that there is a remedy.
Internet and direct communication between people.
Cutting out the middle man.
Which to my understanding is superior to anything media or social platforms actually provide.

For example I see no commercials here, no bullshit clickbait.
Just people talking without someone intervening with stuff.

Collapsing communication channels I think would simplify a lot for sure, but as soon as there are three people in an equation, there is an opportunity for politics. It becomes painfully obvious when said third person isn't even in the room and yet they still guide decisions.

I feel that communications do substantially improve circumstances. How can the leader of the free world be billigerent on Twitter when there are actual real world problems to solve? It's not the long game that's for sure.

But still even then when collapsed we still have to deal with human psychology case and point the rise of para social relationships.


I didn't find the clip I wanted with the host of this looking at people analyzing his own YouTube career but this is meta enough. Its just indicative of the human propensity we have to group up around certain .. ideals?

We may know that this type of communication is optimal for bullshit cutting, but that doesn't mean we aren't subject to politics. We are still fish in a barrel to mob politics if it's attention is on us

There is the cause of anxiety and there is the location in the body where it's experienced. The valence can be different. I do experience paralysis but without the step in between of analysis. My paralysis is the inability of analysis. Now it depends on what you mean by that. Do you have visual or verbal thoughts?

Jung refers physical feeling as sensing. I personally see all these things as senses. I just so happens to have sensory receptors and sensory interpretors, sensory generators in particular parts of the body as does everyone.
This makes us feeling, thinking and intuition for me and I still hold skepticism one them. The issue is that a sensory interpreter, intuition should also be scrutinized. So you represent it rationalizations on paper with math, and boom you have a assessment of some kind.

It seems motivation, which is at core of emotionally isn't the issue for you. Does the fear of being perpetually stuck in a frozen, basically catatonic state really not spur you to action? You're obviously trying to get over the obstacle but don't know how. Maybe you fear the wrong things? Rather there are fears that squash what you think you should be more fearful of.

I think a sentence at a time. I don't see words but I know what I mean and language is the perfect way to do it because I use it so much. Each sentence feeds into the other and I'll make a little "thumbnail" of it, a summary of it occasionally. I have to visualize mathematical stuff because language wasnt made for that or I'm bored and want to see if it will yield interest. Not often it's harder than drawing something out.

Take long walks. Don't use your phone/computer. You're depending too much on the organization of others.

 

[Black Rose]

It seems motivation, which is at core of emotionally isn't the issue for you. Does the fear of being perpetually stuck in a frozen, basically catatonic state really not spur you to action? You're obviously trying to get over the obstacle but don't know how. Maybe you fear the wrong things? Rather there are fears that squash what you think you should be more fearful of.

Have you ever been in a situation where it was required for you to say something meaningful but you just stood there dumb?

People able to draw can draw because they know what comes next. They experiment, they often are NOT paralyzed. Because they use extraversion to get through to what's next.

What comes next just sort of happens for people. It does not just happen for me. When it did it was what new agers call channeling and it did not end well. I went to the mental ward. Because I actively acted on my impulses.

So everything is unconscious. And I hold back. and it stops the delusions/hallucinations. Causes neurosis. Several holes in the walls of my house because I got angry. But I never hurt people. I just get bad anxiety.

writer's block - but visual and unconscious. I can't make it happen so anxious.

I need to do something unspecified but can't because it's unknown thus anxiety.

I think a sentence at a time. I don't see words but I know what I mean and language is the perfect way to do it because I use it so much. Each sentence feeds into the other and I'll make a little "thumbnail" of it, a summary of it occasionally. I have to visualize mathematical stuff because language wasnt made for that or I'm bored and want to see if it will yield interest. Not often it's harder than drawing something out.

Nietzsche had migraines because his father made his superego heavy.

He forced it and writer's block passed.

I don't force it so I am just stuck. I get a burning sensation at the top of the right side of my head.

If you "think" and never get to a place of closure it is that you need to body scan.

In your head: "I am thinking about my foot and what it feels like."

"I am thinking what my head feels like as I think this sentence."

 

[EndogenousRebel]

You know what, it doesn't matter what the objective answer to "what makes information unbiased is" it only matters what everyone can agree on. Which I think is for the other thread but whatever.

Have you ever been in a situation where it was required for you to say something meaningful but you just stood there dumb?

People able to draw can draw because they know what comes next. They experiment, they often are NOT paralyzed. Because they use extraversion to get through to what's next.

What comes next just sort of happens for people. It does not just happen for me. When it did it was what new agers call channeling and it did not end well. I went to the mental ward. Because I actively acted on my impulses.

So everything is unconscious. And I hold back. and it stops the delusions/hallucinations. Causes neurosis. Several holes in the walls of my house because I got angry. But I never hurt people. I just get bad anxiety.

writer's block - but visual and unconscious. I can't make it happen so anxious.

I need to do something unspecified but can't because it's unknown thus anxiety.

In secondary school, early on I went to a high profile school and got into a retrospectively obnoxious argument with two other kids. They both were happy Obama was President, but of course this was after 08 so I brought up the mortgage crisis indirectly, probably with some comment about what I understood about the economy. That happened, not really putting the blame on Obama, just the mention of the current circumstances, and I just get attacked by them who out the gate made excuses vague for Obama along the lines of he "inherited Bush's issues" and yadayada, they prompt me for a response, and-

Well I guess I froze, because one of the girls said something like "see you don't know anything", and I never spoke to them again. I can only tell you the emotion I felt during that experience, sitting across from people who projected authority and demanded that I care about their expectations. I guess unpleasant anxiety and pressure to say something? If I were to rationalize it, it would be that I didn't want to be wrong and just have this exchange to go on longer, fear, that and lacking confidence that I am right, and would just make a joke of myself. This was I think during the beginning of the year so you don't want to make bad impressions after all.

They genuinely did bring up something I hadn't thought about before, so I stopped to analyze, I guess, but nothing came out, I did not act at all internally nor externally. The appropriate response I know now, with fucking epistemology which would be a couple years away from even understanding, was to probe into what exactly Bush did that Obama couldn't change when he took the presidency. But doing so would just project ignorance in our little kid brains. From there I could deconstruct why they thought what they though and I would've been able to see the weaknesses in their arguments and I would've defended myself in an easier way. But yeah, little kid brains.

So that's where you should start I guess. What action can you take now, that will make the next action easier.

Nietzsche had migraines because his father made his superego heavy.

He forced it and writer's block passed.

I don't force it so I am just stuck. I get a burning sensation at the top of the right side of my head.

If you "think" and never get to a place of closure it is that you need to body scan.

In your head: "I am thinking about my foot and what it feels like."

"I am thinking what my head feels like as I think this sentence."

Sounds like a loud internal monologue with no control of frame of reference. If you're really so fixated on regions in the brains get one of those specialized MRIs. They cost a bit, and the literature behind them is dubious, I wouldn't support it publicly. The main guy behind it which is in that link is a good talker so you should pay special attention to what he says and judge how accurate it is, people with credentials have challenged him very much. I've wanted to pursue that thread in my own treatment, but I've never gotten around to saving enough for it, and now my quality of life seems to be stabilized if not better than pre-onset.

Perhaps though you should try reading fiction, particularly third-person or first-person novels? I know you probably do read quite a bit, but maybe a novel could simulate a introspective train of thought for you to mimic? I don't know, I'm not a physician of any kind don't take advice on the internet. I just applied CBT, exposure therapy and incremental challenges and slowly but surely weened myself off meds. The quality of life didn't really start to come back until I started to reduce my dosage, all the other stuff, like cognitive abilities were helped by the CBT and challenges I put myself through. Side affects are a bitch.

 

[Black Rose]

I am diagnosed with schizoaffective depressive type. Things turned sour in 2018 when I had social problems, felt abusive and hopeless. I am not bipolar but my energy was so off. I would be tired all the time awake at night unable to do anything. But I will be fine for weeks then crash. Just random and fluctuating. It was better when I was comatose. Too many ups and downs. And abuse/feeling bad about myself.

They put me on Prozac in November. That stabilized me energetically. I experienced cannabis-induced psychosis three weeks ago. But that was something that won't happen again. What really needs to happen is that I need greater self-esteem. I feel I can't do stuff because I think I am dumb. I have a mental block all the time and am lonely. I am not normal I don't get enjoyment regular people get enjoyment from. I have no friends.

But emotionally I don't mind boredom as long as I am stable. I do not cry and I do not get angry but stagnate. The cause of my anxiety is doing nothing awake all night in bed. Can't use my computer because of anxiety. That is why stability is important. When I am sad I do nothing, anxious nothing, angry nothing. Just traped.

Food, warmth, computer, stable mood. NO PACING. pacing is what I do the only thing. Even doing stuff feels bad. But why?

I feel bad not because of what I am doing or not doing. It is because of what I am unable to do. I am restricted and need to get out, get away, force control on something. Destroy something but can't/don't.

The report says I turn my anger inward. I hate myself. I sulk. I think my needs are illegitimate. I can't get what I want. I tried and I can't, I'm dumb. Stuff.

Don't know what to do. Nothing. Bad mood. misery.

Prozac is a stablizer. As long as I am stable I can do stuff. Ups and downs make things too random. I cannot handle random moods.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

I am diagnosed with schizoaffective depressive type. Things turned sour in 2018 when I had social problems, felt abusive and hopeless. I am not bipolar but my energy was so off. I would be tired all the time awake at night unable to do anything. But I will be fine for weeks then crash. Just random and fluctuating. It was better when I was comatose. Too many ups and downs. And abuse/feeling bad about myself.

They put me on Prozac in November. That stabilized me energetically. I experienced cannabis-induced psychosis three weeks ago. But that was something that won't happen again. What really needs to happen is that I need greater self-esteem. I feel I can't do stuff because I think I am dumb. I have a mental block all the time and am lonely. I am not normal I don't get enjoyment regular people get enjoyment from. I have no friends.

But emotionally I don't mind boredom as long as I am stable. I do not cry and I do not get angry but stagnate. The cause of my anxiety is doing nothing awake all night in bed. Can't use my computer because of anxiety. That is why stability is important. When I am sad I do nothing, anxious nothing, angry nothing. Just traped.

Food, warmth, computer, stable mood. NO PACING. pacing is what I do the only thing. Even doing stuff feels bad. But why?

I feel bad not because of what I am doing or not doing. It is because of what I am unable to do. I am restricted and need to get out, get away, force control on something. Destroy something but can't/don't.

The report says I turn my anger inward. I hate myself. I sulk. I think my needs are illegitimate. I can't get what I want. I tried and I can't, I'm dumb. Stuff.

Don't know what to do. Nothing. Bad mood. misery.

Prozac is a stablizer. As long as I am stable I can do stuff. Ups and downs make things too random. I cannot handle random moods.

The root of my issue was not depression unfortunatly, it was bi-polar and obsession. If you absolutely feel like you cannot validate yourself, which I think you should try to solve first, find validations through hard measurements. Like, you did 20% more reading of books than you did the last day, which is 200% reading from before. The issue with this is that if you don't have self-compassion, in combination of learned helplessness you will hardcore judge yourself if your metrics aren't good. It'll discourage your and you'll stop taking measurements and doing activities, and you'll be back at square one. Trust the process.

I know the feeling of having a storm cloud over my head with no hope that it will ever go away, it's the worst. But what brought my recovery to fruition was realizing that I could still grow, I could still learn, and that if I could have admiration and respect for another human being and believe that they deserved everything in the world, then why not myself?

To move it back to the topic of the thread, doodling in intellectualism might not have a high amount of use. It's essential as a whole, so you should seek intellectual gains, but it's not what gets you closer to your goals, and the creation and attainment of intellectualism may actually be part of what is preventing your from reaching your goals.

 

[Black Rose]

Not only is there no structure to my emotions/energy levels. Practically there is no structure to my thoughts. The "process" is completely random for me. I have several thoughts happening at the same time in rapid succession.

It's like this:

eyes are defocused darting in all directions.

it is how I "access" things.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Not only is there no structure to my emotions/energy levels. Practically there is no structure to my thoughts. The "process" is completely random for me. I have several thoughts happening at the same time in rapid succession.

It's like this:

eyes are defocused darting in all directions.

it is how I "access" things.

The same way you access memories. Effort. Thoughts don't just come to you. It is a deliberate process. Get your depression under control m8

 

[Black Rose]

I am better now. I no longer have anxiety.

Intellectualism is basically all it is I do. I am a thinker. Specifically an inductive thinker. I gather evidence for finding a conclusion by theorizing. I don't think in possibilities I think in probabilities. Those may seem the same but they are different. Thinking about what's possible is thinking of every scenario every contingency. But probabilistic thinking is where the most likely outcome is predicted. It is targeted. Hypothesizing comes before theorizing which is not what I do exactly. I work backward to the cause of things. Not experimenting to discover something new. Deduction is starting with the conclusion and extrapolating. If A then B then C. My method is to say (A > B > C) if X > B then A, not C | X = A | _ I am not being precise but it's good enough. I don't base things on first principles axioms. My premises are tested in an odd way. A collection of facts n. organized by F(n) = true if n | n = not false. A type of intuitive factor analysis. I know there is a math for probability theory but I am talking about subjective intuition, not formalized. Michael Pierce calls it the line of best fit. His method is formalized though (Ti) and he confuses Ni with Te. Ni is not an induction. It is the vacated self. Si and Te means they feel the induction in the body. Ni and induction is like it comes from the void.

I am not motivated by fear. Fear cripples me it does not make me able to act. The fear mechanism is flight fight freeze. I freeze. I am not in touch with my body. Body sensations I resist. If I feel bad it is in the body and I need to vacate this feeling at my core or the emotions overwhelm me. I can only act when I can control my emotional uncomfortableness. When I have uncomfortable emotions I am inhibited. Paralyzed emotionally. Like fear. I try not to have emotions in my body. I avoid interoception. I hate cold showers.

I am very affected by what others think. I am nonemotional when it comes to my arguments but I hate it when people are emotional in theirs. They tell me I am wrong and they are right and this makes me feel vulnerable because I must then defend myself rationally or there is no point and this transference of emotion inhibits me. I don't believe in backing down but I don't believe in irrationally attacking them either. I can't cope with people I cannot be rational with. I do concede points but I don't handle passive aggressiveness well. It causes me burnout. Because I care about rationality and others thinking irrational things about me pisses me off. That's not what I am about. And the consequence of not attacking them back to gratify my ego causes burnout. It would be unfair to my values. It is about them not accepting me as who I am when they contradict me on purpose. If I was not judged as a bad person this would not matter but people conflate arguments for moral character. It is very obvious when this happens.

So I do overintellectualize things but not in the same way others do. Because that word is applicable to different situations of cognition. I want to know the cause for things. What is the root of it all. The core issue. Tangents serve a purpose. They do lead to the truth. But the endlessness of them can happen. The best way to complete a line of thought is to remember the goal. Always go back to the goal. Like the ADD I had. The anxiety is gone but I do not plan for the future. I understand why I failed once and several more times. I can't complain about my limits but I cannot avoid them either. The workaround is not forcing myself into more burnout. I cannot solve problems in my head because of ADD. I watched many videos about it and what others did to overcome this. First I need a new goal other than programming a computer. Right now it is blogging and research. I have a new therapist, she is helping me with my emotions. I need smart people to talk to. I can get others to do things for me to compensate for my deficits. I am not going back to school. I will find a way to achieve things without that rote.

I am not overthinking things. I know that is a problem of intellectualizing. I am coming at things from every angle so I can find the trajectory. But it is a random walk. ADD is random because it can't take a single course and must move to think. I explore things, but I am not interested in mastering something. Those two things are found in the gaming sphere. When I get to a certain place I journal all my discoveries. I review and update. Always learning. Never stop.

 

[scorpiomover]

No, the post-modern answer is that all throughout history people have been controlling narratives so we should be very careful what how we look at things.

That's an extremely powerful statement.

There's no point in controlling people unless it makes them do the things you want them to, and not do the things you want them not to do.

So if this claim is true, then it means that narratives are the secret to controlling motivation and behaviour.

Spoiler

1) If so, then if you choose your own narrative, you can choose the narratives that will make you motivated to behave the way you want.

If so, then that's your solution to analysis paralysis.

2) This also means that if you choose the narratives that will motivate others to behave as you want, then you can motivate others to behave in such ways that they will give you the jobs you want, the promotions you want, and the girlfriends you want.

Obviously, this would run counter to the larger public narrative. But as long as you do this in your personal interactions, and craft narratives that tweak the public narrative of the time, in such a way as to motivate others to give you what you want on an individual basis, then others will be motivated to do what you want, without conflicting with the public narrative that they already accepted.

3) This also means that you can also view all of history and all events in history, in terms of the narratives of the time and how they influenced the people of the time to behave as they did.

4) This also means that you can then view current events in terms of current popular narratives, and even make reasonably accurate predictions about what sorts of actions you can expect in the future, based on how those narratives would influence their thoughts, feelings & beliefs, and consequently, their behaviour.

(a) What are your reasons for thinking that this is the postmodern viewpoint?

(b) What is the evidence for this viewpoint?

This is true. The very words we use were not created by us, only morphed from the past generation to our liking. It's not a prescription at all.

This assists us because instead of waiting to have all the knowledge we need we should just come to a conclusion already and use that as a basis to act. Or at least, well that's why I made the thread.

But the theme I'm going with is that I don't speak the language of emotions and they are supposed to be a comrade who could assist me very much. Not be completely suppressed or oppressive. There is no such thing as control outside of what I believe. That is the problem.

Carrying further the postmodern viewpoint of people being controlled by popular narratives, isn't this also a narrative?

Is there anything biological in you that prevents you from being physically able to speak the language of emotions?

Is there anything biological in you that prevents you from learning the language of emotions?

Unless you can answer "yes" to either of those questions with a proper physical diagnosis that gives a completely terminal result, then this attitude too could be a narrative.

So how do you know that your current viewpoint isn't also a narrative that was fed to you?

If it could be a narrative, then why not write your own narrative, in which you can learn to speak the language of emotions, and where your emotions are a comrade that assists you very much, all the time, without being asked, and without you even having to make any effort?

 

[EndogenousRebel]

No, the post-modern answer is that all throughout history people have been controlling narratives so we should be very careful what how we look at things.

That's an extremely powerful statement.

There's no point in controlling people unless it makes them do the things you want them to, and not do the things you want them not to do.

So if this claim is true, then it means that narratives are the secret to controlling motivation and behaviour.

Spoiler

1) If so, then if you choose your own narrative, you can choose the narratives that will make you motivated to behave the way you want.

If so, then that's your solution to analysis paralysis.

2) This also means that if you choose the narratives that will motivate others to behave as you want, then you can motivate others to behave in such ways that they will give you the jobs you want, the promotions you want, and the girlfriends you want.

Obviously, this would run counter to the larger public narrative. But as long as you do this in your personal interactions, and craft narratives that tweak the public narrative of the time, in such a way as to motivate others to give you what you want on an individual basis, then others will be motivated to do what you want, without conflicting with the public narrative that they already accepted.

3) This also means that you can also view all of history and all events in history, in terms of the narratives of the time and how they influenced the people of the time to behave as they did.

4) This also means that you can then view current events in terms of current popular narratives, and even make reasonably accurate predictions about what sorts of actions you can expect in the future, based on how those narratives would influence their thoughts, feelings & beliefs, and consequently, their behaviour.

(a) What are your reasons for thinking that this is the postmodern viewpoint?

(b) What is the evidence for this viewpoint?

It's a bit redundant to give certain qualifications and outright impractical try to make a single argument fit every context.

Just like it would be redundant if I said:

From a Freudian perspective minus all the things from which reasonable consensus has said is unreasonable to apply, X.

Freud was a person like anyone else, and probably more intelligent than most people, but only the views that were practically useful were adopted into the psychoanalysis field as a whole.

To not do that would make psychoanalysis completely untenable because it is made from the ideas of a whole array of academics who may or may not been integrating empiricism into those ideas, making it impractical. It's just asking to make it a cluster fuck of a field.

If I'm making a psychoanalytical assessment- but then someone interjects some pop-cultural artifact of psychoanalysis, and I have to continually make stipulations, until they are happy with the analytical tools they think is reasonable, then not only is that just redundant, but the broader tool of psychoanalysis has been dulled to what one person believes about it.

So: Post-modernism, which is built of off Modernist 20th century philosophy, should be given that same grace. It is obvious to anyone what post-modernism is because anyone who is trying to use it's ideas that correlate with reality.

To answer your question for evidence is kinda missing the point. If you disagree with me, or think my position about what post-modernism is attempting to do is one-sided, then it's up to you to show me your reasoning.

My reasoning, rather inspirations for that argument would be absurdist Albert Camus and analytical philosopher Wittgenstein. I suppose there is some Nietzsche there.

Not really in the mood to scrounge up evidence for why those people bring those ideas with them, because ultimately the final verdict I make is MY opinion.

This is true. The very words we use were not created by us, only morphed from the past generation to our liking. It's not a prescription at all.

This assists us because instead of waiting to have all the knowledge we need we should just come to a conclusion already and use that as a basis to act. Or at least, well that's why I made the thread.

But the theme I'm going with is that I don't speak the language of emotions and they are supposed to be a comrade who could assist me very much. Not be completely suppressed or oppressive. There is no such thing as control outside of what I believe. That is the problem.

Carrying further the postmodern viewpoint of people being controlled by popular narratives, isn't this also a narrative?

Is there anything biological in you that prevents you from being physically able to speak the language of emotions?

Is there anything biological in you that prevents you from learning the language of emotions?

Unless you can answer "yes" to either of those questions with a proper physical diagnosis that gives a completely terminal result, then this attitude too could be a narrative.

So how do you know that your current viewpoint isn't also a narrative that was fed to you?

If it could be a narrative, then why not write your own narrative, in which you can learn to speak the language of emotions, and where your emotions are a comrade that assists you very much, all the time, without being asked, and without you even having to make any effort?

Narratives are indispensable tools so it seems. In the case of post-modernism there is a line going back centuries into who thought what and why.

The thing is, post-modernism, or whatever comes after that accepts that one simply holds opinions.

Why would I reinvent the wheel? I'm not going to go into the STEM field to push our boundaries of understanding either.

Pertaining to your questions about emotions, post-modernism would say that in mainstream society, emotions have been numbed in favor of other things that are concidered to be more virtuous or something like that.

It's not trying to give prescriptions, that is your own projection. That is what science is for. But post-modernity might help science make better decisions about what to study.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Intellectual class is important. They are those who provide eyes to the future to each nation.

Today post modernism is basically result of education system where you can run through the whole system all the way to PhD and not do a single real world thing with any concept and model.

We are throwing information at people, but they are not taught to use them.

We know how to look at variables, but don't know what they mean and how they apply.

Good example is how easy it is to dupe people.

Russian conflict and mainstream propaganda are good example of throwing information at people, but giving them actual facts.

Ask yourself some basic facts.

Why did the war begin?
Why was Russia at peace and suddenly after Maidan ended up in conflict?
Why annex Crimea?
Why Putin then invaded Ukraine?
Why was Putin able to get to negotiation table at the start of war and not later?
Why is peace off the table now completely?

Most mainstream media have a answer already, and they tentatively speculate about Putins motives.
The reality is Russia hand ton of grievances that were ignored.
There is no reason to speculate about Russian intent here we already know it.
Yet mainstream media provide only speculation.
Putin was shut down before Maidan anyway and was distanced from European community systematically.

Now other actual question.
What does war accomplish if Ukraine wins?
What does war accomplish if Russia wins?
We know what the objective of Ukraine are.
What are the objectives of Russia?
We know Russia cannot just conquer Ukraine or take over.

Post modernism is just a flimsy concept in and of it self.
Its very vague concept.
The masses don't need to know why the war happened or why they are at war, but that war is destroying lives of Ukrainian people who are none wiser.

Its because intellectual class can keep people in check form doing anything.
The elite of the world who make these decisions are motivated by power and money.
They are capable of manipulating states and countries and media.
Therefore they have control of ordinary people.

They don't need people to do anything. They need people to simply remain ignorant.
That is easy to accomplish.

We live in world where people know math and still get fucked over by banks.
That is how post modernism works.
People are stupid.
But they are not stupid knowledge it self.
The lack the ability to utilize things.
Utility of knowledge and mere knowing are two different things.

But you cannot teach that to grown ups, who went through a school system where you are taught to accept things and facts, but not test them or work with them.
There in lies the difference.

In the past people had less knowledge so consequently had more time to test and apply knowledge.

Today you can swamp people with knowledge, but consequently that becomes irrelevant because most people don't know how to use it anyway.

Consequently that means you millions of people world wide who have higher education, but were never taught to apply this knowledge.

Thus there is no intellectual class to keep people grounded and guide them.
When doctors advised for lock-downs people dismissed it.

Consequently doctors had to make concessions with political parties, and thus many measures taken were compromised.

My country could have simply go into 1 month lock down consequently eradicating the virus, instead political parties compromised and there was semi lock down for 3 years completely deforming the economy for no reason.

Then people said it would have been easier to just not have lockdown, because it would mean less problems.

As that logic follows that is true a long term lock down done wrong is like having a window half cracked open in very stinky room and getting cold air all day and never getting the stink out.

 

[Black Rose]

Narratives are based on power. To control. But this isn't the focus of language. It is the focus of those seeking power. People speaking The Truth are not trying to control people exactly. This assumes all language is dishonest. Language is used to influence people for certain "purposes". What postmodernism is, is deconstruction. Power relations are deconstructed based on critical theory. The place and time of the narrative. But also the reinterpretation where we don't know what language means in historical context but only within the text itself. Post-structuralism says that language is always evolving. We can never get a firm historical context and must always interpret it in a modern context. We must invent new ways of understanding. Hermeneutics is based on the methods of understanding texts in their historical contexts. To do so we must have people study history but postmodernism states history is based on the narrative of power, not Truth. Who was the text meant to influence? Which facts were made for the purpose of conveying new ideas to the audience? What was the motive of the authors in constructing the text?

This ignores common sense in understanding linguistics. But isn't false. It is just a different understanding of language. "What does this mean" is turned into what influence has this had on society. The past society and the current society.

The intellectual class is said to by Marx control the narrative. They define the dominant ideology. This class is fractured into camps. Each with its own methods of interpretation and purposes. The intelligentsia does the mental work. Ordinary people don't have time to study and believe the propagandists who are not exactly intellectuals but are intelligentsia. If one plays into their narrative they will polarize into for and against, tribes. Us vs them. This is the essence of the culture war. To keep people fighting. non are immune.

The internet disseminated power away from the mainstream. Now the narrative is decentralized. But this created worse echo chambers. It may be that we are exposed to more views but judging them critically is still based on sociological contexts. More cultures exist than before creating diversity. Any monoculture is in danger of population collapse. There needs to be in an ecosystem populations that reinforce each other. The system as a whole survives through redundancy. A complex system evolves like coral reefs with millions of species.

it is integral for people to think in a system as complex as the internet. The populace that becomes more intelligent is less likely to be controlled when mainstream propaganda is being exposed to them. This is autodidacticism of one's political cultural scientific worldview. A society that is defined by its intellectualism will least likely become single-minded.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Intellectual class is important. They are those who provide eyes to the future to each nation.

Today post modernism is basically result of education system where you can run through the whole system all the way to PhD and not do a single real world thing with any concept and model.

We are throwing information at people, but they are not taught to use them.

We know how to look at variables, but don't know what they mean and how they apply.

Critique of institutional forces? Those institutional forces were set up in a context that didn't have post modern thinking. Well- I suppose the people in them speculatively have been exposed to post-modern thinking, and yet nothing has been done.

Could it be that incentives have more power than clarity?

Perhaps people need to experience a great deal of grievances before they get motivated to change anything about the system that they live in. Rightfully so, destabilizing the system sounds scary if you aren't entirely suffering.

Good example is how easy it is to dupe people.

Russian conflict and mainstream propaganda are good example of throwing information at people, but giving them actual facts.

Ask yourself some basic facts.

Why did the war begin?
Why was Russia at peace and suddenly after Maidan ended up in conflict?
Why annex Crimea?
Why Putin then invaded Ukraine?
Why was Putin able to get to negotiation table at the start of war and not later?
Why is peace off the table now completely?

Most mainstream media have a answer already, and they tentatively speculate about Putins motives.
The reality is Russia hand ton of grievances that were ignored.
There is no reason to speculate about Russian intent here we already know it.
Yet mainstream media provide only speculation.
Putin was shut down before Maidan anyway and was distanced from European community systematically.

Now other actual question.
What does war accomplish if Ukraine wins?
What does war accomplish if Russia wins?
We know what the objective of Ukraine are.
What are the objectives of Russia?
We know Russia cannot just conquer Ukraine or take over.

Spoiler: commentary on Russia because you brought it up

Russia isn't exactly a Latino American gangster who had no choice to turn to crime because the crime, corruption, economy- utter dysfunctionality of everything around them makes it the best cost/benefit for them.

I hear people describe it like a chess move. Zero-sum hands were forced. I hate how Libertarian this sounds, but Russia- Putin's regime has been active for over 20 years. Approaching 30.
At what point do we say that if Russia is struggling, it's more Putins (regime's) fault? Interested to see what lies their media tells them to justify what their politicians are doing.

Why is it that Germany, has been able to leave the a fascistic reputation behind meanwhile Russia has get jabs in by calling the West hypocrites? Is it really JUST propaganda and incentives the West has?

We all already know the media doesn't do the job it ideally should be doing. A balanced perspective is the worst thing possible for someone who is trying to make money. Even if you do buy something from me- it'll be measured decision. When you're a belligerent bafoon, you're definitely going to make poorer choices.

Post modernism is just a flimsy concept in and of it self.
Its very vague concept.
The masses don't need to know why the war happened or why they are at war, but that war is destroying lives of Ukrainian people who are none wiser.

Its because intellectual class can keep people in check form doing anything.
The elite of the world who make these decisions are motivated by power and money.
They are capable of manipulating states and countries and media.
Therefore they have control of ordinary people.

They don't need people to do anything. They need people to simply remain ignorant.
That is easy to accomplish.

We live in world where people know math and still get fucked over by banks.
That is how post modernism works.
People are stupid.
But they are not stupid knowledge it self.
The lack the ability to utilize things.
Utility of knowledge and mere knowing are two different things.

But you cannot teach that to grown ups, who went through a school system where you are taught to accept things and facts, but not test them or work with them.
There in lies the difference.

Post-modernism is just about a balanced perspective. Obviously it's not groundbreaking idea, but when you consider how nuanced a perspective can be, I mean the analytical tools are there. People are the problem. Culture?

Far-left loves play the apologist for Russia, yet the mob mentality still seems to eat at any movement they try to make because not that many people have such radical ideas.

In the past people had less knowledge so consequently had more time to test and apply knowledge.

Today you can swamp people with knowledge, but consequently that becomes irrelevant because most people don't know how to use it anyway.

Consequently that means you millions of people world wide who have higher education, but were never taught to apply this knowledge.

Thus there is no intellectual class to keep people grounded and guide them.
When doctors advised for lock-downs people dismissed it.

Consequently doctors had to make concessions with political parties, and thus many measures taken were compromised.

My country could have simply go into 1 month lock down consequently eradicating the virus, instead political parties compromised and there was semi lock down for 3 years completely deforming the economy for no reason.

Then people said it would have been easier to just not have lockdown, because it would mean less problems.

As that logic follows that is true a long term lock down done wrong is like having a window half cracked open in very stinky room and getting cold air all day and never getting the stink out.

Knowledge management is a very interesting subject, and it's mostly applied in businesses. It's not culturally thought that an individual has any need for a knowledge management system, and yet it is a common fact that people who write things down usually have better lives.

Also weirdly, at least in America, after you finish school, there really isn't a sprit of learning that is shared among adults. You finished, good job learning. Go do real work shit. It's kinda absurd the more I think about it.

-

The internet disseminated power away from the mainstream. Now the narrative is decentralized. But this created worse echo chambers. It may be that we are exposed to more views but judging them critically is still based on sociological contexts. More cultures exist than before creating diversity. Any monoculture is in danger of population collapse. There needs to be in an ecosystem populations that reinforce each other. The system as a whole survives through redundancy. A complex system evolves like coral reefs with millions of species.

it is integral for people to think in a system as complex as the internet. The populace that becomes more intelligent is less likely to be controlled when mainstream propaganda is being exposed to them. This is autodidacticism of one's political cultural scientific worldview. A society that is defined by its intellectualism will least likely become single-minded.

Have you used ChatGPT? I find it facinating, and I personally believe that when people figure out how to use it a lot of these problems will be mediated.

instead of doing 2-5 different google searches, I can ask it a nuanced question. The response comes, and I can just tell it to give me the counterargument to what it wrote and bambo. Really cool.

Obviously can be problematic in some ways. but it makes me wonder how people 5 years from now will use tech like that- especially younger people.

 

[Black Rose]

Have you used ChatGPT? I find it facinating, and I personally believe that when people figure out how to use it a lot of these problems will be mediated.

instead of doing 2-5 different google searches, I can ask it a nuanced question. The response comes, and I can just tell it to give me the counterargument to what it wrote and bambo. Really cool.

Obviously can be problematic in some ways. but it makes me wonder how people 5 years from now will use tech like that- especially younger people.

No, but I did use an open-source version called YOU.com

I wrote some code with it.

What I want is an A.I. capable of teaching me different languages. Specifically Atlantean. I need an instructor but can't afford one. It is expected that A.I. will be better at language translation than humans by 2027. There might even be a perfect translation of the Bible one day.

AI translation firm unveils ‘world-first’ timeline to singularity

When will we reach singularity? An Italian translation company predicts it will happen soon — but the approach is contentious.

thenextweb.com

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Have you used ChatGPT? I find it facinating, and I personally believe that when people figure out how to use it a lot of these problems will be mediated.

instead of doing 2-5 different google searches, I can ask it a nuanced question. The response comes, and I can just tell it to give me the counterargument to what it wrote and bambo. Really cool.

Obviously can be problematic in some ways. but it makes me wonder how people 5 years from now will use tech like that- especially younger people.

No, but I did use an open-source version called YOU.com

I wrote some code with it.

What I want is an A.I. capable of teaching me different languages. Specifically Atlantean. I need an instructor but can't afford one. It is expected that A.I. will be better at language translation than humans by 2027. There might even be a perfect translation of the Bible one day.

AI translation firm unveils ‘world-first’ timeline to singularity

When will we reach singularity? An Italian translation company predicts it will happen soon — but the approach is contentious.

thenextweb.com

Honestly, describing something, then asking it to teach you a word that would encompass it works too. I'm not sure about that AI haven't looked into the space beyond what blows up in the media because I've been unimpressed.

Upon having a reason to try it I was impressed. Hopefully it is still free and accessible when it reaches it's point of diminishing returns in development. Eitherway, the cat's out of the bag, but you still need to pay for all that processing power.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Perhaps people need to experience a great deal of grievances before they get motivated to change anything about the system that they live in. Rightfully so, destabilizing the system sounds scary if you aren't entirely suffering.

That is kind of callous.
How about giving people the ability to influence the system for positive results.
This option rarely exists. Not because people cannot, because people aren't given the option.

You see that is kind of problem of modern democracies.
The levers do exist, but the incentives for trying to control the levers of the system are rarely there. Quite on contrary. The levers of system are often obscure and disincentivized.

Its basically governments job to help people do this, and the government can ignore that job just as easily.

I kind of see this in American politics where a button for free peanut dispensing is sold to public as instant economy self destruct.
Naive people often buy into this as if the economy can go down the poop shoot because of tiny changes to economy that impact public good.
Its really unbelievable.

Could it be that incentives have more power than clarity?

Yes.

Russia isn't exactly a Latino American gangster who had no choice to turn to crime because the crime, corruption, economy- utter dysfunctionality of everything around them makes it the best cost/benefit for them.

I hear people describe it like a chess move. Zero-sum hands were forced. I hate how Libertarian this sounds, but Russia- Putin's regime has been active for over 20 years. Approaching 30.
At what point do we say that if Russia is struggling, it's more Putins (regime's) fault? Interested to see what lies their media tells them to justify what their politicians are doing.

Why is it that Germany, has been able to leave the a fascistic reputation behind meanwhile Russia has get jabs in by calling the West hypocrites? Is it really JUST propaganda and incentives the West has?

Spoiler: On RUSSIA

Russia has the option of backing down.
And it did since fall of Soviet Union with good faith every time.
This is often ignored.
Putin literally stepped in only with Ukraine.
This was made clear by Putin number of times.
It was not clear he will be capable of invasion.

As for Russian economy, I think its weak and its not entirely Putins fault.
He inherited a corrupt and completely economically desolate system.
Rebuilding it for 20 years is nothing unusual.
I don't think he is best leader out there, but Soviet Capital was gone in the 90s.
Their military and economy was disembowel.
Economies have exponential growth factor, that means every decade the growth goes up exponentially ideally.
That means the economy does not pick up for some time unless you have ton of capital inflow. Which rarely happens by sheer magic.
SO 20 years of slow growth followed by growth spurts is normal.
If you look at other countries like Asian countries its the same.
South Korea was a shit hole for better part of 20th century.
They only started picking their economy recently, but it goes exponentially, because first you have to build foundation on which to expand the economy.
This bit of building is invisible to normal people. It does not show up on your GDP and it does not make interesting news.

Its also kind of questionable to assume Putins russia is a country that cannot be reasoned with.

We all already know the media doesn't do the job it ideally should be doing. A balanced perspective is the worst thing possible for someone who is trying to make money. Even if you do buy something from me- it'll be measured decision. When you're a belligerent bafoon, you're definitely going to make poorer choices.

I agree, but with caveat, if good news were actually available people would pay for it. Its just that the people willing to pay for good news reporting vs tabloid and mainstream crap would be a limited supply.
However given platforms like youtube and podcasts over the internet we can see that actually there is strong interest for people being well informed and having alternative sources that question status quo.
Key here is that cheap crap like BBC and such mainstream Big Bullshit Companies are really good at flooding the internet with misinformation and those get copy pasted all over in various form from the exact same source, so you can read the same bullshit from various directions as if.... it were really multiple sources.
Even the alternative conspiratory outlets just don't have a team of people to gather information.
That is the key feature of news reporting and the weakest point of alternative news. Which is also why people have to listen to Joe Rogen and like people to figure out that something is not right, but these platforms just can't afford to send people in and collect information right where it happens.
Well researched stories simply don't exist, and there are no follow ups either.
SO it feels like the world is changing fast, and really its not, its just news churning butter over and over again with whatever they come up with.

 

[Black Rose]

Russia invaded Ukraine because it has been invaded dozens of times in its history by that rote. It cannot protect itself if Ukraine is not within its control.

I have many sources of information and try and educate myself with them. Constant learning is what I do.

Government is slow to change because it is designed that way by the bureaucracy. It prevents civil war. Too much change will fuck things up, this is the conservative view. I read what conservatives say all the time and they are panicked right now.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

That is kind of callous.
How about giving people the ability to influence the system for positive results.
This option rarely exists. Not because people cannot, because people aren't given the option.

You see that is kind of problem of modern democracies.
The levers do exist, but the incentives for trying to control the levers of the system are rarely there. Quite on contrary. The levers of system are often obscure and disincentivized.

Its basically governments job to help people do this, and the government can ignore that job just as easily.

I kind of see this in American politics where a button for free peanut dispensing is sold to public as instant economy self destruct.
Naive people often buy into this as if the economy can go down the poop shoot because of tiny changes to economy that impact public good.
Its really unbelievable.

It's certainly cynical, but I'm not wrong. Better than most cynicism these days, so much is completely unwarranted and unhelpful. People think that when you criticize billionaires you want to break into their house show their kids gay porn and steal their Toyota Corolla.

I think the cynicism does explain a lot, sociologically why we seem to be stuck in this position. Add economic realities, and info terrorism and that's pretty much the recipe.

I agree, but with caveat, if good news were actually available people would pay for it. Its just that the people willing to pay for good news reporting vs tabloid and mainstream crap would be a limited supply.
However given platforms like youtube and podcasts over the internet we can see that actually there is strong interest for people being well informed and having alternative sources that question status quo.
Key here is that cheap crap like BBC and such mainstream Big Bullshit Companies are really good at flooding the internet with misinformation and those get copy pasted all over in various form from the exact same source, so you can read the same bullshit from various directions as if.... it were really multiple sources.
Even the alternative conspiratory outlets just don't have a team of people to gather information.
That is the key feature of news reporting and the weakest point of alternative news. Which is also why people have to listen to Joe Rogen and like people to figure out that something is not right, but these platforms just can't afford to send people in and collect information right where it happens.
Well researched stories simply don't exist, and there are no follow ups either.
SO it feels like the world is changing fast, and really its not, its just news churning butter over and over again with whatever they come up with.

We seem to have a natural inclination to move towards cult like groups. If not us, then someone close to us usually is adjacent to some sort of cultish phenom. Even if the group isn't organized, if a group of people are unhappy with a situation, a counter-group emerges to meet them despite any logic.

we just make sense of the patterns we see and whatever story fits that is what is right.

You'd think that people would look for multiple sources, but when you tell them that they think you're talking about articles, yes it's true. And Google doesn't give a flying fuck about that. Been wanting to pay for Ground News for awhile, but you know- recession and all.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Russia invaded Ukraine because it has been invaded dozens of times in its history by that rote. It cannot protect itself if Ukraine is not within its control.

I have many sources of information and try and educate myself with them. Constant learning is what I do.

Government is slow to change because it is designed that way by the bureaucracy. It prevents civil war. Too much change will fuck things up, this is the conservative view. I read what conservatives say all the time and they are panicked right now.

The US government is full of Old people with vested interests and who have been bought and pre packaged. They are just senile marionettes who are smart enough to dupe young people, but not smart enough to run the economy. Economy is runned by the elites that have strangle hold on the market.
Joe Biden is good example.
Trump was funny in a way as he was not bind by establisment to function as puppet, too rich and narcissistic for that.
In way Trump was good example of how fragile the system is.

What the problem is that these fat old slobs half divorced from reality are running the biggest military complex in the world and are backed by hungry psycho companies ready to do anything for few millions.

 

[ZenRaiden]

It's certainly cynical, but I'm not wrong. Better than most cynicism these days, so much is completely unwarranted and unhelpful. People think that when you criticize billionaires you want to break into their house show their kids gay porn and steal their Toyota Corolla.

HAHA that made me laugh, but also makes me think that a lot of discussion today is shut down where people are able to create gradients.
I think current propaganda is good example.
The in-between bits don't matter which is scary, given that leaves us in Europe basically fighting against a nuclear nation.
Its also interesting that there were no calls for peace talks among intellectuals or political parties among Europe.
Basically weird shit.
What strikes me as control is when gradients are missing people lose sense of social and political reality.
There is no room for reasonable constructive debate.

You'd think that people would look for multiple sources, but when you tell them that they think you're talking about articles, yes it's true. And Google doesn't give a flying fuck about that. Been wanting to pay for Ground News for awhile, but you know- recession and all.

Its a matter of exposure.
You don't need to look for something you don't even know exists as such.
I used look at multiple news platforms, but essentially until I noticed patterns I thought they were different news.
I find debates in news articles today borderline toxic and fascinating phenomena.
The people there are extremely savage to each other and they clearly have no idea what they are talking about, which is all the more interesting.
I think the debates themselves reflect the information value of the sources.
They show how news get to peoples heads effectively.
One article not so much, but the whole mosaic adds up to completely crazy people.
I think its funny how people don't even realize how news are toxic.

 

[Old Things]

Now there are of course positive benefits to religion, but they are not quantifiable.
They are what you might call relative.

Quite false.

 

[scorpiomover]

It's a bit redundant to give certain qualifications and outright impractical try to make a single argument fit every context.

So: Post-modernism, which is built of off Modernist 20th century philosophy, should be given that same grace. It is obvious to anyone what post-modernism is because anyone who is trying to use it's ideas that correlate with reality.

To answer your question for evidence is kinda missing the point. If you disagree with me, or think my position about what post-modernism is attempting to do is one-sided, then it's up to you to show me your reasoning.

So you're basically saying "if it doesn't work, we won't use it, and if it works, then it doesn't matter if there's no evidence?"

I'd happily buy into that principle. But it would be applicable in every field of science. So then there would be no need for scientific evidence.

So clearly, the fact that we are so adamant that scientific theories must be supported by evidence, means that everyone, and especially the intelligent people, think that your concept is so likely to be abused, that it cannot be trusted.

However, before you respond, please bear in mind I actually agreed with this idea in principle, and saw great merit in it. But in the interest of being rationally sceptical and being scientific, I had hoped that your claim was actually based on some evidence, because without it, I have no basis to justify believing that it is post-modernist thinking, and without evidence, I can be reasonably confident that if I said it to anyone else, they'd also ask for evidence and without it, would probably dismiss the whole idea.

So as much as I like the idea, and I can use it for myself, if I want to use it to help the world, I'll need to tell others about it. But I can only expect to not be met with derision by those sorts of people who would embrace such an idea without requiring evidence.

In my experience, those people are right-wing conspiracy theorists who think the left-wing are stealing hundreds of thousands of babies every year, and making them into a vampiric youth serum to be sold for a million dollars a shot.

It's a bit redundant to give certain qualifications and outright impractical try to make a single argument fit every context.


Just like it would be redundant if I said:

From a Freudian perspective minus all the things from which reasonable consensus has said is unreasonable to apply, X.

Freud was a person like anyone else, and probably more intelligent than most people, but only the views that were practically useful were adopted into the psychoanalysis field as a whole.

To not do that would make psychoanalysis completely untenable because it is made from the ideas of a whole array of academics who may or may not been integrating empiricism into those ideas, making it impractical. It's just asking to make it a cluster fuck of a field.

If I'm making a psychoanalytical assessment- but then someone interjects some pop-cultural artifact of psychoanalysis, and I have to continually make stipulations, until they are happy with the analytical tools they think is reasonable, then not only is that just redundant, but the broader tool of psychoanalysis has been dulled to what one person believes about it.

Just like to add, that I've come across a few of Freud's ideas, and also had a LOT of psychotherapy. Some was helpful. Some was not. I can tell you first hand, that they've butchered Freud's ideas.

For instance, Freud believed in talking therapies. His reason was that in engaging in psychotherapy with patients with severe issues, he noticed that when he was trying to get to the roots of their issues, if it all started from an initial experience from their childhood that they'd suppressed and not shared with anyone, and they talked about the event with Freud in their sessions, even though no-one else knew about it, the patient's problems stopped spontaneously.

This led him to believe that many patients' issues are the result of repressed trauma, and that it was the repression that was causing the patient to suffer deleterious consequences in their adult life, and so by releasing the repression, the problematic behaviours stopped occurring.

This resulted in talking therapies becoming popular.

Only problem is, that's not how talking therapies work. A Freudian talking therapy would be one where the therapist aims to find the root trauma, and simply get the patient to express it openly in the session. Then if that fails, then you'd move on to something else.

But most talking therapies are actually run in such a way that the patient talks about their problems and through talking, solves their own problems for themselves.

But that doesn't actually happen in most cases. It just results in therapists being paid for thousands of hours per patient without actually achieving any positive results. As a result, despite lots of people going into psychotherapy, there are still way more mentally ill people needing help than therapists with time to help.

Narratives are indispensable tools so it seems. In the case of post-modernism there is a line going back centuries into who thought what and why.

Maybe. But I've never heard of any post-modernists doing that.

I've heard of lots of propaganda that does that, e.g. the Nazis claiming that Nietzsche said that the problems of the German people were a result of a Judeo-Xian narrative. I've heard also that Marxists claim that the word's problems are caused by the capitalist narratives.

But I don't recall hearing much in the way of intelligent thought in this vein.

I can't really take this seriously without proof.

Can you provide some examples?

The thing is, post-modernism, or whatever comes after that accepts that one simply holds opinions.

Is that different to every other human? Did people before post-modernism think that people didn't hold opinions?

Why would I reinvent the wheel? I'm not going to go into the STEM field to push our boundaries of understanding either.

Not sure what that's got to do with anything I said, or you said. Can you explain your intent with this part of your post?

Pertaining to your questions about emotions, post-modernism would say that in mainstream society, emotions have been numbed in favor of other things that are concidered to be more virtuous or something like that.

Sounds more like a narrative that favours people who want to control things. It just says that emotions have been "numbed", when everyone knows that since the 1970s, psychologists have been saying that people need to express their emotions more, and you can see almost daily lots of people expressing their emotions on the internet left, right and centre, about almost anything and everything, as if they have no control of their emotions and expressing whatever they feel.

It's not trying to give prescriptions, that is your own projection. That is what science is for.

Scientists come up with theories to explain reality better. It's purely a descriptive subject.

Those things that make use of scientific theories to achieve something prescriptive, are called "inventions", which is what engineers and inventors come up with.

For instance, did Einstein say that his theory of relativity would be useful for making satnavs? Did Feynman invent hard drives because his theories were the basis for modern hard drives?

Are you sure you're not confused?

But post-modernity might help science make better decisions about what to study.

I really don't see how. This claim about narratives being used in history might be useful for historians. It might also be useful for political analysts, feminists, and socialists, to understand that they're also being fed narratives to control them.

But science is supposed to be focussed on evidence, and ignore the biases of people, and so must ignore things like narratives, except to be aware that scientists themselves may be unconsciously directed towards false theories via popular narratives, in order to control scientists to do the bidding of capitalists.

So how exactly were you thinking that post-modernism would help scientists choose which subjects to study?

 

[Old Things]

I am diagnosed with schizoaffective depressive type. Things turned sour in 2018 when I had social problems, felt abusive and hopeless. I am not bipolar but my energy was so off. I would be tired all the time awake at night unable to do anything. But I will be fine for weeks then crash. Just random and fluctuating. It was better when I was comatose. Too many ups and downs. And abuse/feeling bad about myself.

They put me on Prozac in November. That stabilized me energetically. I experienced cannabis-induced psychosis three weeks ago. But that was something that won't happen again. What really needs to happen is that I need greater self-esteem. I feel I can't do stuff because I think I am dumb. I have a mental block all the time and am lonely. I am not normal I don't get enjoyment regular people get enjoyment from. I have no friends.

But emotionally I don't mind boredom as long as I am stable. I do not cry and I do not get angry but stagnate. The cause of my anxiety is doing nothing awake all night in bed. Can't use my computer because of anxiety. That is why stability is important. When I am sad I do nothing, anxious nothing, angry nothing. Just traped.

Food, warmth, computer, stable mood. NO PACING. pacing is what I do the only thing. Even doing stuff feels bad. But why?

I feel bad not because of what I am doing or not doing. It is because of what I am unable to do. I am restricted and need to get out, get away, force control on something. Destroy something but can't/don't.

The report says I turn my anger inward. I hate myself. I sulk. I think my needs are illegitimate. I can't get what I want. I tried and I can't, I'm dumb. Stuff.

Don't know what to do. Nothing. Bad mood. misery.

Prozac is a stablizer. As long as I am stable I can do stuff. Ups and downs make things too random. I cannot handle random moods.

Write a book. Dead serious. My therapist told me my confidence has gone up tremendously since I started writing the book I'm writing. Takes a lot of dedication and it will be more than you think you can do, but it's totally worth it because it gives you a goal to pursue and something that can soak up a lot of time.

 

[Old Things]

The biggest problem I am seeing people with here is that they don't really have a whole lot of purpose for their lives. If you don't believe anything strong enough worthy to sacrifice for, you're just kinda passively going through life without really having a good foundation for why you do what you do. That's why post-modernism is so toxic. It completely robs people of purpose since everything is just gray; there is no ultimate meaning to anything and as such, true purpose, objective purpose doesn't actually exist.

We have millions of people in the US living completely without purpose. There's no ultimate goal for anything (especially if you don't believe in an afterlife). It's all just,

 

[EndogenousRebel]

So you're basically saying "if it doesn't work, we won't use it, and if it works, then it doesn't matter if there's no evidence?"

No

I'd happily buy into that principle. But it would be applicable in every field of science. So then there would be no need for scientific evidence.

So clearly, the fact that we are so adamant that scientific theories must be supported by evidence, means that everyone, and especially the intelligent people, think that your concept is so likely to be abused, that it cannot be trusted.

However, before you respond, please bear in mind I actually agreed with this idea in principle, and saw great merit in it. But in the interest of being rationally sceptical and being scientific, I had hoped that your claim was actually based on some evidence, because without it, I have no basis to justify believing that it is post-modernist thinking, and without evidence, I can be reasonably confident that if I said it to anyone else, they'd also ask for evidence and without it, would probably dismiss the whole idea.

So as much as I like the idea, and I can use it for myself, if I want to use it to help the world, I'll need to tell others about it. But I can only expect to not be met with derision by those sorts of people who would embrace such an idea without requiring evidence.

However, before you respond, please bear in mind I actually agreed with this idea in principle, and saw great merit in it.

This part of your response is doing some serious heavy lifting, and without it I wouldn't know what to tell you because yeah, the scientific method is very ubiquitous and there is lots of discourse and conjecture outside and within academia about it.

Just like to add, that I've come across a few of Freud's ideas, and also had a LOT of psychotherapy. Some was helpful. Some was not. I can tell you first hand, that they've butchered Freud's ideas.

See the telephone game. If we have a centralized source of information- a encyclopedia of sorts, we have to not only worry about biases the source of information it holds- but also biases of the people who interpret it and then articulate it to someone else.

Narratives are indispensable tools so it seems. In the case of post-modernism there is a line going back centuries into who thought what and why.

Maybe. But I've never heard of any post-modernists doing that.

I've heard of lots of propaganda that does that, e.g. the Nazis claiming that Nietzsche said that the problems of the German people were a result of a Judeo-Xian narrative. I've heard also that Marxists claim that the word's problems are caused by the capitalist narratives.

But I don't recall hearing much in the way of intelligent thought in this vein.

I can't really take this seriously without proof.

Can you provide some examples?

The moment you take raw data, and turn it into a causal chain, you are creating a narrative. Even saying it's a simplification is wrong, because you have no way of reconciling unknown/unknowable variables. Hence it is a story you are telling yourself built off a imperfect model of the world.

The apple fell from the tree when x. There is measurable data there, a mathematical equation that can represent it even. There is no way to epistemologically reconcile the ultimate cause of why it fell or even the state it was in before and after it fell.

The thing is, post-modernism, or whatever comes after that accepts that one simply holds opinions.

Is that different to every other human? Did people before post-modernism think that people didn't hold opinions?

Freud and Jung and the like literally pioneered models of the ID and Ego and such building off of other pre-modern ideas in the west such as Nietzsche.

In eastern philosophies there are ideas about there not being a one singular truth- but even that is not right- as post-modernism is more saying that there will never be a complete truth at all. Rather it puts us on a fast track to mesh truths together rather than just accepting a truth that is given to us.

In either case, yes it's kinda a new idea that opinions an individual holds may just be wrong simply on the face that they were raised in a certain context, and that whatever truth they may hold may be flat wrong.

Why would I reinvent the wheel? I'm not going to go into the STEM field to push our boundaries of understanding either.

Not sure what that's got to do with anything I said, or you said. Can you explain your intent with this part of your post?

You are asking for the source of what I know: I say post-modern thought

Where does post-modern thought come from: I say there is a long line of history that explain where post-modernism comes from.

In the context of the utility of intellectualism, I- and you, were talking about intellectualisms ability to mediate things that conventionally aren't associated with intellectualism, like emotions.

You put into question if the narrative I am following was not just handed to me and I accepted it without knowing the implications of that.

Thing is I do know the implications of the narrative I have accepted because there is a long line of critical thought that has accumulated in the past couple millenia.

So I am saying that I don't need to reinvent the wheel- and create my narrative because there is already one there that is prefectly logical even if I do have to comb through the logical operations of some of the ideas.

It's like if I coded my own sql database server as opposed to just adopting an opensource alternative that already works great and has a long track record of doing so.

Pertaining to your questions about emotions, post-modernism would say that in mainstream society, emotions have been numbed in favor of other things that are concidered to be more virtuous or something like that.

Sounds more like a narrative that favours people who want to control things. It just says that emotions have been "numbed", when everyone knows that since the 1970s, psychologists have been saying that people need to express their emotions more, and you can see almost daily lots of people expressing their emotions on the internet left, right and centre, about almost anything and everything, as if they have no control of their emotions and expressing whatever they feel.

Psychology as a science has practitioners, individuals who have studied psychology and give prescriptions. Are you saying that culturally, a majority of people happily accept the prescriptions that psychologists make?

It's not trying to give prescriptions, that is your own projection. That is what science is for.

Scientists come up with theories to explain reality better. It's purely a descriptive subject.

Those things that make use of scientific theories to achieve something prescriptive, are called "inventions", which is what engineers and inventors come up with.

For instance, did Einstein say that his theory of relativity would be useful for making satnavs? Did Feynman invent hard drives because his theories were the basis for modern hard drives?

Are you sure you're not confused?

What is the point of describing reality if you aren't going to do anything with it I wonder.

Descriptivism without prescriptivism is looking at the world while it collapses around you.

But post-modernity might help science make better decisions about what to study.

I really don't see how. This claim about narratives being used in history might be useful for historians. It might also be useful for political analysts, feminists, and socialists, to understand that they're also being fed narratives to control them.

But science is supposed to be focussed on evidence, and ignore the biases of people, and so must ignore things like narratives, except to be aware that scientists themselves may be unconsciously directed towards false theories via popular narratives, in order to control scientists to do the bidding of capitalists.

So how exactly were you thinking that post-modernism would help scientists choose which subjects to study?

For example, for years, decades, the neocortex (outer layer) of the brain was highly associated with what is understood as intelligence. Paper after paper affirmed this finding.

Suddenly the size of the frontal lobe was sign of intelligence, a cultural history of lobotomies was ever more horrifying, allocation of resources was moved into unearthing more about the frontal lobe and its role.

Eventually a groundbreaking study would come that would cast doubt on this, and soon after this narrative was dust.

I'm not sure who you think is studying this stuff. Platonic concepts? If you can't see the interconnectedness of the world it isn't my job to make you realize that it is. It just is is where I'll leave that.

Brenda Milner: Pioneer of the Study of the Human Frontal Lobes - PMC

Although the behavioral effects of damage to the frontal lobes date back to at least the late 19th century even midway through the 20th century very little was known about human frontal lobe function and there was a general consensus that the ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

NeuWrite West -- Ask a Neuroscientist: Does a bigger brain make you smarter?

Does a bigger brain make you smarter? In this version of Ask a Neuroscientist, Kendra Lechtenberg discusses humanity's love affair with the idea that our exceptional cognitive abilities must mean we have the largest brains of any animal.

neuroscience.stanford.edu

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1215723110

 

[ZenRaiden]

Quite false.

Please tell me you don't want me to watch a 51 minute video about Christianity.

 

[ZenRaiden]

I have noticed a lot of people don't actually notice idealism in themselves.

Ergo a business person idealizes market and income. They will oppose ideas like Communism for obvious reasons.

But arguing with these people you will notice that the narrative they have is idealized version of Capitalism.

A shopping mall is like a Church for modern day people. Its the place where their dopamine gets triggered.

Consumerism is a herd mentality that things can be gotten only for money.
That without money you cannot get stuff. Which is incidentally true, but that is because people model their behavior this way.

Jung said most dangerous person is intellectual, as he is the type of person to likely believe what he is saying.

 

[Old Things]

Quite false.

Please tell me you don't want me to watch a 51 minute video about Christianity.

I'll give you the cliff notes:

Most of the research shows that religion and Christianity come with very tangible benefits for people. There were a LOT of studies listed in this video. When atheists and agnostics say that religion is harmful to people, that is simply not what the evidence shows.

 

[Black Rose]

Jung said most dangerous person is intellectual, as he is the type of person to likely believe what he is saying.

Those most likely to believe what Jung says are abstract thinkers.

Wizards.

Rather those that call it bull are likely atheistic and non-spiritual.

Caught up in the Animus, not the Anima.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Jung said most dangerous person is intellectual, as he is the type of person to likely believe what he is saying.

Those most likely to believe what Jung says are abstract thinkers.

Wizards.

Rather those that call it bull are likely atheistic and non-spiritual.

Caught up in the Animus, not the Anima.

I can see merit in Jungs work, but I would not call my self religious or spiritual in the sense the words are used.
There is definitely spiritual aspect to humans.
I would also say he belongs to the intellectual class of people.

That being said Jung Adler and Freud did not get along that well, probably because their theories had very little merit in reality.
Freud was hysteria focus mostly and Adler was social focus and Jung was collective unconscious focused.

I think their theories reflected the type of patients they had.

Realistically they were onto something, but had very little scientific merit Id say.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Quite false.

Please tell me you don't want me to watch a 51 minute video about Christianity.

I'll give you the cliff notes:

Most of the research shows that religion and Christianity come with very tangible benefits for people. There were a LOT of studies listed in this video. When atheists and agnostics say that religion is harmful to people, that is simply not what the evidence shows.

Yeah I believe there are tangible benefits.
I know, and @scorpiomover many years earlier talked about these benefits, I know about them.
It makes sense.
Many people need to belong and believe in other people and that alone makes them healthier and have better outlook on life.
Many people feel religious groups as good support network for when they feel bad.
I can see a lot of psychological mechanism in play that make religion good for people.
But would you say that medieval brawl resulting in entire town stabbing each-other to death as matter of religious belief is a strength?
I know this does not happen today, but it was common occurrence and entire wars in Europe were inspired by religious schisms and dissent.
That is why there was push later in history for separation of Church and state as people realized that religion and politics don't go together.

Its also important to mention that religion has done some hokey shit over the 20 century. Telling people in South America to not wear condoms and making a deadly STD common occurrence is kind of sociopathic shit the Church commonly did.

The point I am trying to explain is that Church has repeatedly looked for more power and money despite what Christ believed in.
Its also against common sense logic to impose a belief on people by any kind of coercion and force.
So religion can be crappy and lethal.
When people find meaning in religion that is fine by me as long as they don't make decision on religious stuff that leads to life and death decisions, where some out of context bible thing with arbitrary interpretation decides what happens with someones life.

Not saying atheist are better by the way.
There is no virtue in atheism.
Atheist are all sorts of crazy and virtuous, bad, and good.
I am just saying religion is kind of progamming that has visibly done some pretty petty and pathetic shit, that should not be overlooked.

 

[Old Things]

I am just saying religion is kind of progamming that has visibly done some pretty petty and pathetic shit, that should not be overlooked.

That's not the fault of Christianity. What does the Bible say? If the Bible says, "Do not murder" and Christians murder, that is in no way the fault of Christianity.

The Catholic church has done some pretty bad things. That's why we needed the Reformation. The Reformation's aim was to get back to the roots of Christianity. The Reformation's position was never that Catholics cannot be saved, but it was about correcting errors in the Catholic church like indulgences (paying the church to get your loved ones out of purgatory, which is not only not Biblical, but quite abusive as well). In the dark ages, the Catholic church did a lot of bad things, but this doesn't mean Christianity as a whole is to blame for this. The Catholic church is mostly to blame for a lot of the wrongs done that you talk about, which is again why the Reformation was necessary.

 

[Black Rose]

You can be intellectually honest and religious.

Because religion is not necessarily dogma.

But is morality about reality.

The correctness of something should be valued without rejecting the source.

It is only when we confront the source that our morality is tested.

We can't live without questioning because then we might practice falsehood.

Religion is about finding the truth, not about self-deception.

Finding the way is difficult but worth the effort.

 

[ZenRaiden]

You can be intellectually honest and religious.

Probably, but I cannot do the mental gymnastics.
Yet have to see someone explain the bible in a way that its not condescending psychobabble.
Bible seems like patch work of fantasy with pretty big holes in the story, and lacking any explanation.
I do not mean scientific explanation either.
Even considering that Jesus was capable of magic it still pretty much nonsense read.
It does not follow, the story has some dubious timeline and very big holes in writing.
Sum total of bible is don't be a materialist, but that is social trait, that was never selected for anyway by evolution.

That's not the fault of Christianity. What does the Bible say? If the Bible says, "Do not murder" and Christians murder, that is in no way the fault of Christianity.

I agree.

The Catholic church has done some pretty bad things. That's why we needed the Reformation. The Reformation's aim was to get back to the roots of Christianity. The Reformation's position was never that Catholics cannot be saved, but it was about correcting errors in the Catholic church like indulgences (paying the church to get your loved ones out of purgatory, which is not only not Biblical, but quite abusive as well). In the dark ages, the Catholic church did a lot of bad things, but this doesn't mean Christianity as a whole is to blame for this. The Catholic church is mostly to blame for a lot of the wrongs done that you talk about, which is again why the Reformation was necessary.

But why do people then follow a Catholic faith then.
Church is acting like anti Christ yet people follow it with veneration.
I would argue that religion is coercive and that is why people don't want to reform.
Because its pretty clear that if Jesus the official messenger of God and his essence is being used as tool, that is worth a pretty big reform indeed.

 

[Old Things]

But why do people then follow a Catholic faith then.
Church is acting like anti Christ yet people follow it with veneration.
I would argue that religion is coercive and that is why people don't want to reform.
Because its pretty clear that if Jesus the official messenger of God and his essence is being used as tool, that is worth a pretty big reform indeed.

The Protestants like Luther and Calvin both thought that there were "good churches" within Catholicism despite thinking the Pope was the anti-Christ.

There is a lot of reason to be Catholic if you like the feeling of being pious. Catholicism has a rich history that you can really dig into.

While it is the aim of Christianity to have more Christians, this is because we care about people rather than that we don't. Why? Because we don't want people to go to hell. It's why you don't see many (if any) Universalists risking their life for the sake of Evangelism and there are many non-Universalists who do risk their lives for that cause.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

To put into consideration how fractionalized the world is: that is another factor that drives lots of confusion, or rather ironic asymmetry we see regarding things like religion, science, and general cultural phenomena.

Not that this wasn't a problem before. Before the biggest problem was that information travelled slowly, and we had plenty of time to digest and integrate that information in way that would make sense among, at the very least our peers.

Now that this problem is solved, the problem has evolved into there being so much information and our dependency on the individuals and collectives to make this information accessible from a pragmatic standpoint to the people around them and hoping everyone else does the same.

Yes, something like religion does incidentally tick marks that empirically imply benefits at the physiological level. Such as social engagement with a community, devotion to greater things outside yourself, gratitude to name the big ones.

But much in the way older track runners used to drink piss, eat rat poison, WHILE doing regular cardio, someone who tosses out the superstitious garbage and knows the generally good principles is likely to be way better off.

I remember @onesteptwostep putting my attention towards Hagel in this matter, and I bring that up to simply show that it takes an excessive amount of work and understanding to integrate several world views in a singular cohesive and logical framework. Who the fuck understands Hagel??

Meanwhile Chritianity™ is an attractive and easy to adopt belief system with lots of marketing and social proof (authority) behind it, which may give you access to beneficial things if you (you probably do) live near by an active Church.

Therein lies the problem. Enlightenment is hard to make accessible, and even if we do create the infrastructure for it to happen, that's not guarantee that people will adopt the ideas of that enlightenment.

Additionally, The pathogenic quality of institutions seems unavoidable. Everything becomes political because any movement in thought towards one thing- even among things within the same category (such as types of wisdom) challenges the already established status quo, which then works to incentivize aggressive behavior among follower so to speak.

I would think the solution is to expose the behavior of institutions/individual actors for what it is- but as already noted, among people who believe the same thing, they will naturally gravitate towards people and ideas that mimic their own even if they are fantastical and irrational beliefs and people.

SO it just comes down to why someone believes something. Thing is, people themselves rarely know why they believe something. They hide it under layers of rationalizations or other meek appeals. It might take you a couple minutes, or it could take you several hours to get to the core of why someone believes something. Then you have to challenge that.

Can you do that solely with intellectualism? I don't think so. You would probably have to refer to human experiences which is made up of several components. But I would intellectualism would still be central to this process.

 

[Black Rose]

Because we don't want people to go to hell.

Women don't go to hell for wearing pants and men don't go to hell for masturbating. The only reason a person goes to hell is a psychological reason in their spirit. Evil is a conscious choice of free will to reject what is right and to do what is wrong on purpose. No matter what you tell this person they will blaspheme the holy spirit in their heart. Outright reject the call not to do evil and work to subvert it. But this is all in the context of people not understanding what evil actually is like in Niniva where Jona was bitter God would forgive people for not knowing they were doing wrong. The thing is that people are immature naive unconscious. They think a woman wearing pants is evil and should be stoned (they would not say this of course). So it is very dishearting to say I don't care about any of this. Ignorant people and evil people are a two-headed statue. First, the ignorant person will not listen and second, the evil person will tell the ignorant person I am evil and they will believe them. The complexity of the situation is that you cannot stop people from hating you so you can only go to the people that have good hearts and will listen. Why preach to a child of satan? They are damned anyway. Because they are a woman wearing pants of course.

This is why Christians fight. Because a third are ignorant, a third are evil deceivers and a third are wise. The wise are outnumbered. And people outside the faith look at us and think things about us. It's better to keep silent like Jesus and pilate. People don't listen is what God has shown me. Christians don't listen. Many are going to hell if hell exists. They are spiritually dead. Corrupted by the mark of the beast. (aleph)(taw) - Everything is backward. God is Dog.

A blind person I knew named Paul who was a Christian told me it was always wrong to lie. I said what about anna frank, they lied to the nazis that they were hiding Jews. He said: it is always wrong to lie.

Christians if I am one are not responsible for converting others. We are responsible for keeping a clear conscience. And someday Pinocchio will become a real boy.

 

[Old Things]

Christians if I am one are not responsible for converting others. We are responsible for keeping a clear conscience. And someday Pinocchio will become a real boy.

Romans 10:14–21 CSB17
“How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message? So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ. But I ask, “Did they not hear?” Yes, they did:
Their voice has gone out to the whole earth,
and their words to the ends of the world. But I ask, “Did Israel not understand?” First, Moses said,
I will make you jealous
of those who are not a nation;
I will make you angry by a nation
that lacks understanding. And Isaiah says boldly,
I was found
by those who were not looking for me;
I revealed myself
to those who were not asking for me. But to Israel he says, All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and defiant people.”

The point is that we are supposed to tell the world even if it means they hate us. Christ's whole message was, "I am the Messiah" and the Religious Jews did not listen. In fact, they crucified Him along with the government. Even the peasants were in on it shouting, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

Truth is worth standing up for - even if that means sacrificing a great deal.

 

[Black Rose]

One word: "Love".

 

[Old Things]

One word: "Love".

Of course. John 3:16.

Also, 1 Corinthians 13 has some good things to say about, "what is love?"

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 CSB17
“Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

And also, I will say I am not perfect at loving my neighbor. How can I be? I have not sacrificed my life for my friends (John 15:13). I'm dependent on the love of Christ to save me. Grace. Unfortunately, grace seems to be a concept Jordan Peterson doesn't really understand. Perhaps it is because of this (or vice versa) that he doesn't believe in the resurrection.

 

[Black Rose]

someone who tosses out the superstitious garbage and knows the generally good principles is likely to be way better off.

I cannot wholly agree. I believe in miracles for my own reason but I can explain why.
I was unable to explain my experiences by a natural explanation.
It's not the same as coincidence. I do understand what cause and effect are.
It would be like saying the persons I interact with in my dream are not conscious because they are in my dreams.
There is no reason to assume that my understanding of reality is correct but I don't know why things changed, in reality, the way they did without some kind of appeal to living in a simulation of some higher dimensional force field.
The probability of certain things happening without this influence is why I think mental realities are involved.

SO it just comes down to why someone believes something. Thing is, people themselves rarely know why they believe something. They hide it under layers of rationalizations or other meek appeals. It might take you a couple minutes, or it could take you several hours to get to the core of why someone believes something. Then you have to challenge that.

Can you do that solely with intellectualism? I don't think so. You would probably have to refer to human experiences which is made up of several components. But I would intellectualism would still be central to this process.

4 Mistakes Theists Make When Trying to Convert Atheists​