Depending on where we look, the universe is expanding at different rates. Now, scientists using the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes have confirmed that the observation is not down to a measurement error.
I am curious: after having watched that video, do you still think most people are against it?
I think the opposite - people in cities tend to be, but a good 40-49% of this nation supported Trump in the last Presidential election, despite Biden ultimately winning and despite Trump having been impeached twice before that.
Countering that, the younger generations are more liberal, but we tend to eat our own, and e.g. the Gaza situation may generate a lot of “protest voting”, the same as when Hillary Clinton was running and therefore while Trump did not “win” so much as she lost, it could all end up happening again.
Americans are fat and lazy - that’s just our brand:-) - and to some extent the entire Western world is that way, but we do it to excess. By that same virtue, we are likely to convert into authoritarianism, possibly not even with a bang but with a whimper - not b/c of what we believe, but b/c we just don’t fight back against those who do have firmer convictions (right or wrong).
Thus, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope that you lose your hope that “if shit does hit the fan, even the dumbest of voters will be smart enough to see that it is not something that they want and we can stop it before it runs rampant here”, and start learning from our mistakes, by shoring up protections against it getting as far along with you. Which I guess you are doing, so I will hope that it works!:-)
Well that’s where we differ, Americans and Canadians. Canadians are on average much more liberal than Americans. We also have a very different political system. We actually have more than two options to chose from! Crazy, I know! The political system doesn’t control general sentiment of the population so things can still get hairy but nobody has started dismantling our checks and balances yet so at least we’ve got that?
Our conservative party isn’t usually as bad as the American conservatives either. Although Bitcoin Milhouse and a couple other Conservative leaders are starting to spew some of the same ignorant bullshit, trying to get reactionary votes, I am way less scared about my future here than I would be in the US. We do have a part of the population that are getting sucked into it but it’s really nowhere near as bad (yet, hopefully never). We’ve got Alberta that’s very conservative and very loud, they’re basically Little Texas but whatever, they’ve always been that way. They’ve never changed and they never will. Business as usual. Ontario is a bit scary with what Doug Ford is doing and even in my little province we have our own little conservative pissbaby, who is absolutely wrecking havoc but even other conservatives hate his ass so there’s a decent chance he gets booted out next provincial election.
I’m from French Canada, not Quebec but still French. I’m probably sheltered from it a bit as we are super liberal, much more than English Canada. I don’t really see that much insanity here, even in my tiny little fisherman village. Not to say everybody is cool. I have noticed a change in the way some people look at me in the past couple years, being a transwoman in such a small place where people have never really left their backyards and seen anything. Before it was mostly curiosity, surprise, whatever. Now I see people look at me in disgust and anger. I’ve seen a mother grab her kid and scuttle away to the other side of a store as if I could give them the trans. I’ve had someone spit in my sandwich at a fast food restaurant, although that happened in a neighbouring English city (Risky to do something like that here, I probably know your dad 😉).
Nothing anywhere near that kind of shit happened to me even just 2 years ago and I’ve been loudly trans here for over 7 years now. I 100% attribute that to the hateful and ignorant shit that’s being spewed out by the right and the crazy religious folk being picked up here by people who don’t know any better.
Shit, that was a rant. I don’t even remember what we were talking about. Sorry hahah.
Sorry but I did lolz at this - as if!:-P Part of the funny is that the Bible says “Judge not, lest you be judged”, even though it also has a whole list of judgements for leaders, who were supposed to be held to a much higher standard. So to ignore the latter - letting leaders touch little children who would rather not - while also ignoring the former… they aren’t even reading their own book.:-(
Though I guess you see that it is not just Christianity. In some parts of the world it is Muslim, in others it is Hindu, in still others it could be Buddhism, or whatever. One day there will even be fundamentalist atheists I believe, despite how it promotes skeptical thought and so that is fairly rare for now, human nature is just that lazy!
Anyway I am proud of you. Stand up for yourself! That is definitely not my situation but who the fuq cares, b/c you need to be (free to) be you. And that’s the problem with Authoritarianism (here’s a another link to a whole other series on that if you want - this Innuendo Studies should have nothing whatsoever to do with HBO, and therefore you probably have seen it already:-P): they lack empathy and allow - even perform - the judgement onto others (except their leaders, who they conveniently exempt from all proper consequences of their actions), never dreaming that one day it will wrap back around to themselves. “First they came for…” That process demeans us all, and yeah, one day it may be too late to reverse course. How ironic that you are showing compassion to them even while they spit at you (as Jesus would, hehe:-P). Stay strong, my sister in empathy!:-)
Speaking of, I hope you never catch up to us:-). Though as you say, the English speaking part is a bit closer to us in that regard, highly unfortunately:-(. Though, you still having a somewhat functional government does mean that you should be alright:-).
Though I guess you see that it is not just Christianity.
Nah, it is absolutely not just Christianity. I see all religion as the same thing. It’s the same people, just different stories. I include some atheists in there hahah. Fervent atheists and “believers” share many of the same traits. I don’t think the particular religion has anything to do with it, it’s probably that people who are susceptible to following a religion are more susceptible to fall for tricks and support authoritarianism. I don’t wanna sound like I think I’m better than anyone who follows a religion. I think having some kind of belief system is essential and that we all have that built in us so it’s kinda natural for people to gravitate towards religions. I have my own whacky belief system that I’m sure some people would scoff at but it’s mine and it has served me well so far. I just think beliefs are a very personal thing and that’s how it should’ve stayed. Religions are more about control than they are about beliefs and values.
Anyway I am proud of you. Stand up for yourself! That is definitely not my situation but who the fuq cares, b/c you need to be (free to) be you. And that’s the problem with Authoritarianism
Thank you! I am and I will continue doing so. I will not live in an authoritarian society. If you have but one ally in this fight against authoritarianism, it’ll be us trans folk hahah. We will not be shoved back into the closet peacefully, this I can promise.
this Innuendo Studies should have nothing whatsoever to do with HBO, and therefore you probably have seen it already:-P)
I don’t remember it but apparently at some point I’ve watched the first two videos of the series. I’ll try to give it another shot hahah
they lack empathy and allow - even perform - the judgement onto others (except their leaders, who they conveniently exempt from all proper consequences of their actions)
Yeah those are the ones that really scare me. Some people are just sociopaths and sycophants, they need to be recognized for what they are but people can’t even tell what’s real and what’s not anymore. We’ve propped up these kinds of people for decades on TV and in the media and now people think that’s normal. Today I look at some of your politicians bickering and I feel like I’m watching an episode of Jersey Shore. Similar thing is happening with the current conservatives in Canada, it’s actually painfully cringy to see. It’s like high school type of shit all over again. Not something we should be seeing in parliament.
How ironic that you are showing compassion to them even while they spit at you (as Jesus would, hehe:-P). Stay strong, my sister in empathy!:-)
HAHAH, yeah I am very far from being a Christ figure but many people have called me Jesus during my life. Mostly because of my hair, I did kinda look like your classic White Jesus™ 😂. I just have a really hard time abandoning anyone and I can’t stay mad at anyone because it absolutely eats me inside if I do. I always try to find excuses for peoples behaviours. My compassion might also come from a bit of a selfish place as there was a time where I could’ve probably fallen for shit like that, hell, I have. I’ve been a piece of shit in the past but it all stemmed from a combination personal issues and growing up in a very secluded environment. I don’t think I could’ve fallen as deep into hatred and ignorance as some seem to be these days but still, we’re not that different. I know why I was that way, I may not know why others are but I know why I was, and in the end I was “redeemable”. I think most people are and it’s hard for me not to give everyone a chance.
Though, you still having a somewhat functional government does mean that you should be alright:-)
For what it’s worth, I think you guys will be alright too. Have some faith :3 (But don’t stop doing what you do)
Spot on! Jesus Himself hated the religious hypocrites (“Karens”) of His day, calling them vipers and white-washed tombs, full of rot and decay even if slapped with a fresh coat of paint on the outside. Some people hear that and say “naw, I think I, as a Bishop or Pope or whatever, know far better than Jesus what ‘Christianity’ should mean”, and then proceed to fondle little humans, but others think the latter is detestable and enormously gross:-(. Humans gonna human I guess, but it’s not all equally good or bad - some of it is INSANE, and inside of us all we know what’s what. Like if it happened to us or to someone we care about and we get mad, then we KNOW WTF is up. So those rich old white dudes (or equivalent thereof) are not even consistent with themselves, in that the walk does not match the talk, ergo it is false.
Ngl though, controlling the masses may have had a use, back in the day, before most people could read, by providing incentives for them to not kill and rape and steal and such. Even so, who can blame people then for being angry at finding out that their leaders don’t even belief the crap that they’re preaching? Which ironically doesn’t even mean that it is false, just that I am agreeing with you about the need to dissect the issue by separating the “belief system” from the “authoritarian religion” components. In any case, here in the USA the latter got hijacked and evangelical christians especially seem to almost equate “God = vote for guns & conservatism”. I almost just said conservatism there except that itself is too bland for many of them, who want to continue pushing to ever more far-right schemes. “God” for them is in-group selection.
Switching topics a bit, most of my friends online have been gay men. I am a cis het male btw, not that it matters but I am saying that I am friends with them not b/c of those shared aspects but more, I think, b/c they have empathy. People who have been through some shit end up having more “character” than those who do not. Entitled/spoiled people are the types to spit in your food, never dreaming of what else you have been through, and then they go and add to that burden. THEY would not want that done to THEM, yet they do it to you. On the other hand, people who are heavily bullied may end up broken and mean to others, so I am not saying that exposure to trauma causes empathy, but I am saying that it is a necessary if not sufficient component, it seems to me. So you have had that opportunity that they did not, and chose to do something with it. And that is indeed something worth being proud of!:-)
If you like the videos then I am glad that I sent the link to remind you of them. They are not light fare, but I did so enjoy pouring through them slowly, digesting each one in turn. It’s like a college course in the material!:-)
As for the media on the other side, well, let’s just say that Russia works in mysterious ways. Sometimes it is poisoning, but other times far more subtle. These days they are not even trying to be subtle anymore - Republican conventions are held in literal Moscow, as well as places such as Hungary. They are like minds, and Russia would be a fool not to partner with them, e.g. in that recent Tucker Carlson video interviewing Putin, if it would help speed the conversion of the USA from a foe to an ally. People do not spot it through b/c they are GOOD at what they do! Like, they poin ted out how Hillary Clinton was “corrupt” - b/c she WAS! The Supreme Court asked her to send all of her emails to them, and she told them “lolz no, Im gonna delete the ones that I do not want you to see first”. Nobody can say that the optics surrounding that are anything remotely close to good. In fact, I gotta be careful here or I will go full-on rant on you, but remember that Trump did not win that election so much as she lost it (likewise, he did not win the Republican nomination either, so much as Ted Cruz lost it, after JEB botched the job). Whoever leaked her emails did the real work in that election - but then it was her actual words that she actually said and her actual actions that doomed her. Trump was outright shocked to have won - he never planned on it, did not really want it even, and gave some very serious thoughts to turning it down even! And even when he took it, he still just wanted to do the TV show that he had planned previously, on top of the job of being president. He is like a child - it is the situation that put him there, not (so much) his own intentions. In fact, I even have a little empathy for him too - he didn’t want it, but he did try, despite the job being well beyond his capacity, and that’s actually the tiniest shadow of a little light there (1 out of 1000 but still… it is worth noting and giving him that much credit at least; along with the blame for you know, the actual genocide of Americans by e.g. telling them that the virus was not airbone when he KNEW that it was).
Anyway, it is not “just” the people that are broken, I agree, it is the SYSTEM. Although the system is made up out of people so… that’s where I get lost. But that is also why I think what you are saying is good, about not abandoning people: b/c if enough people did THAT, then the system would not be the way it is today. Somewhere in there I do think that the carrot needs to be set down and the stick picked up, and I acknowledge that I have never figured out that the line that should distinguish between them, but I think that when you KNOW that the carrot is the thing to be done and you do it ANYWAY despite the cost, that is integrity. Which some few authoritarians that I have met personally I feel like also have, in that they turn to the stick too readily and without understanding it, but most - e.g. those who showed up at the capitol - do not, b/c how can you “protect” the Constitution if you haven’t even so much as read it? A “coup” to overturn something is NOT the same thing as “saving” it, dummies!!!:-(
Which is why I have to admit that I have lost the faith: with ~80% of Americans being somewhere in the middle between the extreme left and right sides, and with good-hearted and honest people with some amount of integrity on both sides, yes and some child-like mindsets too, this isn’t something that most of us even seem to want to fight about? However, our media sells fear and extremism, and our politicians too, and with all these parasites sucking up our attention, how then is someone supposed to rise up and actually GOVERN? As ironically Biden has been doing, or at least trying to, though Congress and the Supreme Court seem more responsible for a goodly fraction of the issues that most average Americans are experiencing right now (not Gaza, but that’s a whole other thing, and frankly that doesn’t directly affect most “average” Americans either). I hope something will restore my faith, but I am not optimistic about that:-(. Therefore I believe that I am living in a dying country, but I do whatever I can to help others in my vicinity and abroad nonetheless, not b/c I think I will necessarily accomplish anything truly great there, but simply b/c it is who I am and how I want to be. We all need to live out our authentic lives, being our true selves:-).
Ngl though, controlling the masses may have had a use, back in the day, before most people could read, by providing incentives for them to not kill and rape and steal and such.
Oh yeah I 100% agree with that. Religion was basically a proto-government. It’s funny, reminds me of when I was in high school. I was part of the student newspaper and at some point I had written an article about religion and how it is basically an antiquated form of government and how it has no real purpose anymore. Edgy I know. The next Monday in school I heard about how the town priest had read the article during Sunday mass. Apparently he was NOT happy about it. I was pretty proud of that one, not gonna lie 😂.
People who have been through some shit end up having more “character” than those who do not.
Yeah I think so too, but it can also easily go both ways, especially when you can’t manage to get out of said shit. (Nvm I see now that I should read a bit further before starting to type bahah)
I do believe however that the ones who’ve inflicted the most pain on others as a result of their own pain have the potential to be the ones who try their hardest to make up for their mistakes, which is why I try hard to not discount anyone. I might be wearing rose-colored glasses but I have to keep them on.
As for the media on the other side
Yeah the right associating with leaders such as Putin and Orbán is fucked up on so many levels. They definitely are good at what they do. That’s one of the reasons I dislike how people on both sides treat each other like the other side is dumb. All sides have brilliant people and ignorant followers. And OF COURSE Hillary was corrupt, nobody who gets that far in politics has clean hands. They’re all corrupted in some way or another but not necessarily equally. Centrist cunts fuck off.
One of my best friends, brilliant guy, doctor of philosophy. A couple of years ago he decided he wanted to get into politics so he started small. He decided to run for city council here and won. It didn’t even take a year for him to absolutely hate the game. He said he could not sleep anymore, couldn’t handle how corrupted even stupid little city council members could be. He said there was no way for him to stay there without getting his own hands dirty and he wanted no part of it. Within a year he quit, and left the town to go teach halfway across the world at the University of Liverpool where he still is now. He couldn’t stand seeing these people anymore. It made sense then why our little town is dying. Even the tiniest amount of power is immense to tiny people. I’d like to see the day where we can offload a lot of these duties to some kind of AI, but that’s a whole other can of worms that we are not ready to open.
Trump is someone I have a very hard time having any empathy for, but yeah, I also have a teeny tiny bit, because he really is nothing but a child. However I don’t have any hope for him to ever turn around and do something good other than for his own selfish reasons. He is too old to grow up now.
Oh and on the subject of the Carlson-Putin interview. You wouldn’t happen to have a link for a re-upload? I still haven’t watched it because I refuse to even give it a single official view but I need to see it.
Anyway, it is not “just” the people that are broken, I agree, it is the SYSTEM.
It is. We are all products of our environment. I don’t think we actually have much control over anything, not even ourselves. That’s definitely one of my wacky beliefs. I’ve never been able to shake off the idea that we live in a deterministic universe so it is hard for me to stay mad at a person or a group of people when I don’t even believe they had any real control over their action. It would be like getting mad at the messenger. We still need to get mad and fight, but not the people. We need to fight ideas with better ideas. We need to love the people because they are us and we are them. Without them there is no us and vice versa. A world with no opposition is a world that would go sideways in no time.
In-fighting between humans has been a thing since forever and look where we are now. We are wayyyyy better off in most aspects than we were not that long ago. It’s easy to forget that when we’re forced to take a step backwards but we as a species will come back from this, we always have. At least, assuming we manage to heal our planet but unfortunately we can’t do that if we don’t somehow heal ourselves first.
A “coup” to overturn something is NOT the same thing as “saving” it, dummies!!!:-(
Yeahhh… I don’t even know what to say about Jan 6th. That is such a messed up thing. I think that a lot of people who showed up at the Capitol didn’t have bad intentions, they were misled. Although I’m sure there were plenty involved that absolutely had bad intentions. Most of them problably weren’t there in person.
this isn’t something that most of us even seem to want to fight about? However, our media sells fear and extremism, and our politicians too
That’s pretty much it. Most people don’t want to fight but the news, the politicians, corporations, whatever, they’ve all figured out that pitting us against each other was very profitable. Not only do we have parasites at home, we have parasites on the outside as well trying to creep in and profit as well. At this point it feels like we can’t trust anything or anyone, it’s no surprise that there is a rise in conspiracy brains.
I hope something will restore my faith, but I am not optimistic about that:-(. Therefore I believe that I am living in a dying country
But you kinda are hahah, when have you ever seen something that is not dying in some way or another? All nations will eventually disappear or change into something completely unrecognizable. Either something new and better is born out of the seemingly rotting carcass that is the American empire, or something terrible to you will take it’s place and that same cycle will repeat. It’s terrifying to think that we could lose our way of life, I tend to talk like I’m not scared but really I’m terrified. It’s the unknown part of it that is really scary.
I do whatever I can to help others in my vicinity and abroad nonetheless, not b/c I think I will necessarily accomplish anything truly great there, but simply b/c it is who I am and how I want to be. We all need to live out our authentic lives, being our true selves:-).
Those who aspire for greatness often end up accomplishing nothing. You’re doing the right thing. It’s impossible for one person to change the big picture but you can absolutely change what is immediately around you and that is a very powerful thing. That is where we need to put our energy. I feel like the internet has done us a great disservice in that area. We are not ready to be so connected yet. We’ve lost the will to fight locally because we are way too overwhelmed with things that are happening where we are absolutely powerless to help. Take care of your close ones so that they can take of theirs. The rest will work itself out. This is no time for apathy.
(Are we going for the longest comment thread in Lemmy history or what?)
(There is a character limit for comments - or at least there was for Kbin.social and I assume for Lemmy as well? - so at the very least we are constrained in the length of each segment:-)
If you are interested, there is a book by the philosopher Daniel Dennett - who is a halfway decent author, e.g. of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, which is a DEEEEEEP look into evolution - called “Breaking the Spell”, where he delves into the mechanics of studying religion with the same tools that you would study anything else. The latter is really boring so that book of his I normally do not so much recommend reading in-depth, but in your case perhaps you would, b/c in it he says things vaguely similar to what you are saying. Chiefly, that tribalism was adaptive to the evolution of mankind, and while nationalism helped lift us up beyond that, the next step was due to religion, which allowed us to cross national boundaries. Like, “HEY there fellow Pastafarian brutha/sistah - [Joey from Friend’s voice] how you doin?”
So I would call it like a “meta-government”, due to how it sits on top of existing governmental structures. Like in a lot of European countries - e.g. Spain - people that I have talked to that grew up there were angry b/c they paid one set of taxes to their government, and another set of taxes to the Catholic Church all the way in Rome, which like Americans they were subjected to “taxation without representation”, and worse yet they simply had no choice in the matter at all - they did not “choose” that religion, but merely by being born there that choice was made for them.
Ngl, but the Catholic Church does do some good stuff - and whenever it e.g. feeds the hungry, visits the sick and constrained in prison, whenever it does as the Bible says and “takes care of widows and orphans”, THAT is awesome and I support THOSE efforts 100%. Ofc when they lie and steal and cheat and murder and rape then THOSE efforts I am 100% against. I used to be very angry at the Catholic Church for a long time myself, though fortunately I healed, and now I see that the people inside of it do what they do not even just in spite of their religion, but sometimes because of it, though we are imperfect humans, and some are fairly deadly. It is just that with any political structure, or religious, or anything at all involving humans (and also chimpanzees, not only our closest living relative but also one of the only other species on earth that takes active delight in murder!), a close watch must be kept on it to ensure that it does not go astray.
And yeah, I keep hearing stories of people who step up to be that kind of old-school “statemen” rather than a “career politician”, who cannot stand it and must leave. The literal DEATH THREATS offered to those people, by the most extremist among us, coupled ofc with the actual murders (like the Boeing whistleblower), have made me realize that the concept of “Illuminati” is absolutely real - maybe not as an actual irl society with a special ring and what-not, but obviously power corrupts, and obviously those who have it will concentrate the highest amount of resources to themselves - that’s just human monkey nature.
I also quit something - a teaching position, not politics - and I have a great deal of sympathy with what he went through, it is not easy to just walk away, but ofc it would have been far worse if he had stayed and compromised himself. Everybody just said “try to do the best you can, and help those who you can”… implying to ignore everyone else, just take the money from the parents and run, never mind that one person physically cannot do the task justice, oh and then double the number of students on top of that, b/c why the fuck not, the computer will do all the “real work” anyway, right? :-| I would rather Epstein myself than heap such heavy burdens upon people though, saddling them with large debts while not helping them get ahead in life, and worse making them think they know something, by altering the externally-reviewed scores so that the school (I don’t want to say which one) could avoid losing its accreditation, which it had already been warned about previously and was in danger of it happening again. You REALLY cannot help people, when the entire system is stacked against you to prevent that. Or perhaps I am naive and I should have stayed in, to be “one of the good ones”, except I just am not that kind of person. It would have killed me, inside. So yeah, I GET IT. Somewhat, or at least think I do:-).
And yeah, maybe your town will die off then. Perhaps even… I doubt you will take this the wrong way so I will go ahead and say it: perhaps it should? Survival of the fittest and all, and that applies to towns just as well as species, and even the United States of America: if we do not “fit” into the existing world structure, then we might go down, at Putin’s behest but also by our own stinking bloody hands, b/c we are too stupid to realize that the whispers he sent to us (e.g. “the vaccine is harmful”) were not real nor even “our own”.
AI will not be ready in time for us - maybe some future generation, but not us. Nor would we really want it to - shows such as Wall-E (and I have read similar stories for that identical concept written decades prior to that) have convinced me that when life gets comfortable enough, people will simply give up and allow “mommy”(/“daddy”) to take care of them. Which is, to a large degree, the very thing that has put America into this mess we are in now? Laziness, more than any other singular factor.
Try to have empathy for Trump: fuck we all know that he does not deserve it, but it is not for him, it is for you. I don’t care one bit about him, but I don’t want you to have that monkey on your back, as the saying goes. He is a scared, whiney, piss baby who puts dumps into his diapers and then has trouble walking about. He acts that way out of fear, and b/c he knows no other way. In MANY ways, him being put in charge was not his fault, but rather those of people who are far more crafty (and have espionage capabilities) than he. He is a victim too - he is not just a symptom, mind you, being also a cause, but among the many things that he is, a victim is one of them. You or I possibly could have ended up there as well. Except, and this is the part I am learning more recently, we NEVER would - maybe if our entire backstory had been different, but as we are now and looking forward, we NEVER would have allowed that. There truly is a RIGHT and a WRONG, and Trump is all kinds of the latter. He is barely more than a monkey, while we have moved upwards by the power of Mind, and short of like dementia or some such, I cannot imagine anyone who has done that could ever turn back down. I used to shy away from that thought, b/c it seems not humble (in the midwestern USA that is YUGE to never appear anything other than humble:-P). But now I realize what true humility is: finding the Truth, whatever it is, and paying homage to that. Which makes him, and more importantly the system that put him there, my enemy. And even so, I still have empathy for the fucker… but I would still consign him to jail.
Likewise, I refused to watch the Tucker Carlson video too:-). But if you don’t want to watch the whole thing - like me:-) - here is one with just the highlights and commentary from the GREATEST PERSON ALIVE ON THE PLANET EARTH RIGHT NOW, Jon Stewart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM2h3KnWAWY. It is The Daily Show, which I believe should not be HBO, so I hope you can see it.
Determinism: I also believe that. I cannot prove it though, so I don’t hold to it too hard. Also, it doesn’t really matter, to me, b/c even if things were fore-ordained, we don’t know what those things are, so we must treat each new event as totally not that way, yes? :-P It’s just an abstract idea in my head, consistent with there being 2 time dimensions (if I am remembering that correctly), or anyway if there is just the one, then it may be something along the lines of an exapanding wave of matter as it moves outwards from the Big Bang at constant velocity. If that were true, then time travel should be impossible, b/c once the wave passes, past times literally do not exist anymore, nor do future ones yet. An alternate formulation is that both past and present DO exist, and if we had the technology then we could travel along it, always “forward” but bucking the universal constant outwards pressure and instead returning to a “past” time/space continuum. Also, an outside observer could “see” our future. Then again, a “God” (like The Matrix computer), could foresee the future in other ways, not with foresight but simply with raw power, just like the Russian leader Gorbachev said “we will bury you”… and then decades later, it is happening - he meant it, he set things in motion to make it happen, nobody bothered to try to fight back, and, here we are). I think these thoughts are straight-forward from Einstein’s theory that time & space are far more connected than people previously conceived. Ofc we do not “know”, but is fun to conjecture nonetheless:-).
But then I read something from CS Lewis that entirely changed my thinking on that subject forever (one of his deep philosophy essays, I do not now recall which one). Yes, we may be pawns on a chessboard, but who is to say that WE are not ALSO the players!? If life is a video game, WE could be the characters, but “WE” could ALSO be coming down into our avatars from above. Truth tends to be stranger than fiction, and we truly don’t know what’s what, so any explanation could be the One. It could be just as likely that we are all “one”, part of Gai and each having a dream of our own lives as if we are separated.
And moreover… damn I hit the character limit. Well, for now I will continue to a part 2, but I need to stop doing that at some point:-P.
If you are interested, there is a book by the philosopher Daniel Dennett - who is a halfway decent author, e.g. of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
That does sound right up my alley I’ll write it down. However my reading ability lately is not great. If I read 2 books in a year, that was a good year hahah. I already have a pile of books on my desk that has been there for about a year now and once in a while a book gets added on top but none get removed from the bottom 😭
Ngl, but the Catholic Church does do some good stuff
Absolutely! Not only the Catholic Church, many religions do a ton of good stuff. It’s sad that these days it is difficult to see that part of it. I have family members who would not be where they are today if it wasn’t for Religion. I don’t even know what their religion is called but it’s not one of the main ones around here. It’s a very small church. They’ve never talked about it, they’ve never tried to get anyone else in the family involved and I respect that so much. All it did for them is put them on a much better path than the one they were on. They went from violent alcoholics to basically loving saints and there is nothing fake or forced about it, if you know what I mean. I still feel
I used to be very angry at the Catholic Church for a long time myself, though fortunately I healed
I can relate to that a lot. I still feel guilty about how I used to be around religion. Particularly with my mom. She used to believe and for some reason I couldn’t accept that. I would often talk shit about religion and her beliefs, try to convince her it was all just bullshit. Now I just ask myself why the fuck would I want to take that away from someone? Especially someone like my mom who basically just used religion as a way to calm her mind about the afterlife. Worst part, the most painful part, is that one of the reasons she probably believed so strongly was because it was a way for her to believe that she might be able to see my brother who died before I was born.
I also quit something - a teaching position
Ouch… I’m really sorry you’ve had to leave a teaching position. That is a tragedy, but don’t bother second guessing your decision. Whatever you did was the right thing to do. You can still teach even though you aren’t in a teaching position and I have a feeling you weren’t in it for the fame and the fortune that comes with the official title of “Teacher”.
And yeah, maybe your town will die off then. Perhaps even… I doubt you will take this the wrong way so I will go ahead and say it: perhaps it should?
Bahah none taken at all. It would be pretty hypocritical of me to take offense when I basically said the same thing about your country! It just is what it is sometimes. Maybe if we all understood that, we would take better care of what we have but no. Too many people take what we have for granted.
Try to have empathy for Trump …
Agreed. There are no monkeys named Trump on my back at this point. In a way I don’t really “care” anymore. I’d rather concentrate on the things that are happening rather than the people who we view as the cause of those things because it’s never really just one person. Trump wouldn’t have been able to do much if there wasn’t a growing mass of people who somehow connected to the things he was saying. To put the blame on one person would be ignoring the true root of the issues. Do I believe he deserve every punishment he gets? Yes, 100%. What he does not deserve is my time and energy. I’d rather spend it on people who might end up voting for someone like him.
…from the GREATEST PERSON ALIVE ON THE PLANET EARTH RIGHT NOW, Jon Stewart…
Hahah! Yaaaass! I wanted to watch the whole thing raw before I watched Jon Stewart on it though but I will probably end up just watching that instead.
Determinism: I also believe that. I cannot prove it though, so I don’t hold to it too hard.
Ahhhh yes. This is the part that really sent my brain into a death spiral 😂 It still does. It is just such a “fun” thing to think about. There is so much to think about when you know nothing. I see it as any other kind of belief. Since you can’t prove it, it should only enter the equation when nothing else can help you make a decision. When there is no right or wrong, or all options are appear to be either right or wrong, to me that is when beliefs are useful. Then again, that is kind of why we’re at this point in time right now. Ironic. Some beliefs are just more dangerous than others I guess, or maybe it’s just the incompatibility between certain beliefs that is dangerous.
And yes, since we can’t know whether we have free-will or not, we must treat it as if we did because our brain tells us we do but we still need to remember that our brain lies all the time. Well, maybe not as much lie as it omits a lot of information.
he meant it, he set things in motion to make it happen, nobody bothered to try to fight back, and, here we are)
I like that thought. Inertia isn’t only applicable to the physical world.
I have to apologize, I am having a hard time grasping your thoughts on space and time. If you want you can try to re-word that for me as I wouldn’t mind having a clearer picture and toying with your ideas a bit.
Yes, we may be pawns on a chessboard, but who is to say that WE are not ALSO the players!? If life is a video game, WE could be the characters, but “WE” could ALSO be coming down into our avatars from above.
Oh god yeah. That is something that I have thought about a lot. I also like the idea that we are all just one consciousness experiencing itself from within, or just a bunch of thoughts trying to sort themselves out in some sort of giant cosmic brain. I dunno hahah, these ideas can go pretty far and get pretty crazy. It’s just so much fun to think about. I miss Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna and their crazy psychedelic-fueled ideas.
----PART 2----
And moreover, who cares?
Exactly.
That said, I halfway agree in that I think people carry around so many strange things, that when you talk with someone you are only partway talking to them, and partway talking to all the stuff that they bring with them.
Oh it is very rare that you will get to truly talk to someone. I think you’re always interacting with a translation layer that sits between an interface and the actual mind.
I do believe there is a higher mind and that we all have it but that it can be buried and suffocated. It’s very difficult to stay open-minded these days as we are constantly bombarded with crap coming from all directions. I can’t blame anyone for closing that door after a while. I also think that you should never really be interacting with the same person twice. Healthy people grow and change constantly.
I have thought that before, but can never seem to hold onto it
I know exactly what you mean. It is extremely difficult to hold on to. It takes a conscious effort to do so but it is absolutely worthwhile. To me it offloads a ton of weight from my shoulders.
This is part 1, then space-time wonkiness in part 2:-).
Sheee’s bAAAAaaaaack 😱
She is absolutely the BEst biTCH!:-) (I really hope you take that as I meant it, in that I mean that you are awesome:-P)
Ngl, I think Darwin’s Dangerous Idea took me a year to read through. Except that’s got to be a lie - it surely took more:-P. And I never did finish the other one… - nor iirc did the person who unloaded gave it to me:-( Anyway I am glad that I read the former one at least, and have at least heard about the latter, b/c when I was young I was taught “young earth creationism” (as pretty much everyone in America is, despite how most people outside of the USA iirc pretty much never are), and that (first one) was perhaps the chief resource that helped me logic+reason my way out of that - not alone, but it helped. So it had personal significance to me to be worth that investment of time. I don’t know if either of those books would have that kind of punch in your case, but I did want to share so that you could make that determination on your own, knowing that they exist:-).
Your example of Religion is perfect: real or not, it has enormous benefits, as too does the placebo effect. Jesus Himself used it, even as He commanded to redirect it - e.g. towards taking care of widows and orphans, which implies everything up to and short of that as well, e.g. paying workers their wages. That said, it can also become horribly corrupt, as can anything that People touch - e.g. Science+Technology can lead to nuclear war, genocidal tools, even experimentation upon being beings; Education can be twisted to become “re-education” in a totalitarian regime (see e.g. Uighurs); Math can… well I am sure it can somehow be used poorly as well, maybe by making numbers go brrr i.e. chasing after “efficiency” i.e. profits at the expense of the human beings involved:-(.
But if it can be used poorly, then surely it could be used well too, like you mentioned, to turn someone’s life around by offering them a REASON to exist. We all need that. Fome some, atheism or agnosticism is enough, but not everyone - e.g. not me personally. That said, it can also be super great to break away from a poorly-used, poorly-run one, like an overbearing one that actively hurts people. Especially here - but really almost anywhere except the hardest of the hard sciences, like it happens in politics - there is a huge gulf between things like the real, actual, full Truth (which for religion nobody knows - e.g. the Christian Bible even explicitly says that it is impossible to know, like “now we see dimly, in part, as if a reflection from a dirty mirror…”), and then what we think is true, and then also distinct from both of those how people chasing after power use as their method to control others. e.g. when I am at my job, it is not Religion that is used to control me - all mention of personal beliefs is highly taboo - so there it is rather Authoritarianism that accomplishes that purpose for them. Relion is one tool of control over the masses, but it is not the only one, and it is not inherently either good or evil. (Arguably it is good when it says to e.g. “hold fast to what is true”, but that can be bad when what it thought to be true is incorrect, and the people are willing to e.g. behead someone over a disagreement)
Moreover, even full “Logic”, in the hands of a child - i.e. virtually everyone, especially those among us that choose to act that way, as in child-ish behaviors observed in adults - becomes mere “justification”, to serve their ends, rather than being an end unto itself. This is why I place a lot of value on “stories” to help us see that - Isaac Asimov, Pinocchio, Star Trek TOS’s Spock’s emotional quest to gain parental & societal validation through (ironically) expunging his emotions by achieving Kolinahr (his motivations for that are explained much deeper in the book than the movie), and the converse of that in TNG Data’s perfectly-logical quest to become more “human” by discarding logic when appropriate, e.g. to appreciate and be able to tell a joke.:-D So… even logic itself, becomes a mere tool to be used for some aim, in the hands of our monkey selves. Whether it “should” be this way or not is irrelevant, as it simply is.
So anyway, philosophy is so extremely central to these foundational aspects of our lives, and many can find their meaning in Religion, and in Logic, and I like that:-). It deepens us, which is good, but if used improperly, then just like a surgeon’s scalpal or again like any tool at all, it can harm us just as if not all the more readily, by virtue of touching our lives in such a vulnerable spot.
Speaking of, if I can make a suggestion: PLEASE only think about these matters if and when they are fun for you. I want to enjoy your company, not add to your burdens:-), like if any of this would stress you out.:-D
And further along those lines, I hope that you take heart in that all of our relationships with our mothers are this way, it seems to me. From when you were the tiniest little baby all the way forward until now - e.g. you would kick and scream and spit up onto her, not even b/c it was “her”, but then later especially, yeah, b/c it was specifically her. I am no child psychologist, but that is the “normal” state of affairs it seems. For all monkeys even. At the same time, I am glad that you grew out of it. Also fwiw, that seems unlikely to be the sole reason that anyone would “believe” something - surely it must have been a big one, but also if she grew up in it that would be another point towards it, the “sunk cost fallacy” you know, and so on. But everyone is different - e.g. for me I don’t even necessarily “want” to believe (or if I do then I am deceiving myself - which is also a distinct possibility!), but I have to chase down wherever my investigations lead me, and if that causes me to ditch it one day then I will. On the other hand, the latter viewpoint of life is rather unusual, so I cannot project that onto everyone, and yeah maybe she actually was holding onto that thought for her own sake, plus whatever other background reasons, in which case I am glad that she had it - false or no. We do need our security blankets - I used to think the more solid they are the better, but the more I see how society is crumbling around us (and the corresponding suicide rates), the more I question my belief in that. To be clear, I still believe that for ME, and I would hope that others would STRIVE for the same, but I must accept that the vast majority of people will not do so.
I am not really a “teacher” at all I think - it was kind of a career path that people just “expect” for others to follow, but my problem is that I only care about helping people who WANT to be helped, so I think I am more of a “helper” at heart. So now I am a software engineer where I get to do that. I have lost some autonomy, but that could be good as well. I never had any ability to truly help people who REFUSE to be helped, and it would have killed me to keep trying and fail. In that sense, NOBODY who has that kind of “teacher” mindset should have a job where they have to actually TEACH in today’s current capitalist societal framework. It self-selects otherwise.
What he [Trump] does not deserve is my time and energy.
YAAAASSSS QUEEN! Except… hrm, it will keep coming up, every few years and also rearing its ugly head. It is something that we cannot ignore, except for the sake of our mental health, we have to, even though we couldn’t if we tried. Doesn’t that just about sum it up!?!?
I also “feel like” I know what you mean there about predestination or whatever we are calling it - “fate”. It is one of the most dangerous mindsets b/c it robs people of their agency - but we really do seem to also have that!?!? (Maybe?) So it’s like there’s a Truth there somewhere, but darned if I know what it is, and whether True or not, how does it even help me either way? This is why I like CS Lewis: he also talked like that, having lived it first. Like, if we had not believed that first, and then late in life learned it, that might have been more helpful for us. Instead, we (all three of us) stumbled upon it earlier, and now do not know how it fits in with the rest of the framework. I liken it to a mage/sorcerer type who learned some kind of arcane branch of magic, so while their buddies are going around doing all the cool, useful stuff like fireball, we basically got nothing to show for it, except that we happen to know (what might be, MAYBE) a deeper Truth. It could end up being the most powerful magic of all, but what good does that do for us, practically speaking, on a daily basis?!
If you were asking more about the Russia connection, Fox News is what has damaged America, and Russia funded/started Fox News. There is a documentary about it on Netflix, which I haven’t watched, just piecing that together from other sources. But I am guessing that you rather meant the other thing:-).
But I will have to put the time/space thing in a separate part again due to space limitations.:-D
It is fundamentally difficult to grasp, yeah. CS Lewis has an illustration that I will borrow blatantly steal outright: imagine an outside entity who “sees” the entire trajectory of your life as a line, with all its twists and curves, and then, perhaps on a whim or to make it more beautiful art, decides to “outline” it, like maybe a highlighter or let us rather say one line “above”/to the left and another line “below”/to the right of it. From your perspective, your life appears “hemmed in”, outlined, bordered by those two lines - as if you had no choices in the matter? Yet, that outside agent was the one who drew the lines, but following YOUR choices! That at least is the simplistic version, but it gets even weirder if, while the outside agent is drawing those outlining lines, your own lifeline changes in response. So if the agent starts drawing from the beginning of your life to the end, the final trajectory could change - according to YOUR choices, but in response to THEIR choices, which were themselves based on YOUR choices to begin with. Notice the caveat inherent in that: the “you” may change, from an alternate-reality you without interference from that outside agent, to now the “you” that has done so.
Even weirder, what if that “outside agent”, who I mentioned earlier plays you like a chess piece pawn, isn’t “God” or whatever, but YOU! In that case, “you” are the video game or storybook or whatever character, but in this formulation, the external agent is also YOU - moreover it would be the REAL you, whereas the one inside this reality is the lesser version. Ofc, here you must somehow have “forgotten” your true, higher self. And as you brought up, there may not be a 1:1 correlation between each of us down here vs. ourselves up there - all humans could come from just 1 or a few up there, or whatever. Anything is possible there, and we are only limited by our imaginations here. What we know for certain here is that what Religion tells us in this regard is fundamentally flawed and wrong - b/c it is inconsistent e.g. even the people saying so do not practice what they preach - but we do not necessarily know what the True reality is. Now we see only in part. I still like thinking along those lines b/c there are multiple ways to be wrong, and thereby thinking along several different lines could help lead us to Truth - e.g. we might not be “actually” one being (I sincerely doubt it, I see no evidence of it at least), but is there any doubt that we are all “connected” nonetheless?
you should never really be interacting with the same person twice.
This one hits me hard - my (autism-spectrumed?) brain constantly forgets this and wants to pick up right where it left off - more a reflection of my own reduced capacity to handle things than anything to do with reality. Speaking of, I had already forgotten that beautiful perspective that you had shared with me about nations changing. Stuff at my job, weird weather, for a few days my exercise schedule has been interrupted and I am just “off”, and just like that it had already slipped through my fingers, again. Maybe, or at least I mean it did at the conscious level. That said, I tend not to try to hold onto anything too strongly, trusting that if it is good that it will find its way back to me in time. That… is nowhere close to true though:-(, and yet I know that I CANNOT hold onto things no matter how I try, so it is demotivating to even try.
And I think there is an evolutionary reason for this: community. No one person - a sage on a mountaintop lets say - can or even should really try to have it all, all the knowledge, all the wisdom, all the perfection. Rather, if we choose to surround ourselves with those who are worthwhile, and distance ourselves from idiots (it seems sad but what else can you do but that? they are hell-bent on their own destruction, and they will absolutely take you down with them!), then we can keep reminding ourselves of these beautiful Truths.
Or, so I say anyway, but then I don’t actually DO it - oopsie, I guess I too am one of those who says one thing yet does the polar opposite, an “idiot” even. As too are we all, but one difference, not sure I can take “credit” for any of it but just saying it as a fact (or so it seems to me): some of us, for whatever reason, desire to know the Truth, and Reason, and Mind, while some of us, again for whatever reason, do not. THAT makes all the difference in the world, b/c I will eventually find what I seek, with effort + time, while they literally never will (and even if they stumbled upon it, they would set it back down again without realizing its significance). So I am grateful that I care, and therefore… almost grateful for the pain that I lived through that made me care. Most people would have no idea whatsoever what that means, but I don’t even need to explain it further than that, b/c you already do.
I hope these thoughts are at least halfway entertaining:-D.
And moreover, who cares? If it helps you, go with it. Then again, definitely examine it, if you feel the capacity to, b/c I think True things tend to have nothing to fear from honest inquiry, only False ones, so I question EVERYTHING and don’t worry, just leaving the outcome to the results of the investigation:-).
That said, I halfway agree in that I think people carry around so many strange things, that when you talk with someone you are only partway talking to them, and partway talking to all the stuff that they bring with them. That might also depend somewhat on the person, like if they have higher Mind (I really have no idea what that means, but somehow it might convey the point regardless… does that make any sense?) then perhaps they are more true versions of themselves. Whereas talking with e.g. Trump would be like talking with a puppet - he says whatever thoughts have been implanted into his brain just before seeing you. HE has no control, but perhaps *I* do? (like it or not even) Although… the flip side of that is that if *I* do, then why *not* him? That’s the part I am still chewing over, slowly.
All nations will eventually disappear or change into something completely unrecognizable.
That… is such a beautiful perspective, thank you. I have thought that before, but can never seem to hold onto it - possibly b/c Lemmy and news keeps filling my head with doom & gloom, and it seems easier to just let the crowd have their way. But I will really try this time, b/c it seems worthwhile.
Oh my. My ADHD is on fire today so I’m gonna be slow to reply to this one hahah. I’m having a really hard time organizing my thoughts and writing them down is going to be difficult as every line I read just sends me into a absolute trainwreck of thoughts. So. Many. Thoughts. I will be back with a reply as soon as my brain is untangled.
I don’t… think that I have ADHD (read as: I think that I might have some form of ADHD or something along those lines:-P) - or rather I think we all lie on the spectrum somewhere, and especially highly intelligent people tend to do things differently than the “average” ones. It may look disorganized to those outside, who prefer the more rigid disciplined attack-vector style, but inside that mindset we know better: it is creative, it is spontaneous, it is fun and… yeah, it gets tiring:-). It is fucking mathematical poetry is what it is! Or at least that is how I think of it.
So rest easy: I am not judging you, truly. I hope you will not forget me entirely, but you definitely should hold off on reading all of that huge wall of text until you have the capacity. :-) You already went so far above and beyond to report back on the video, and maybe I should have altered my own actions there to not lay such a heavy burden on you to feel “pressured” to respond quickly. Also I couldreally should have taken time on my own to re-word it significantly shorter, which would have helped a ton:-). Sorry if I was disrespectful in that manner.:-)
I do so very much enjoy hearing your thoughts though - keep preaching them sista! (if/when/as you want:-)
I am curious: after having watched that video, do you still think most people are against it?
I think the opposite - people in cities tend to be, but a good 40-49% of this nation supported Trump in the last Presidential election, despite Biden ultimately winning and despite Trump having been impeached twice before that.
Countering that, the younger generations are more liberal, but we tend to eat our own, and e.g. the Gaza situation may generate a lot of “protest voting”, the same as when Hillary Clinton was running and therefore while Trump did not “win” so much as she lost, it could all end up happening again.
Americans are fat and lazy - that’s just our brand:-) - and to some extent the entire Western world is that way, but we do it to excess. By that same virtue, we are likely to convert into authoritarianism, possibly not even with a bang but with a whimper - not b/c of what we believe, but b/c we just don’t fight back against those who do have firmer convictions (right or wrong).
Thus, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope that you lose your hope that “if shit does hit the fan, even the dumbest of voters will be smart enough to see that it is not something that they want and we can stop it before it runs rampant here”, and start learning from our mistakes, by shoring up protections against it getting as far along with you. Which I guess you are doing, so I will hope that it works!:-)
Well that’s where we differ, Americans and Canadians. Canadians are on average much more liberal than Americans. We also have a very different political system. We actually have more than two options to chose from! Crazy, I know! The political system doesn’t control general sentiment of the population so things can still get hairy but nobody has started dismantling our checks and balances yet so at least we’ve got that?
Our conservative party isn’t usually as bad as the American conservatives either. Although Bitcoin Milhouse and a couple other Conservative leaders are starting to spew some of the same ignorant bullshit, trying to get reactionary votes, I am way less scared about my future here than I would be in the US. We do have a part of the population that are getting sucked into it but it’s really nowhere near as bad (yet, hopefully never). We’ve got Alberta that’s very conservative and very loud, they’re basically Little Texas but whatever, they’ve always been that way. They’ve never changed and they never will. Business as usual. Ontario is a bit scary with what Doug Ford is doing and even in my little province we have our own little conservative pissbaby, who is absolutely wrecking havoc but even other conservatives hate his ass so there’s a decent chance he gets booted out next provincial election.
I’m from French Canada, not Quebec but still French. I’m probably sheltered from it a bit as we are super liberal, much more than English Canada. I don’t really see that much insanity here, even in my tiny little fisherman village. Not to say everybody is cool. I have noticed a change in the way some people look at me in the past couple years, being a transwoman in such a small place where people have never really left their backyards and seen anything. Before it was mostly curiosity, surprise, whatever. Now I see people look at me in disgust and anger. I’ve seen a mother grab her kid and scuttle away to the other side of a store as if I could give them the trans. I’ve had someone spit in my sandwich at a fast food restaurant, although that happened in a neighbouring English city (Risky to do something like that here, I probably know your dad 😉).
Nothing anywhere near that kind of shit happened to me even just 2 years ago and I’ve been loudly trans here for over 7 years now. I 100% attribute that to the hateful and ignorant shit that’s being spewed out by the right and the crazy religious folk being picked up here by people who don’t know any better.
Shit, that was a rant. I don’t even remember what we were talking about. Sorry hahah.
Sorry but I did lolz at this - as if!:-P Part of the funny is that the Bible says “Judge not, lest you be judged”, even though it also has a whole list of judgements for leaders, who were supposed to be held to a much higher standard. So to ignore the latter - letting leaders touch little children who would rather not - while also ignoring the former… they aren’t even reading their own book.:-(
Though I guess you see that it is not just Christianity. In some parts of the world it is Muslim, in others it is Hindu, in still others it could be Buddhism, or whatever. One day there will even be fundamentalist atheists I believe, despite how it promotes skeptical thought and so that is fairly rare for now, human nature is just that lazy!
Anyway I am proud of you. Stand up for yourself! That is definitely not my situation but who the fuq cares, b/c you need to be (free to) be you. And that’s the problem with Authoritarianism (here’s a another link to a whole other series on that if you want - this Innuendo Studies should have nothing whatsoever to do with HBO, and therefore you probably have seen it already:-P): they lack empathy and allow - even perform - the judgement onto others (except their leaders, who they conveniently exempt from all proper consequences of their actions), never dreaming that one day it will wrap back around to themselves. “First they came for…” That process demeans us all, and yeah, one day it may be too late to reverse course. How ironic that you are showing compassion to them even while they spit at you (as Jesus would, hehe:-P). Stay strong, my sister in empathy!:-)
Speaking of, I hope you never catch up to us:-). Though as you say, the English speaking part is a bit closer to us in that regard, highly unfortunately:-(. Though, you still having a somewhat functional government does mean that you should be alright:-).
Nah, it is absolutely not just Christianity. I see all religion as the same thing. It’s the same people, just different stories. I include some atheists in there hahah. Fervent atheists and “believers” share many of the same traits. I don’t think the particular religion has anything to do with it, it’s probably that people who are susceptible to following a religion are more susceptible to fall for tricks and support authoritarianism. I don’t wanna sound like I think I’m better than anyone who follows a religion. I think having some kind of belief system is essential and that we all have that built in us so it’s kinda natural for people to gravitate towards religions. I have my own whacky belief system that I’m sure some people would scoff at but it’s mine and it has served me well so far. I just think beliefs are a very personal thing and that’s how it should’ve stayed. Religions are more about control than they are about beliefs and values.
Thank you! I am and I will continue doing so. I will not live in an authoritarian society. If you have but one ally in this fight against authoritarianism, it’ll be us trans folk hahah. We will not be shoved back into the closet peacefully, this I can promise.
I don’t remember it but apparently at some point I’ve watched the first two videos of the series. I’ll try to give it another shot hahah
Yeah those are the ones that really scare me. Some people are just sociopaths and sycophants, they need to be recognized for what they are but people can’t even tell what’s real and what’s not anymore. We’ve propped up these kinds of people for decades on TV and in the media and now people think that’s normal. Today I look at some of your politicians bickering and I feel like I’m watching an episode of Jersey Shore. Similar thing is happening with the current conservatives in Canada, it’s actually painfully cringy to see. It’s like high school type of shit all over again. Not something we should be seeing in parliament.
HAHAH, yeah I am very far from being a Christ figure but many people have called me Jesus during my life. Mostly because of my hair, I did kinda look like your classic White Jesus™ 😂. I just have a really hard time abandoning anyone and I can’t stay mad at anyone because it absolutely eats me inside if I do. I always try to find excuses for peoples behaviours. My compassion might also come from a bit of a selfish place as there was a time where I could’ve probably fallen for shit like that, hell, I have. I’ve been a piece of shit in the past but it all stemmed from a combination personal issues and growing up in a very secluded environment. I don’t think I could’ve fallen as deep into hatred and ignorance as some seem to be these days but still, we’re not that different. I know why I was that way, I may not know why others are but I know why I was, and in the end I was “redeemable”. I think most people are and it’s hard for me not to give everyone a chance.
For what it’s worth, I think you guys will be alright too. Have some faith :3 (But don’t stop doing what you do)
Spot on! Jesus Himself hated the religious hypocrites (“Karens”) of His day, calling them vipers and white-washed tombs, full of rot and decay even if slapped with a fresh coat of paint on the outside. Some people hear that and say “naw, I think I, as a Bishop or Pope or whatever, know far better than Jesus what ‘Christianity’ should mean”, and then proceed to fondle little humans, but others think the latter is detestable and enormously gross:-(. Humans gonna human I guess, but it’s not all equally good or bad - some of it is INSANE, and inside of us all we know what’s what. Like if it happened to us or to someone we care about and we get mad, then we KNOW WTF is up. So those rich old white dudes (or equivalent thereof) are not even consistent with themselves, in that the walk does not match the talk, ergo it is false.
Ngl though, controlling the masses may have had a use, back in the day, before most people could read, by providing incentives for them to not kill and rape and steal and such. Even so, who can blame people then for being angry at finding out that their leaders don’t even belief the crap that they’re preaching? Which ironically doesn’t even mean that it is false, just that I am agreeing with you about the need to dissect the issue by separating the “belief system” from the “authoritarian religion” components. In any case, here in the USA the latter got hijacked and evangelical christians especially seem to almost equate “God = vote for guns & conservatism”. I almost just said conservatism there except that itself is too bland for many of them, who want to continue pushing to ever more far-right schemes. “God” for them is in-group selection.
Switching topics a bit, most of my friends online have been gay men. I am a cis het male btw, not that it matters but I am saying that I am friends with them not b/c of those shared aspects but more, I think, b/c they have empathy. People who have been through some shit end up having more “character” than those who do not. Entitled/spoiled people are the types to spit in your food, never dreaming of what else you have been through, and then they go and add to that burden. THEY would not want that done to THEM, yet they do it to you. On the other hand, people who are heavily bullied may end up broken and mean to others, so I am not saying that exposure to trauma causes empathy, but I am saying that it is a necessary if not sufficient component, it seems to me. So you have had that opportunity that they did not, and chose to do something with it. And that is indeed something worth being proud of!:-)
If you like the videos then I am glad that I sent the link to remind you of them. They are not light fare, but I did so enjoy pouring through them slowly, digesting each one in turn. It’s like a college course in the material!:-)
As for the media on the other side, well, let’s just say that Russia works in mysterious ways. Sometimes it is poisoning, but other times far more subtle. These days they are not even trying to be subtle anymore - Republican conventions are held in literal Moscow, as well as places such as Hungary. They are like minds, and Russia would be a fool not to partner with them, e.g. in that recent Tucker Carlson video interviewing Putin, if it would help speed the conversion of the USA from a foe to an ally. People do not spot it through b/c they are GOOD at what they do! Like, they poin ted out how Hillary Clinton was “corrupt” - b/c she WAS! The Supreme Court asked her to send all of her emails to them, and she told them “lolz no, Im gonna delete the ones that I do not want you to see first”. Nobody can say that the optics surrounding that are anything remotely close to good. In fact, I gotta be careful here or I will go full-on rant on you, but remember that Trump did not win that election so much as she lost it (likewise, he did not win the Republican nomination either, so much as Ted Cruz lost it, after JEB botched the job). Whoever leaked her emails did the real work in that election - but then it was her actual words that she actually said and her actual actions that doomed her. Trump was outright shocked to have won - he never planned on it, did not really want it even, and gave some very serious thoughts to turning it down even! And even when he took it, he still just wanted to do the TV show that he had planned previously, on top of the job of being president. He is like a child - it is the situation that put him there, not (so much) his own intentions. In fact, I even have a little empathy for him too - he didn’t want it, but he did try, despite the job being well beyond his capacity, and that’s actually the tiniest shadow of a little light there (1 out of 1000 but still… it is worth noting and giving him that much credit at least; along with the blame for you know, the actual genocide of Americans by e.g. telling them that the virus was not airbone when he KNEW that it was).
Anyway, it is not “just” the people that are broken, I agree, it is the SYSTEM. Although the system is made up out of people so… that’s where I get lost. But that is also why I think what you are saying is good, about not abandoning people: b/c if enough people did THAT, then the system would not be the way it is today. Somewhere in there I do think that the carrot needs to be set down and the stick picked up, and I acknowledge that I have never figured out that the line that should distinguish between them, but I think that when you KNOW that the carrot is the thing to be done and you do it ANYWAY despite the cost, that is integrity. Which some few authoritarians that I have met personally I feel like also have, in that they turn to the stick too readily and without understanding it, but most - e.g. those who showed up at the capitol - do not, b/c how can you “protect” the Constitution if you haven’t even so much as read it? A “coup” to overturn something is NOT the same thing as “saving” it, dummies!!!:-(
Which is why I have to admit that I have lost the faith: with ~80% of Americans being somewhere in the middle between the extreme left and right sides, and with good-hearted and honest people with some amount of integrity on both sides, yes and some child-like mindsets too, this isn’t something that most of us even seem to want to fight about? However, our media sells fear and extremism, and our politicians too, and with all these parasites sucking up our attention, how then is someone supposed to rise up and actually GOVERN? As ironically Biden has been doing, or at least trying to, though Congress and the Supreme Court seem more responsible for a goodly fraction of the issues that most average Americans are experiencing right now (not Gaza, but that’s a whole other thing, and frankly that doesn’t directly affect most “average” Americans either). I hope something will restore my faith, but I am not optimistic about that:-(. Therefore I believe that I am living in a dying country, but I do whatever I can to help others in my vicinity and abroad nonetheless, not b/c I think I will necessarily accomplish anything truly great there, but simply b/c it is who I am and how I want to be. We all need to live out our authentic lives, being our true selves:-).
Oh yeah I 100% agree with that. Religion was basically a proto-government. It’s funny, reminds me of when I was in high school. I was part of the student newspaper and at some point I had written an article about religion and how it is basically an antiquated form of government and how it has no real purpose anymore. Edgy I know. The next Monday in school I heard about how the town priest had read the article during Sunday mass. Apparently he was NOT happy about it. I was pretty proud of that one, not gonna lie 😂.
Yeah I think so too, but it can also easily go both ways, especially when you can’t manage to get out of said shit. (Nvm I see now that I should read a bit further before starting to type bahah)
I do believe however that the ones who’ve inflicted the most pain on others as a result of their own pain have the potential to be the ones who try their hardest to make up for their mistakes, which is why I try hard to not discount anyone. I might be wearing rose-colored glasses but I have to keep them on.
Yeah the right associating with leaders such as Putin and Orbán is fucked up on so many levels. They definitely are good at what they do. That’s one of the reasons I dislike how people on both sides treat each other like the other side is dumb. All sides have brilliant people and ignorant followers. And OF COURSE Hillary was corrupt, nobody who gets that far in politics has clean hands. They’re all corrupted in some way or another but not necessarily equally. Centrist cunts fuck off.
One of my best friends, brilliant guy, doctor of philosophy. A couple of years ago he decided he wanted to get into politics so he started small. He decided to run for city council here and won. It didn’t even take a year for him to absolutely hate the game. He said he could not sleep anymore, couldn’t handle how corrupted even stupid little city council members could be. He said there was no way for him to stay there without getting his own hands dirty and he wanted no part of it. Within a year he quit, and left the town to go teach halfway across the world at the University of Liverpool where he still is now. He couldn’t stand seeing these people anymore. It made sense then why our little town is dying. Even the tiniest amount of power is immense to tiny people. I’d like to see the day where we can offload a lot of these duties to some kind of AI, but that’s a whole other can of worms that we are not ready to open.
Trump is someone I have a very hard time having any empathy for, but yeah, I also have a teeny tiny bit, because he really is nothing but a child. However I don’t have any hope for him to ever turn around and do something good other than for his own selfish reasons. He is too old to grow up now.
Oh and on the subject of the Carlson-Putin interview. You wouldn’t happen to have a link for a re-upload? I still haven’t watched it because I refuse to even give it a single official view but I need to see it.
It is. We are all products of our environment. I don’t think we actually have much control over anything, not even ourselves. That’s definitely one of my wacky beliefs. I’ve never been able to shake off the idea that we live in a deterministic universe so it is hard for me to stay mad at a person or a group of people when I don’t even believe they had any real control over their action. It would be like getting mad at the messenger. We still need to get mad and fight, but not the people. We need to fight ideas with better ideas. We need to love the people because they are us and we are them. Without them there is no us and vice versa. A world with no opposition is a world that would go sideways in no time.
In-fighting between humans has been a thing since forever and look where we are now. We are wayyyyy better off in most aspects than we were not that long ago. It’s easy to forget that when we’re forced to take a step backwards but we as a species will come back from this, we always have. At least, assuming we manage to heal our planet but unfortunately we can’t do that if we don’t somehow heal ourselves first.
Yeahhh… I don’t even know what to say about Jan 6th. That is such a messed up thing. I think that a lot of people who showed up at the Capitol didn’t have bad intentions, they were misled. Although I’m sure there were plenty involved that absolutely had bad intentions. Most of them problably weren’t there in person.
That’s pretty much it. Most people don’t want to fight but the news, the politicians, corporations, whatever, they’ve all figured out that pitting us against each other was very profitable. Not only do we have parasites at home, we have parasites on the outside as well trying to creep in and profit as well. At this point it feels like we can’t trust anything or anyone, it’s no surprise that there is a rise in conspiracy brains.
But you kinda are hahah, when have you ever seen something that is not dying in some way or another? All nations will eventually disappear or change into something completely unrecognizable. Either something new and better is born out of the seemingly rotting carcass that is the American empire, or something terrible to you will take it’s place and that same cycle will repeat. It’s terrifying to think that we could lose our way of life, I tend to talk like I’m not scared but really I’m terrified. It’s the unknown part of it that is really scary.
Those who aspire for greatness often end up accomplishing nothing. You’re doing the right thing. It’s impossible for one person to change the big picture but you can absolutely change what is immediately around you and that is a very powerful thing. That is where we need to put our energy. I feel like the internet has done us a great disservice in that area. We are not ready to be so connected yet. We’ve lost the will to fight locally because we are way too overwhelmed with things that are happening where we are absolutely powerless to help. Take care of your close ones so that they can take of theirs. The rest will work itself out. This is no time for apathy.
(Are we going for the longest comment thread in Lemmy history or what?)
(There is a character limit for comments - or at least there was for Kbin.social and I assume for Lemmy as well? - so at the very least we are constrained in the length of each segment:-)
If you are interested, there is a book by the philosopher Daniel Dennett - who is a halfway decent author, e.g. of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, which is a DEEEEEEP look into evolution - called “Breaking the Spell”, where he delves into the mechanics of studying religion with the same tools that you would study anything else. The latter is really boring so that book of his I normally do not so much recommend reading in-depth, but in your case perhaps you would, b/c in it he says things vaguely similar to what you are saying. Chiefly, that tribalism was adaptive to the evolution of mankind, and while nationalism helped lift us up beyond that, the next step was due to religion, which allowed us to cross national boundaries. Like, “HEY there fellow Pastafarian brutha/sistah - [Joey from Friend’s voice] how you doin?”
So I would call it like a “meta-government”, due to how it sits on top of existing governmental structures. Like in a lot of European countries - e.g. Spain - people that I have talked to that grew up there were angry b/c they paid one set of taxes to their government, and another set of taxes to the Catholic Church all the way in Rome, which like Americans they were subjected to “taxation without representation”, and worse yet they simply had no choice in the matter at all - they did not “choose” that religion, but merely by being born there that choice was made for them.
Ngl, but the Catholic Church does do some good stuff - and whenever it e.g. feeds the hungry, visits the sick and constrained in prison, whenever it does as the Bible says and “takes care of widows and orphans”, THAT is awesome and I support THOSE efforts 100%. Ofc when they lie and steal and cheat and murder and rape then THOSE efforts I am 100% against. I used to be very angry at the Catholic Church for a long time myself, though fortunately I healed, and now I see that the people inside of it do what they do not even just in spite of their religion, but sometimes because of it, though we are imperfect humans, and some are fairly deadly. It is just that with any political structure, or religious, or anything at all involving humans (and also chimpanzees, not only our closest living relative but also one of the only other species on earth that takes active delight in murder!), a close watch must be kept on it to ensure that it does not go astray.
And yeah, I keep hearing stories of people who step up to be that kind of old-school “statemen” rather than a “career politician”, who cannot stand it and must leave. The literal DEATH THREATS offered to those people, by the most extremist among us, coupled ofc with the actual murders (like the Boeing whistleblower), have made me realize that the concept of “Illuminati” is absolutely real - maybe not as an actual irl society with a special ring and what-not, but obviously power corrupts, and obviously those who have it will concentrate the highest amount of resources to themselves - that’s just
humanmonkey nature.I also quit something - a teaching position, not politics - and I have a great deal of sympathy with what he went through, it is not easy to just walk away, but ofc it would have been far worse if he had stayed and compromised himself. Everybody just said “try to do the best you can, and help those who you can”… implying to ignore everyone else, just take the money from the parents and run, never mind that one person physically cannot do the task justice, oh and then double the number of students on top of that, b/c why the fuck not, the computer will do all the “real work” anyway, right? :-| I would rather Epstein myself than heap such heavy burdens upon people though, saddling them with large debts while not helping them get ahead in life, and worse making them think they know something, by altering the externally-reviewed scores so that the school (I don’t want to say which one) could avoid losing its accreditation, which it had already been warned about previously and was in danger of it happening again. You REALLY cannot help people, when the entire system is stacked against you to prevent that. Or perhaps I am naive and I should have stayed in, to be “one of the good ones”, except I just am not that kind of person. It would have killed me, inside. So yeah, I GET IT. Somewhat, or at least think I do:-).
And yeah, maybe your town will die off then. Perhaps even… I doubt you will take this the wrong way so I will go ahead and say it: perhaps it should? Survival of the fittest and all, and that applies to towns just as well as species, and even the United States of America: if we do not “fit” into the existing world structure, then we might go down, at Putin’s behest but also by our own stinking bloody hands, b/c we are too stupid to realize that the whispers he sent to us (e.g. “the vaccine is harmful”) were not real nor even “our own”.
AI will not be ready in time for us - maybe some future generation, but not us. Nor would we really want it to - shows such as Wall-E (and I have read similar stories for that identical concept written decades prior to that) have convinced me that when life gets comfortable enough, people will simply give up and allow “mommy”(/“daddy”) to take care of them. Which is, to a large degree, the very thing that has put America into this mess we are in now? Laziness, more than any other singular factor.
Try to have empathy for Trump: fuck we all know that he does not deserve it, but it is not for him, it is for you. I don’t care one bit about him, but I don’t want you to have that monkey on your back, as the saying goes. He is a scared, whiney, piss baby who puts dumps into his diapers and then has trouble walking about. He acts that way out of fear, and b/c he knows no other way. In MANY ways, him being put in charge was not his fault, but rather those of people who are far more crafty (and have espionage capabilities) than he. He is a victim too - he is not just a symptom, mind you, being also a cause, but among the many things that he is, a victim is one of them. You or I possibly could have ended up there as well. Except, and this is the part I am learning more recently, we NEVER would - maybe if our entire backstory had been different, but as we are now and looking forward, we NEVER would have allowed that. There truly is a RIGHT and a WRONG, and Trump is all kinds of the latter. He is barely more than a monkey, while we have moved upwards by the power of Mind, and short of like dementia or some such, I cannot imagine anyone who has done that could ever turn back down. I used to shy away from that thought, b/c it seems not humble (in the midwestern USA that is YUGE to never appear anything other than humble:-P). But now I realize what true humility is: finding the Truth, whatever it is, and paying homage to that. Which makes him, and more importantly the system that put him there, my enemy. And even so, I still have empathy for the fucker… but I would still consign him to jail.
Likewise, I refused to watch the Tucker Carlson video too:-). But if you don’t want to watch the whole thing - like me:-) - here is one with just the highlights and commentary from the GREATEST PERSON ALIVE ON THE PLANET EARTH RIGHT NOW, Jon Stewart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM2h3KnWAWY. It is The Daily Show, which I believe should not be HBO, so I hope you can see it.
Determinism: I also believe that. I cannot prove it though, so I don’t hold to it too hard. Also, it doesn’t really matter, to me, b/c even if things were fore-ordained, we don’t know what those things are, so we must treat each new event as totally not that way, yes? :-P It’s just an abstract idea in my head, consistent with there being 2 time dimensions (if I am remembering that correctly), or anyway if there is just the one, then it may be something along the lines of an exapanding wave of matter as it moves outwards from the Big Bang at constant velocity. If that were true, then time travel should be impossible, b/c once the wave passes, past times literally do not exist anymore, nor do future ones yet. An alternate formulation is that both past and present DO exist, and if we had the technology then we could travel along it, always “forward” but bucking the universal constant outwards pressure and instead returning to a “past” time/space continuum. Also, an outside observer could “see” our future. Then again, a “God” (like The Matrix computer), could foresee the future in other ways, not with foresight but simply with raw power, just like the Russian leader Gorbachev said “we will bury you”… and then decades later, it is happening - he meant it, he set things in motion to make it happen, nobody bothered to try to fight back, and, here we are). I think these thoughts are straight-forward from Einstein’s theory that time & space are far more connected than people previously conceived. Ofc we do not “know”, but is fun to conjecture nonetheless:-).
But then I read something from CS Lewis that entirely changed my thinking on that subject forever (one of his deep philosophy essays, I do not now recall which one). Yes, we may be pawns on a chessboard, but who is to say that WE are not ALSO the players!? If life is a video game, WE could be the characters, but “WE” could ALSO be coming down into our avatars from above. Truth tends to be stranger than fiction, and we truly don’t know what’s what, so any explanation could be the One. It could be just as likely that we are all “one”, part of Gai and each having a dream of our own lives as if we are separated.
And moreover… damn I hit the character limit. Well, for now I will continue to a part 2, but I need to stop doing that at some point:-P.
Sheee’s bAAAAaaaaack 😱
That does sound right up my alley I’ll write it down. However my reading ability lately is not great. If I read 2 books in a year, that was a good year hahah. I already have a pile of books on my desk that has been there for about a year now and once in a while a book gets added on top but none get removed from the bottom 😭
I can relate to that a lot. I still feel guilty about how I used to be around religion. Particularly with my mom. She used to believe and for some reason I couldn’t accept that. I would often talk shit about religion and her beliefs, try to convince her it was all just bullshit. Now I just ask myself why the fuck would I want to take that away from someone? Especially someone like my mom who basically just used religion as a way to calm her mind about the afterlife. Worst part, the most painful part, is that one of the reasons she probably believed so strongly was because it was a way for her to believe that she might be able to see my brother who died before I was born.
Ouch… I’m really sorry you’ve had to leave a teaching position. That is a tragedy, but don’t bother second guessing your decision. Whatever you did was the right thing to do. You can still teach even though you aren’t in a teaching position and I have a feeling you weren’t in it for the fame and the fortune that comes with the official title of “Teacher”.
Bahah none taken at all. It would be pretty hypocritical of me to take offense when I basically said the same thing about your country! It just is what it is sometimes. Maybe if we all understood that, we would take better care of what we have but no. Too many people take what we have for granted.
Agreed. There are no monkeys named Trump on my back at this point. In a way I don’t really “care” anymore. I’d rather concentrate on the things that are happening rather than the people who we view as the cause of those things because it’s never really just one person. Trump wouldn’t have been able to do much if there wasn’t a growing mass of people who somehow connected to the things he was saying. To put the blame on one person would be ignoring the true root of the issues. Do I believe he deserve every punishment he gets? Yes, 100%. What he does not deserve is my time and energy. I’d rather spend it on people who might end up voting for someone like him.
Hahah! Yaaaass! I wanted to watch the whole thing raw before I watched Jon Stewart on it though but I will probably end up just watching that instead.
Ahhhh yes. This is the part that really sent my brain into a death spiral 😂 It still does. It is just such a “fun” thing to think about. There is so much to think about when you know nothing. I see it as any other kind of belief. Since you can’t prove it, it should only enter the equation when nothing else can help you make a decision. When there is no right or wrong, or all options are appear to be either right or wrong, to me that is when beliefs are useful. Then again, that is kind of why we’re at this point in time right now. Ironic. Some beliefs are just more dangerous than others I guess, or maybe it’s just the incompatibility between certain beliefs that is dangerous.
And yes, since we can’t know whether we have free-will or not, we must treat it as if we did because our brain tells us we do but we still need to remember that our brain lies all the time. Well, maybe not as much lie as it omits a lot of information.
I like that thought. Inertia isn’t only applicable to the physical world.
I have to apologize, I am having a hard time grasping your thoughts on space and time. If you want you can try to re-word that for me as I wouldn’t mind having a clearer picture and toying with your ideas a bit.
Oh god yeah. That is something that I have thought about a lot. I also like the idea that we are all just one consciousness experiencing itself from within, or just a bunch of thoughts trying to sort themselves out in some sort of giant cosmic brain. I dunno hahah, these ideas can go pretty far and get pretty crazy. It’s just so much fun to think about. I miss Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna and their crazy psychedelic-fueled ideas.
----PART 2----
Exactly.
Oh it is very rare that you will get to truly talk to someone. I think you’re always interacting with a translation layer that sits between an interface and the actual mind.
I do believe there is a higher mind and that we all have it but that it can be buried and suffocated. It’s very difficult to stay open-minded these days as we are constantly bombarded with crap coming from all directions. I can’t blame anyone for closing that door after a while. I also think that you should never really be interacting with the same person twice. Healthy people grow and change constantly.
I know exactly what you mean. It is extremely difficult to hold on to. It takes a conscious effort to do so but it is absolutely worthwhile. To me it offloads a ton of weight from my shoulders.
This is part 1, then space-time wonkiness in part 2:-).
She is absolutely the BEst biTCH!:-) (I really hope you take that as I meant it, in that I mean that you are awesome:-P)
Ngl, I think Darwin’s Dangerous Idea took me a year to read through. Except that’s got to be a lie - it surely took more:-P. And I never did finish the other one… - nor iirc did the person who
unloadedgave it to me:-( Anyway I am glad that I read the former one at least, and have at least heard about the latter, b/c when I was young I was taught “young earth creationism” (as pretty much everyone in America is, despite how most people outside of the USA iirc pretty much never are), and that (first one) was perhaps the chief resource that helped me logic+reason my way out of that - not alone, but it helped. So it had personal significance to me to be worth that investment of time. I don’t know if either of those books would have that kind of punch in your case, but I did want to share so that you could make that determination on your own, knowing that they exist:-).Your example of Religion is perfect: real or not, it has enormous benefits, as too does the placebo effect. Jesus Himself used it, even as He commanded to redirect it - e.g. towards taking care of widows and orphans, which implies everything up to and short of that as well, e.g. paying workers their wages. That said, it can also become horribly corrupt, as can anything that People touch - e.g. Science+Technology can lead to nuclear war, genocidal tools, even experimentation upon being beings; Education can be twisted to become “re-education” in a totalitarian regime (see e.g. Uighurs); Math can… well I am sure it can somehow be used poorly as well, maybe by making numbers go brrr i.e. chasing after “efficiency” i.e. profits at the expense of the human beings involved:-(.
But if it can be used poorly, then surely it could be used well too, like you mentioned, to turn someone’s life around by offering them a REASON to exist. We all need that. Fome some, atheism or agnosticism is enough, but not everyone - e.g. not me personally. That said, it can also be super great to break away from a poorly-used, poorly-run one, like an overbearing one that actively hurts people. Especially here - but really almost anywhere except the hardest of the hard sciences, like it happens in politics - there is a huge gulf between things like the real, actual, full Truth (which for religion nobody knows - e.g. the Christian Bible even explicitly says that it is impossible to know, like “now we see dimly, in part, as if a reflection from a dirty mirror…”), and then what we think is true, and then also distinct from both of those how people chasing after power use as their method to control others. e.g. when I am at my job, it is not Religion that is used to control me - all mention of personal beliefs is highly taboo - so there it is rather Authoritarianism that accomplishes that purpose for them. Relion is one tool of control over the masses, but it is not the only one, and it is not inherently either good or evil. (Arguably it is good when it says to e.g. “hold fast to what is true”, but that can be bad when what it thought to be true is incorrect, and the people are willing to e.g. behead someone over a disagreement)
Moreover, even full “Logic”, in the hands of a child - i.e. virtually everyone, especially those among us that choose to act that way, as in child-ish behaviors observed in adults - becomes mere “justification”, to serve their ends, rather than being an end unto itself. This is why I place a lot of value on “stories” to help us see that - Isaac Asimov, Pinocchio, Star Trek TOS’s Spock’s emotional quest to gain parental & societal validation through (ironically) expunging his emotions by achieving Kolinahr (his motivations for that are explained much deeper in the book than the movie), and the converse of that in TNG Data’s perfectly-logical quest to become more “human” by discarding logic when appropriate, e.g. to appreciate and be able to tell a joke.:-D So… even logic itself, becomes a mere tool to be used for some aim, in the hands of our monkey selves. Whether it “should” be this way or not is irrelevant, as it simply is.
So anyway, philosophy is so extremely central to these foundational aspects of our lives, and many can find their meaning in Religion, and in Logic, and I like that:-). It deepens us, which is good, but if used improperly, then just like a surgeon’s scalpal or again like any tool at all, it can harm us just as if not all the more readily, by virtue of touching our lives in such a vulnerable spot.
Speaking of, if I can make a suggestion: PLEASE only think about these matters if and when they are fun for you. I want to enjoy your company, not add to your burdens:-), like if any of this would stress you out.:-D
And further along those lines, I hope that you take heart in that all of our relationships with our mothers are this way, it seems to me. From when you were the tiniest little baby all the way forward until now - e.g. you would kick and scream and spit up onto her, not even b/c it was “her”, but then later especially, yeah, b/c it was specifically her. I am no child psychologist, but that is the “normal” state of affairs it seems. For all monkeys even. At the same time, I am glad that you grew out of it. Also fwiw, that seems unlikely to be the sole reason that anyone would “believe” something - surely it must have been a big one, but also if she grew up in it that would be another point towards it, the “sunk cost fallacy” you know, and so on. But everyone is different - e.g. for me I don’t even necessarily “want” to believe (or if I do then I am deceiving myself - which is also a distinct possibility!), but I have to chase down wherever my investigations lead me, and if that causes me to ditch it one day then I will. On the other hand, the latter viewpoint of life is rather unusual, so I cannot project that onto everyone, and yeah maybe she actually was holding onto that thought for her own sake, plus whatever other background reasons, in which case I am glad that she had it - false or no. We do need our security blankets - I used to think the more solid they are the better, but the more I see how society is crumbling around us (and the corresponding suicide rates), the more I question my belief in that. To be clear, I still believe that for ME, and I would hope that others would STRIVE for the same, but I must accept that the vast majority of people will not do so.
I am not really a “teacher” at all I think - it was kind of a career path that people just “expect” for others to follow, but my problem is that I only care about helping people who WANT to be helped, so I think I am more of a “helper” at heart. So now I am a software engineer where I get to do that. I have lost some autonomy, but that could be good as well. I never had any ability to truly help people who REFUSE to be helped, and it would have killed me to keep trying and fail. In that sense, NOBODY who has that kind of “teacher” mindset should have a job where they have to actually TEACH in today’s current capitalist societal framework. It self-selects otherwise.
YAAAASSSS QUEEN! Except… hrm, it will keep coming up, every few years and also rearing its ugly head. It is something that we cannot ignore, except for the sake of our mental health, we have to, even though we couldn’t if we tried. Doesn’t that just about sum it up!?!?
I also “feel like” I know what you mean there about predestination or whatever we are calling it - “fate”. It is one of the most dangerous mindsets b/c it robs people of their agency - but we really do seem to also have that!?!? (Maybe?) So it’s like there’s a Truth there somewhere, but darned if I know what it is, and whether True or not, how does it even help me either way? This is why I like CS Lewis: he also talked like that, having lived it first. Like, if we had not believed that first, and then late in life learned it, that might have been more helpful for us. Instead, we (all three of us) stumbled upon it earlier, and now do not know how it fits in with the rest of the framework. I liken it to a mage/sorcerer type who learned some kind of arcane branch of magic, so while their buddies are going around doing all the cool, useful stuff like fireball, we basically got nothing to show for it, except that we happen to know (what might be, MAYBE) a deeper Truth. It could end up being the most powerful magic of all, but what good does that do for us, practically speaking, on a daily basis?!
If you were asking more about the Russia connection, Fox News is what has damaged America, and Russia funded/started Fox News. There is a documentary about it on Netflix, which I haven’t watched, just piecing that together from other sources. But I am guessing that you rather meant the other thing:-).
But I will have to put the time/space thing in a separate part again due to space limitations.:-D
This is part 2, space timey wimy goodness:
It is fundamentally difficult to grasp, yeah. CS Lewis has an illustration that I will
borrowblatantly steal outright: imagine an outside entity who “sees” the entire trajectory of your life as a line, with all its twists and curves, and then, perhaps on a whim or to make it more beautiful art, decides to “outline” it, like maybe a highlighter or let us rather say one line “above”/to the left and another line “below”/to the right of it. From your perspective, your life appears “hemmed in”, outlined, bordered by those two lines - as if you had no choices in the matter? Yet, that outside agent was the one who drew the lines, but following YOUR choices! That at least is the simplistic version, but it gets even weirder if, while the outside agent is drawing those outlining lines, your own lifeline changes in response. So if the agent starts drawing from the beginning of your life to the end, the final trajectory could change - according to YOUR choices, but in response to THEIR choices, which were themselves based on YOUR choices to begin with. Notice the caveat inherent in that: the “you” may change, from an alternate-reality you without interference from that outside agent, to now the “you” that has done so.Even weirder, what if that “outside agent”, who I mentioned earlier plays you like a chess piece pawn, isn’t “God” or whatever, but YOU! In that case, “you” are the video game or storybook or whatever character, but in this formulation, the external agent is also YOU - moreover it would be the REAL you, whereas the one inside this reality is the lesser version. Ofc, here you must somehow have “forgotten” your true, higher self. And as you brought up, there may not be a 1:1 correlation between each of us down here vs. ourselves up there - all humans could come from just 1 or a few up there, or whatever. Anything is possible there, and we are only limited by our imaginations here. What we know for certain here is that what Religion tells us in this regard is fundamentally flawed and wrong - b/c it is inconsistent e.g. even the people saying so do not practice what they preach - but we do not necessarily know what the True reality is. Now we see only in part. I still like thinking along those lines b/c there are multiple ways to be wrong, and thereby thinking along several different lines could help lead us to Truth - e.g. we might not be “actually” one being (I sincerely doubt it, I see no evidence of it at least), but is there any doubt that we are all “connected” nonetheless?
This one hits me hard - my (autism-spectrumed?) brain constantly forgets this and wants to pick up right where it left off - more a reflection of my own reduced capacity to handle things than anything to do with reality. Speaking of, I had already forgotten that beautiful perspective that you had shared with me about nations changing. Stuff at my job, weird weather, for a few days my exercise schedule has been interrupted and I am just “off”, and just like that it had already slipped through my fingers, again. Maybe, or at least I mean it did at the conscious level. That said, I tend not to try to hold onto anything too strongly, trusting that if it is good that it will find its way back to me in time. That… is nowhere close to true though:-(, and yet I know that I CANNOT hold onto things no matter how I try, so it is demotivating to even try.
And I think there is an evolutionary reason for this: community. No one person - a sage on a mountaintop lets say - can or even should really try to have it all, all the knowledge, all the wisdom, all the perfection. Rather, if we choose to surround ourselves with those who are worthwhile, and distance ourselves from idiots (it seems sad but what else can you do but that? they are hell-bent on their own destruction, and they will absolutely take you down with them!), then we can keep reminding ourselves of these beautiful Truths.
Or, so I say anyway, but then I don’t actually DO it - oopsie, I guess I too am one of those who says one thing yet does the polar opposite, an “idiot” even. As too are we all, but one difference, not sure I can take “credit” for any of it but just saying it as a fact (or so it seems to me): some of us, for whatever reason, desire to know the Truth, and Reason, and Mind, while some of us, again for whatever reason, do not. THAT makes all the difference in the world, b/c I will eventually find what I seek, with effort + time, while they literally never will (and even if they stumbled upon it, they would set it back down again without realizing its significance). So I am grateful that I care, and therefore… almost grateful for the pain that I lived through that made me care. Most people would have no idea whatsoever what that means, but I don’t even need to explain it further than that, b/c you already do.
I hope these thoughts are at least halfway entertaining:-D.
part 2 of 2 - read the other one first!
And moreover, who cares? If it helps you, go with it. Then again, definitely examine it, if you feel the capacity to, b/c I think True things tend to have nothing to fear from honest inquiry, only False ones, so I question EVERYTHING and don’t worry, just leaving the outcome to the results of the investigation:-).
That said, I halfway agree in that I think people carry around so many strange things, that when you talk with someone you are only partway talking to them, and partway talking to all the stuff that they bring with them. That might also depend somewhat on the person, like if they have higher Mind (I really have no idea what that means, but somehow it might convey the point regardless… does that make any sense?) then perhaps they are more true versions of themselves. Whereas talking with e.g. Trump would be like talking with a puppet - he says whatever thoughts have been implanted into his brain just before seeing you. HE has no control, but perhaps *I* do? (like it or not even) Although… the flip side of that is that if *I* do, then why *not* him? That’s the part I am still chewing over, slowly.
That… is such a beautiful perspective, thank you. I have thought that before, but can never seem to hold onto it - possibly b/c Lemmy and news keeps filling my head with doom & gloom, and it seems easier to just let the crowd have their way. But I will really try this time, b/c it seems worthwhile.
Oh my. My ADHD is on fire today so I’m gonna be slow to reply to this one hahah. I’m having a really hard time organizing my thoughts and writing them down is going to be difficult as every line I read just sends me into a absolute trainwreck of thoughts. So. Many. Thoughts. I will be back with a reply as soon as my brain is untangled.
I don’t… think that I have ADHD (read as: I think that I might have some form of ADHD or something along those lines:-P) - or rather I think we all lie on the spectrum somewhere, and especially highly intelligent people tend to do things differently than the “average” ones. It may look disorganized to those outside, who prefer the more rigid disciplined attack-vector style, but inside that mindset we know better: it is creative, it is spontaneous, it is fun and… yeah, it gets tiring:-). It is fucking mathematical poetry is what it is! Or at least that is how I think of it.
So rest easy: I am not judging you, truly. I hope you will not forget me entirely, but you definitely should hold off on reading all of that huge wall of text until you have the capacity. :-) You already went so far above and beyond to report back on the video, and
maybeI should have altered my own actions there to not lay such a heavy burden on you to feel “pressured” to respond quickly. Also Icouldreally should have taken time on my own to re-word it significantly shorter, which would have helped a ton:-). Sorry if I was disrespectful in that manner.:-)I do so very much enjoy hearing your thoughts though - keep preaching them sista! (if/when/as you want:-)