Mind-Expanding (non-science) things

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That’s the thing, there’s nowhere to leap to from LLMs.  They’re basically really advanced spell checkers, and there’s no way for them to discriminate around the information in their training sets.  And this is why AI companies are lobbying to get unrestricted access to copyrighted materials, they’ve absorbed all the information they could legally acquire and get away with stealing and the newest generation of LLMs have stalled out. There’s so much AI-generated garbage already out there it’s corrupting the datasets and the new outputs are even worse than older ones as a result.

All the talk of AGI coming out of LLMs is an attempt to build hype to maintain investment.  All the companies pushing this are desperate that there’ll be a huge breakthrough before the money and access to data runs out, and nobody wants to drop out in case they miss out on the hypothetical breakthrough. It’s wort noting that increasingly the heads of tech companies aren’t technical people, but financial ones who don’t understand the complexity or ethical issues in the same way, and a lot of them have clearly watched or read major SF works without a shred of undersanding of what they’re saying (See for example Elon Musk’s obsession with colonising Mars, clearly based on reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, but he fantasises about being in charge, how society will work and like, what the money will be… while ignoring that after the Second Revolution Mars is an anarchist society.  I’ve joked that Musk thinks he’s Arkady Bogdanov but he’s really Phyllis Boyle… which makes sense if you’ve read the books?)

But their technical documents are a lot more honest about the limitations.  I’m running a pilot program of Microsoft copilot in work, and there’s a training video I watched going through the capabilities and they talked a lot about how you shouldn’t rely on copilot for finished documents, and they talk a lot about how it limits access to data but also that you need to use Microsoft’s file classification system to prevent sensitive or confidential info from being used.

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Christian

Christian wrote:

I am obviously a huge neophile

Look, we all like The Matrix

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Sean Robinson, Christian, lorcan_nagle

Oh one more thing to add, Microsoft and OpenAI have outright shifted the goalposts and declared that to them “AGI” isn’t actually a General Intelligence, just the ability to make a profit of 100 billion off of LLMs.  Yay!

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Todd

Seems like their definition is that it can replace a human at the workplace, more or less. Which, yeah, that thing is probably going to happen.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

[lorcan_nagle]

Well Microsoft are selling AI to businesses as a productivity tool rather than something that’s going to cut jobs.  It’ll summarise long, boring documents, it’ll help you write your long, boring documents, it’ll make your powerpoints look good without the use of templates or you having to learn design basics, it’ll make images for you so you don’t need to dick around with Google Bing Image Search or an image library.

The threat is people doing low-level creative work, copy writers, graphics designers and artists, special effects technicians.  the stuff that can be easily automated away and it doesn’t matter too much if the quality drops.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by lorcan_nagle.
• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by lorcan_nagle.

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Todd, Christian

Watched a documentary by a reputable Dutch investigative journalism tv show (so not some transphobe outfit) that concluded the scientific evidence for a lot of the medical interventions for transgender people, based on the so-called “Dutch protocol”, is very low. They also did interviews with some patients who said they were very badly treated by their doctors. Pretty disturbing stuff.

 

 

There’s a little protestant Christian bookstore here in town, I looked on their website a while back and it looks like they now also carry books from a more Catholic tradition, like Teresa of Avila etc I think they didn’t do that before. Sign of the times I guess

I have come to the conclusion that I don’t really like Adam Curtis. The music and the pretty pictures seem to be there to hide the fact that what he says goes nowhere.

If you keep abusing people and saying they are evil, they’re worthless, they don’t deserve love, their modest needs in life are sinful, eventually I think they internalize it and they become oppressed by tthe burden of sin. I think many belief systems and ideologies do this to an extent, maybe most. It can be an effective way to subject people, to bend others to your will. Religions do this all the time. Buddhism to. “You have to become pure, unstained”, bla bla bla.

Christianity (/Judaism, /Islam) is the worst for this though, with the concept of original sin. I’m a bit surprised about Buddhism, but it does make sense that that’s a big thing there.

It’s a good question whether people would be more healthy and had higher self-esteem in a society in which the dominant religion has a more positive image of humanity.

Hmmm… what does ChatGPT have to say about this?

Yes, there have been and still are religions or spiritual traditions that focus purely on the positive aspects of human nature and don’t have a concept of sin, inherent evil, or divine punishment. Here are a few examples:

1. Jainism – Absolute Nonviolence and Personal Liberation
Jainism doesn’t have the concept of sin in the way Abrahamic religions do. Instead of sin and punishment, it teaches karma as a kind of natural consequence of one’s actions.

Humans are not inherently evil—every soul is seen as inherently divine, and liberation is about shedding negative karma rather than atoning for sin.

There’s no God who judges; instead, enlightenment is achieved through self-discipline and nonviolence (ahimsa).

2. Bahá’í Faith – Human Nature as Noble
The Bahá’í Faith emphasizes that humans are born noble and capable of great good. While it acknowledges that people can make mistakes, it does not have the idea of “original sin” or inherent corruption.

The focus is on unity, personal growth, and service to humanity rather than guilt or fear of punishment.

3. Certain Buddhist Traditions – No Sin, Only Ignorance
Many schools of Buddhism (especially Zen and Tibetan Buddhism) do not have a concept of sin, only ignorance (avidyā).

Rather than seeing people as inherently flawed, they view suffering as a misunderstanding of reality, which can be overcome through enlightenment.

Some Buddhist traditions, like Pure Land Buddhism, emphasize compassion and grace rather than personal fault.

4. Some Indigenous Religions – Harmony, Not Guilt
Many indigenous belief systems (e.g., some Native American, African, and Polynesian traditions) do not have a concept of sin. Instead, they focus on maintaining balance and harmony with nature, spirits, and the community.

Actions that disrupt this balance may be corrected, but not through punishment—rather through ritual, reconciliation, or rebalancing the cosmic order.

As for such a religion producing more positive human beings, the AI doesn’t have a straightforward answer, but it does have a pretty good one regarding the complexities of the question:

Me: What I’m wondering is, does a society in which such a positive religion is dominant produce healthier, less troubled and violent people? Can we draw any lessons from history where this is concerned?

ChatGPT:
Razoniert über Gesellschaften mit positiven Religionen für 7 Sekunden
The relationship between the nature of a dominant religion and societal outcomes is complex, and while there are intriguing correlations, drawing clear causal lessons from history is challenging. Here are a few points to consider:

Multifaceted Social Dynamics
Interconnected Factors: A society’s overall health and levels of violence depend on many variables beyond its religious beliefs. Economic conditions, political stability, education, and cultural norms all interact with religious teachings. Even if a “positive” religion emphasizes inherent goodness and personal growth, the broader social context plays a significant role in shaping behavior.

Historical Examples & Cultural Context
Buddhist Societies: Many predominantly Buddhist societies, which often emphasize overcoming ignorance rather than sin, are sometimes noted for lower levels of internal violence or sectarian conflict. However, attributing these outcomes solely to religious doctrine oversimplifies the picture. In countries like Thailand or Japan, for example, social harmony also emerges from long-standing cultural practices, legal systems, and community networks.

Indigenous Traditions: Societies with indigenous religions that focus on balance and harmony can exhibit strong community ties and conflict-resolution practices. Yet, these communities have also faced external pressures such as colonization, which complicates any straightforward assessment of how their spiritual traditions affect societal health.

Modern Research and Psychological Insights
Positive Self-Concept: Some modern spiritual movements, which reject notions of inherent sin or guilt, promote a positive self-concept. Psychological research has found that a healthy self-image can contribute to lower stress levels and more prosocial behavior. However, it’s not entirely clear whether this directly translates to lower societal violence.

Community and Belonging: Religions that emphasize unity and positive human potential often create strong community bonds and social support networks, which can help reduce feelings of isolation and marginalization—factors that are sometimes linked to social unrest or violence.

Cautions and Limitations
Correlation vs. Causation: Even if societies with more “positive” religious frameworks show lower incidences of certain social ills, it is difficult to definitively say that the religion is the primary cause. The interplay of history, culture, and other social systems makes it hard to isolate religion as the single factor.

Variability Within Religions: It’s also important to note that even within religions that are generally considered “positive,” interpretations and practices can vary widely. Leaders, historical contexts, and local customs can all influence how a religion impacts society.

Lessons from History
Holistic Approaches: History suggests that promoting positive values—such as compassion, community support, and personal growth—can be beneficial. However, these values need to be part of a broader system that includes fair governance, economic opportunity, and education.

Avoiding Dogmatism: One lesson might be that systems focusing on human potential and growth, rather than guilt and inherent sin, could foster environments that encourage personal responsibility and mutual support. Yet, even these systems are not immune to challenges, and they can sometimes struggle with issues like groupthink or internal conflict.

In summary, while there is evidence that societies emphasizing positive human potential can foster healthy, cohesive communities, it’s important to acknowledge that religion is just one part of a much larger societal puzzle. History provides examples that can be both inspiring and cautionary, but no single religious model has proven to be a panacea for all social ills.

Sounds about right.

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Todd

Well I disagree with the chatpgt about Buddhism. In Buddhism there os often – at least in the “official scriptures” – quite a strong emphasis on punishment of bad deeds, bad akrma, sometimes quite graphic torture in hell realms etc. There’s also a denial of pleasure.

Well, to be fair, it only refered to “some” Buddhist traditions.

Jainism sounds pretty cool, from skimming its wiki.

It’s different for different religions I guess, but i think in Indian religions (India the country, not native Americans) including Jainism  there is an emphasis on self denial that I have started to dislike after reading a lot about Buddhism. Jainism is also pretty ascetic.

 

I think human beings have basic needs that we should try to meet. Simply enjoying things for instance, this is something I think we shouldn’t deny ourselves. I think hedonistic philosphers like Aristippus and Epicurus were right about a lot of things.

Yeah, I completely agree. But then again, my interest in religion is always rather more abstract, I’m not on a journey to find spiritual meaning or anything. And I’ve decided that I ever do want to do that, I’ll try the Alan Moore thing and become a wizard.

Speaking of which, Alastair Crowley and his lot, now those guys really didn’t care for asceticism.

When it comes to religion, I think you have to cherry pick, because there is so much nonsense and mind control stuff in it. But there are good things in it too. I’m interested in shinto at the moment, but there’s not a lot of good info about it that’s translated into Western languages. Taoism is also really fascinating. The Zhuangzi is one of the two big books of taoism, the other being the Dao de Jing, and it is probably my favorite book ever.

 

I also like things about confucianism.

 

(Buddhism, christianity, Islam as well as hinduism also have good things of course, but with those big religions I think there are  negative things connected to them. More so than shinto, taoism and confucianism. The big reigions seem to have more of the mind control, conformity stuff)

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Christian, Todd

I prefer the “come to your own conclusions about a set of values and spiritual ideas to live your life by” approach.

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njerry

To an extent yes but we’re also influenced by our environment, our society, our culture. Those factors can force certain ideas or behaviors on us or forbid some behaviors

Absolutely. I mostly prefer (or maybe I should rather say I’m just wired that way) to think about these issues from perspective of philosophy and discourse analysis rather than spirituality, but I do believe that there is a lot of value in the history of thinking about spirituality and about what makes a good life.

I think it’s a spectrum. Religion has philosophical facets but philosophy also has religious facets. Taoism and confucianism for instance can be regarded both as a philosophy and a religion.

 

Alo Christianity incorporates bits of stoicism, neo-platonism…

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Todd

Speaking of Jainism, I am currently reading the Dhammapada, a Buddhist scrupture, and in the introduction it mentions how some of the verses are identical to verses in Jainist literature as well as the Mahabharata, a classic scripture of Hinduism. These three religions (Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism) are very closely related.

Cats are so interesting as animals because they go from soft floppy cuddle bugs to fierce merciless killer in a second. I like petting this big ginger boi in our apartment complex but I’m under no illusion that he would eat me if I were ten times smaller. Sometimes he comes into my house and he lays on the table and just stares at me. It is slightly unsettling.

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Todd

I think honestly one of the best things one can do in life is make an effort to undomesticate yourself, to rewild. In the control state in which we live we’ve pretty much been reduced to cattle.

I think that’s called civilisation.

You’re sounding like Tyler Durden.

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Todd

Well I don’t want to blow stuff up or hurt innocent people, however I do think it is good to be somewhat detached from the spirit of the times. Just be a weirdo, it’s actually not good if everyone thinks you’re a well behaved person. More like Diogenes than Tyler Durden though (obviously I am not saying I’m going to live like Diogenes, but in some ways we can draw lessons from that.)

 

I’m not like the “anti civ” people on twitter who like Ted Kaczynski and want to blow up power stations though. Not yet anyway, if they want to put chips in people’s heads I might.

 

(Also I don’t mean it in a Nietzschean “morality is stupid” sense, I think people have to hold on to their individual moral consciousness)

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Christian

I learned about these people a while back. The Piraha people don’t believe religious stories, the reply when the missionary told them about something was always “Well were you there? Do you know this Jesus Christ yourself?” According to the anthropologist who studied them they don’t believe any story or event related to them by people who weren’t present at the event themselves. Also they don’t believe in coercion.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people

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Todd

Heh. A people of radical skeptic egalitarians. Very cool.

I’ve heard the name before, as their language is supposedly a counter-example for Chomsky’s core principle of his Universal Grammar.

It is interesting but with that level of skepticism it is hard to build things. Like history books. They would become worthless. “Well who wrote that down, they may as well have been lying, who’s to say those original documents weren’t fraudulent” etc.

 

I think much of our civilization is based on the argument from authority. We believe the history books, we believe our news, but why should we? We mostly do so because of the reputation of the author or the institution. Russians believe their news, but they can’t both be right. Similarly believing Christians and Muslims believe the revelations in their scriptures are true because of authority.

 

On a side note this is why the covid era was so revealing. We were told NOT to do our own research, that is bad. “Oh you think you are smarter than the best scientists??” etc

 

I like this mindset of the Piraha people, but the world would look very different if most people adopted that attitude.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

On a side note this is why the covid era was so revealing. We were told NOT to do our own research, that is bad. “Oh you think you are smarter than the best scientists??” etc

Nobody told you not to do your own research. what you did wasn’t research, it was repeating conspiratorial lies because you put your personal comfort over the health of the community.

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Todd

You just keep lying don’t you?

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/07/30/you-must-not-do-your-own-research-when-it-comes-to-science/

 

By the way, I always did what was prescribed during lockdown etc., wore masks when I had to, got vaxxed, even when I had some doubts (I started having doubt about the usefulness of the second lockdown)…so your accusation that I “prioritized my own comfort over public health” is fucking disgusting. Ghoul.

 

 

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

You just keep lying don’t you?

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/07/30/you-must-not-do-your-own-research-when-it-comes-to-science/

 

By the way, I always did what was prescribed during lockdown etc., wore masks when I had to, got vaxxed, even when I had some doubts (I started having doubt about the usefulness of the second lockdown)…so your accusation that I “prioritized my own comfort over public health” is fucking disgusting. Ghoul.

 

 

And once again, all you did was google “don’t do the research covid”, and found the first result that looked like it reinforced the point you wanted to say.

And so you found a blog on forbes open cotent section.  With a clickbait headline but the text of the article is talking about what you literally did here – you didn’t do research, you looked for the thing that confirmed your pre-existing bias.

Which is the opposite of research

Funny how you forget that time and again during the lockdown this happened. You posted some ridiculous bullshit, someone would poitn out it was bullshit, you’d post a hastily googled link, someone would read the article and point out how it doesn’t support what you alleged, you’d acknowledge the debunking but a few weeks later you’d repeat the previously debunked point.

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Todd

Also, there were loads and loads of dumb memeslop of “dumb right wing yokel does his own research, thinks he knows better than the amazing scientists”. I’m sure Colbert and SNL did those skits too.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Also, there were loads and loads of dumb memeslop of “dumb right wing yokel does his own research, thinks he knows better than the amazing scientists”. I’m sure Colbert and SNL did those skits too.

If these sketches exist, it’s because what the idiots were doing wasn’t research, it was spreading repeatedly debunked information because they preferred a convenient lie to a truth they disliked, and they were being loud and public about it. Unless you’re suggesting that people who are insistent on being loud and wrong in public over and again and double down on it when the truth is explained to them deserve special treatment?

We shouldn’t make fun of people for insisting that we should take horse dewormer instead of a vaccine tested to exacting standards? Or drink disinfectant? Or just sunbathe naked so enough light hits the perineum to activte its magical powers? Or that everyone who took the vaccine was going to die as their “DNA unspooled” within years?  Because that’s the bullshit you’re defending right now.

There are countless stories, especially out of the US of people refusing the vaccine based on their “research” only to beg for it as they lay dying of COVID-induced respiratory failure, when a vaccine couldn’t save them. Their blood is on your hands just as much as it is Alex Jones and all the other bullshit peddlers who propogated this nonsense.

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Todd

Then you throw in the “pure blood” movement, where being non-vaccinated is considered so sort of biological supremacy. They won’t accept blood transfusions if they think the donor was vaccinated or won’t consider having children with someone if they are vaccinated. It’s basically coding for eugenics.

The other thing with the “I did my own research” fucktards is they will cite some study that shows “vaxxes are bad”. Those “studies” are usually hostile foreign power propaganda, or from some sketchy group trying force the conclusion that the vaccines are dangerous.

Can a person have a negative reaction? Of course! That goes for ANY drug! Every drug, even “safe” ones, can have side effects and some can be serious. Every single person on the planet is different, and a small percentage can have extreme reactions. Drugs are tested to be as a safe as possible to the greatest amount of the population. There will always be statistical outliers. The media on both sides of the aisle will pick up on those and unnecessarily amplify those stories because of the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality that gets ratings/clicks.

Understand the scientific method at its most base level and you see anti-vaxxers for the fucking morons that they are.

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lorcan_nagle

Todd wrote:

Those “studies” are usually hostile foreign peer propaganda, or from some sketchy group trying force the conclusion that the vaccines are dangerous.

Like how RFK Jr is talking about investigating the cause of autism and he’ll have a result by September.  Anyone familiar with how research works knows you can’t say you’ll find a result by a set deadline, so it’s clear he’s going to be pushing his agenda (and spoilers: he’s going to blame vaccines for autism)

Similarly the Cass report in the UK was commissioned specifically to find results that would justify persecuting trans people (like, Kemi Badenosh admitted this in an interview), and the US goverment has just published their own hatchet job which cites a paper claining watching anime brainwashes kids into “becoming” trans.

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Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Like how RFK Jr is talking about investigating the cause of autism and he’ll have a result by September.  Anyone familiar with how research works knows you can’t say you’ll find a result by a set deadline, so it’s clear he’s going to be pushing his agenda (and spoilers: he’s going to blame vaccines for autism)

And there have already been studies that have conclusively debunked the vaccine/autism connection.

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lorcan_nagle

Yeah, this shit is going to kill people. But RFK Jr is saying Do YoUr OwN rEsEaRcH

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Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think much of our civilization is based on the argument from authority. We believe the history books, we believe our news, but why should we? We mostly do so because of the reputation of the author or the institution. Russians believe their news, but they can’t both be right. Similarly believing Christians and Muslims believe the revelations in their scriptures are true because of authority.

I’d like to go back to the original point for a bit. There is a lot of truth in what you said there, but I think there’s a big difference between this kind of authority – even one built on reliability and transparancy – and how science works. With science, we’ve built a process that is all about NOT believing what you’re told, but to doubt and attack every thing you’ve been told and try to poke holes in it with a stick until you’re convined you just can’t. That’s what the scientific process is all about. When you see somenbody’s research, you check it and check it and if you have any doubt, well, you do your own research.

The thing is, this goes only for your field of expertise. Because this shit is insanely complicated and you can’t just do research if you have no idea what it is all about. Even if you’re a biologist, if you aren’t actually a virologist you still know fuck all about how covid works.

So yes, we’re back to trusting authority, but we’re not actually trusting the scientists in this case or the institutions, but we’re trusting the process. And while there can be gaps and problems with it because the people running things are fallible, by and large this scientific process has wielded incredible results for us and we’re doing well to trust it over the random ideas of the guy next door*.

*This is also called: homeopathy.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Speaking of this sort of bullshit, Texas is now going after toothpaste manafacturers over flouride

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/05/texas-goes-after-toothpaste-in-escalating-fight-over-fluoride/

This is where the anti-science rhetoric, hiding behind anodyne phrases like “do your own research” ends up.  Assaults on proven public health measures because of persistent conspiracy theories.

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Christian, Todd

Christian wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think much of our civilization is based on the argument from authority. We believe the history books, we believe our news, but why should we? We mostly do so because of the reputation of the author or the institution. Russians believe their news, but they can’t both be right. Similarly believing Christians and Muslims believe the revelations in their scriptures are true because of authority.

I’d like to go back to the original point for a bit. There is a lot of truth in what you said there, but I think there’s a big difference between this kind of authority – even one built on reliability and transparancy – and how science works. With science, we’ve built a process that is all about NOT believing what you’re told, but to doubt and attack every thing you’ve been told and try to poke holes in it with a stick until you’re convined you just can’t. That’s what the scientific process is all about. When you see somenbody’s research, you check it and check it and if you have any doubt, well, you do your own research.

The thing is, this goes only for your field of expertise. Because this shit is insanely complicated and you can’t just do research if you have no idea what it is all about. Even if you’re a biologist, if you aren’t actually a virologist you still know fuck all about how covid works.

So yes, we’re back to trusting authority, but we’re not actually trusting the scientists in this case or the institutions, but we’re trusting the process. And while there can be gaps and problems with it because the people running things are fallible, by and large this scientific process has wielded incredible results for us and we’re doing well to trust it over the random ideas of the guy next door*.

*This is also called: homeopathy.

I don’t disagree with that. Like I said, most of our civilization depends on most people trusting authority, and appealing to authority in their arguments. If they don’t do that, things fall apart.

 

Slightly related:

 

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html

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Christian

lorcan_nagle wrote:

There are countless stories, especially out of the US of people refusing the vaccine based on their “research” only to beg for it as they lay dying of COVID-induced respiratory failure, when a vaccine couldn’t save them. Their blood is on your hands just as much as it is Alex Jones and all the other bullshit peddlers who propogated this nonsense.

I think health is a personal choice. You have to take various voices into account, but ultimately people have to make up their own mind. Will you get that treatment for cancer, or not? Will you get that vaccine or not? I think these are personal choices, and people have to ultimately make up their own mind. Yes, listening to doctors is good of course. But it is not absolute. Does that come with the problem that sometimes people may go against their doctor’s advice and make bad choices? Yes, but that is better than a world where every choice is made for us by “experts”. (And sometimes the doctor’s advice is ackchually bad, case in point, the history of psychiatry.)

 

There’s a massive difference between making personal health choices when you’re the only person affected, and when your choices impact the rest of your community and even beyond.  You don’t get to eschew masking or getting a vaccine in a global pandemic and then complain about your freedoms being curtailed.  You made the choice to curtail your own freedoms.

And that’s the core problem of your argument Arjan.  You have to actively downplay or ignore what people who you’re siding with have done and said because otherwise you’d have to acknowledge that they’re monsters.

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njerry, Todd

[Arjan Dirkse]

You’ve really got a weird idea about me. Who are you saying I’m siding with? I’m not siding with Rogan or anything. And I never said it would be good to refuse to be vaccinated, and I never refused to wear a mask in places where that was asked of me. I can think someone is wrong not to get the vaccine, but I still think it is a choice they have to make for themselves.

 

Would there be a level of restriction you would object to, if asked to by the authorities? In China the lockdown lasted much longer and was much harsher. Would you be OK with prolonging the lockdown until today and longer, if authorities deemed that to be necessary for public health? Where would you say “Now maybe the has lasted long enough.”

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by Arjan Dirkse.

[Arjan Dirkse]

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

You’ve really got a weird idea about me. Who are you saying I’m siding with? I’m not siding with Rogan or anything. And I never said it would be good to refuse to be vaccinated, and I never refused to wear a mask in places where that was asked of me. I can think someone is wrong not to get the vaccine, but I still think it is a choice they have to make for themselves.

 

Would there be a level of restriction you would object to, if asked to by the authorities? In China the lockdown lasted much longer and was much harsher. Would you be OK with prolonging the lockdown until today and longer, if authorities deemed that to be necessary for public health? Where would you say “Now maybe the has lasted long enough.”

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by Arjan Dirkse.

You are siding with Rogan though.  And the people who are destroying public health measures with the same conspiratorial nonsense. You make the same arguments they do and then claim you’re not like them when confronted.

You might not think you are, but that’s because you’re unwilling or unable to see the links between your rhetoric and the real-world harms they’re causing.

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njerry, Todd

Honestly living through the covid pandemic and not thinking there was something sinister and totalitarian about some of the response is…well, I think if you think like that, there is something wrong with you. Probably people who think like that just have a big boner for totalitarianism, and you’re a dangerous person.

 

In my own country, I think it was, well somehow quite moderate. The only thing I really ad a problem with was the vaccine passports.  Many other countries had it far worse.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Honestly living through the covid pandemic and not thinking there was something sinister and totalitarian about some of the response is…well, I think if you think like that, there is something wrong with you. Probably people who think like that just have a big boner for totalitarianism, and you’re a dangerous person.

Tell us again how you’re not agreeing with Joe Rogan.

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Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think health is a personal choice. You have to take various voices into account, but ultimately people have to make up their own mind. Will you get that treatment for cancer, or not? Will you get that vaccine or not? I think these are personal choices, and people have to ultimately make up their own mind. Yes, listening to doctors is good of course. But it is not absolute. Does that come with the problem that sometimes people may go against their doctor’s advice and make bad choices? Yes, but that is better than a world where every choice is made for us by “experts”. (And sometimes the doctor’s advice is ackchually bad, case in point, the history of psychiatry.)

I think Lorcan made a good point about how the situation in a pandemic is different, but I generally agree.

And when it comes to covid, I do think – retrospectively – that maybe it would have been better to do less by regulation and more by relying on people being sensible. There was a huge amount of goodwill and social effort by the vast majority of the population in the first phase of the pandemic, and I think if our government had focused more on helping those for whom the pandemic was a really difficult time and less on enforcing regulations, think might have gone better not just during the pandemic, but more importantly where the anti-democratic fallout we have now is concerned.

But honestly, even with the harsher measures (well, outside of places like China – harsher in the European sense), I certainly can understand the authorities’ tendencies to be more safe than sorry.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html

This is a huge problem for schools everywhere, by the way. And it’ll completely change the way we do school in the next few years.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Here is great and informative article written by an actual scientist.

What to know about vaccines in the do-your-own-research era

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lorcan_nagle

Christian wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html

This is a huge problem for schools everywhere, by the way. And it’ll completely change the way we do school in the next few years.

 

Our countries are collapsing under our own stupidity. Like I said, Dugin is right about Western civilization, we’re a curse. But Russia is stupid in other ways.

 

We’re deleting ourselves but we might take the whole world with us.

Ach, I don’t know. I still think it’s a miracle that we have created machines that can have an actual conversation with us, even if they’re faking it. This kind of shit is everything I’ve wanted since I was thirteen. And there was always a pretty good chance we’d erase ourselves within a few hundred years of industrialisation. At least we’re making things interesting before we go.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

We’re deleting ourselves but we might take the whole world with us.

Nah, mate. It may take evoluation a few hundred thousand years to completely adapt to the new living conditions of a warming Earth, but it’ll get there. The planet doesn’t need us, and we won’t manage to completely fuck it up.

It is crazy how Buddhism as represented in Western countries is completely twisted along the thinking patterns of their Western interpreters. Theravada Buddhism became a kind of “protestant Buddhism”, with the more mystical dimensions removed, a kind of rational self help course. Tibetan Buddhism is completely hippified in the Western tradition, like a dope smoking “we’re all OK man” ideology. And all about peace and compassion, according to Westerners …whereas Tibetan Buddhism is actually quite warlike, in the past it was actually the Tibetan Buddhists that attacked (also Buddhist) Tang China, almost taking the capital Xianyang. Also some writings like the Kalachakra tantra predict a big future war between the Buddhists and the mleccha’s, the invaders that the Indo-Buddhist world had to deal with in that time.

 

In part it’s due I think to naivety of the Western interpreters that see in everything a mirror image of their own leanings, and in part it’s a grift by foreign Buddhist teachers themselves. Some of them were just keen on making money, and adapted their teachings to what they thought Westerners liked.

It’s sad to realize how much philosophy writing from ancient Greece we lost. I think the only ones we have complete books from are Plato and Aristotle. Many others must have written books, but they’re lost. We only have fragments of their works, and quotes about them from others.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It’s sad to realize how much philosophy writing from ancient Greece we lost. I think the only ones we have complete books from are Plato and Aristotle. Many others must have written books, but they’re lost. We only have fragments of their works, and quotes about them from others.

And yet today we can go to a bookstore or on-line and purchase every book Danielle Steele has ever written.

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Christian, lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It’s sad to realize how much philosophy writing from ancient Greece we lost. I think the only ones we have complete books from are Plato and Aristotle. Many others must have written books, but they’re lost. We only have fragments of their works, and quotes about them from others.

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Arjan Dirkse, lorcan_nagle, Todd

njerry wrote:

and purchase every book Danielle Steele has ever written.

Thata’s probably better than at least some Greek philosophy though. Plato was kind of full of shit.

 

But I would like to read the original works of Diogenes and Aristippus

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njerry

Aristippus of Cyrene is not very well known but I like his philosophy, at least what is known of it. He was a hedonist, saying the purpose of life is pleasure.

 

There is an anecodote of him that when Diogenes was visiting, when they left Aristippus put on Diogenes’s shabby cloak, leaving only Aristippus’s fancy purple robes for Diogenes to wear. Diogenes was afraid to be seen in fancy clothes which would hurt his reputation and asked for his cloak back. Aristippus reproached him for being a prisoner of his reputation.

Interesting read about the CIA promoting modern art. I think this battle between the West and Russia still goes on, with Russia promoting traditional stuff (but probably not sincerely) while the West promotes itself with things like sexual freedom, lgbt rights, the eurovision song contest etc. The common theme is the West presenting itself as more modern, more “with the times”, even though there are obviously also very conservative strains in the US and Europe.

 

Also the Russia being trad thing is bogus, they jut like to present themselves that way.

 

Was Modern Art Really a CIA Psy-Op?

Proverbs 21:9: It is better to live in a little corner on the roof than in the house with a quarrelsome woman.

Terrence McKenna said “culture is not your friend”. I kind of agree, it’s mostly bad to go along with culture. But in the meanwhile, people like the hippies who stepped outside culture eventually became the culture.

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Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Terrence McKenna said “culture is not your friend”. I kind of agree, it’s mostly bad to go along with culture. But in the meanwhile, people like the hippies who stepped outside culture eventually became the culture.

The thing is you are always part of a culture. You can’t escape it. You go along with it, and you don’t even realize it. Even if you change your culture, you will go along with that one.

Even if you became a hermit in the woods, you are part of a culture of people who become hermits in the woods.

Also, culture is not static. It is constantly changing and evolving. And there is an incredible variety of cultures.

McKenna’s comment is bullshit.

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njerry, lorcan_nagle

Todd wrote:

Also, culture is not static. It is constantly changing and evolving. And there is an incredible variety of cultures.

That’s the thing, actually. There is no such thing as “a culture”. Which is what makes it so absurd when people want to order immigrants to completely adopt to a culture. What the fuck does that even mean? Wear Lederhosen and eat Weißwurst?

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Todd

Todd wrote:

McKenna’s comment is bullshit.

Well, you know, in context he was talking about the ideology of capitalism:

This is something—and I don’t really want to get off on this tear because it’s a lecture in itself, but: Culture is not your friend. Culture is for other people’s convenience, and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you. It disempowers you. It uses and abuses you. None of us are well treated by culture, and yet we glorify the creative potential of the individual, the rights of the individual, we understand the felt presence of experience is what is most important, but the culture is a perversion. It fetishises objects; it creates consumer mania; it preaches endless forms of false happiness, endless forms of false understanding in the form of squirrelly religions and silly cults. It invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanise themselves by behaving like machines, meme processors of memes passed down from Madison Avenue and Hollywood and what have you.

Audience member: “How do we fight back?”

TM: “I think that by creating Art – Man was not put on this planet to toil in the mud. Or, the God that put man on this planet to toil in the mud is no God I want to have any part of. It’s some kind of Gnostic demon. It’s some kind of cannibalistic demiurge that should be thoroughly renounced and rejected. By putting the ‘Art’ peddle to the metal, we really, I think, maximise our humanness…and become much more necessary and incomprehensible to the machines.”

Especially the last bits seem quite prescient given that they were said in 1999.

Christian wrote:

Culture is for other people’s convenience

I don’t like McKenna’s mushroom stuff but I like this selfishness. We have gotten used to taking too much abuse and we must strike down the institutions that talk to us like we’re naughty children.

 

The ruling culture is mostly there to domesticate you and turn you into cattle.

What a nostalgia hit to see “Wake Up Sheeple” used so unironically.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Honestly true spiritual awareness is not on the same level as the powers of the world. The powers of the world rely on conformity, fear, and cowardice. Spiritual awareness is above that.

 

But the powers are the powers: they rule. They are in charge. They are the politicians. They are the ruling culture. Spiritual awareness is what is nailed on the cross.

OK that last post was unnecessarily dramatic. Alcohol played some part in that.

 

Still it’s kind of an obvious truth that spirituality should be free from coercion or political power structures.

This stupid kid went viral who bragged about using Chatgpt for his graduation. We are cooked.

 

It reminds me of that quote from the matrix where mr smith says about humans “once we started doing the thinking for you, it became our civilization.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is seen by some as a hero for his resistance to the nazis, but he was a pretty conservative guy. He thought the world was so depraved it was ripe for destruction.

 

I don’t know…I think there is a lot of evil, sure, but to think life is altogether evil is more a kind of mental illness than a philosophical statement. Juts unhinged, like anti-natalism. There are a lot of evil people, but then let’s just fight evil. Yes life is beset by difficulties, but there can also be a lot of joy.

 

 

 

This seems like a gloomy but interesting book, however very much from a Western perspective. It doesn’t seem China is close to a collapse, but we are.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/self-termination-history-and-future-of-societal-collapse

It’s weird that even though I wasn’t “Christian” I’ve thought most of the time that some of the core messages of the sermon on the mount were like the pinnacle of human wisdom. Turn the other cheek, love your enemy. But it’s really bowing down before your abuser. Total dejection.

 

When it comes to evil, we need to be less tolerant. Tolerance of the intolerable is in itself an evil.

 

Compared to Islam, I think Christianity is worse in this respect. Islam doesn’t demand you love your enemy, or subject yourself to physical abuse. Reading the Quran and comparing it with the Bible, you have to conclude the quran is a lot more commonsensical. (But it lacks some of the poetry of the bible, and can be a bit boring to get through)

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It’s weird that even though I wasn’t “Christian” I’ve thought most of the time that some of the core messages of the sermon on the mount were like the pinnacle of human wisdom. Turn the other cheek, love your enemy. But it’s really bowing down before your abuser. Total dejection.

I disagree. Those messages are about not lowering yourself to the standards of your enemy, of maintaining moral standards even in the face of immorality, being compassionate and understanding and humane, and not letting conflict spiral into an endless series of tit-for-tat reprisals. God knows the world could do with learning that right now.

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Todd, njerry

Fair enough, in certain instances it could be used for good. However it can also be evil. There was a case recently in the Netherlands where a high profile Christian had sexually abused his daughter and had pressured her not to go to court because she should forgive her enemies and not be angry. In the end her decision to go to court made her an outcast in the community where she lived.

 

 

It can be spun in many ways. But should Jews in WW2 have turned the other cheek? Should the Palestinians or the Ukrainians now? I think there are many cases where anger, or even hate is justified.

Myth has become somewhat synonymous with untruth, with a lie. “That’s just a myth.”

 

For ancient people the concept of myth was the highest truth.

 

 

 

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Christian, Todd

In 2021 parliament adopted a law that said “animals in captivity have to e able to express their natural behavior”. I think it’s a good law, but I wonder what the consequences are for humans. We’re animals too, but do we express our natural behavior? Are we able to do that in modern society?

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Are we able to do that in modern society?

That depends: are you in captivity?

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Todd

njerry wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Are we able to do that in modern society?

That depends: are you in captivity?

Yes. Society imprisons me. ;)

 

A semi serious response, but I think there is some truth in it. You can’t really live outside the constraints modern society puts on you, unless you want to live like a vagrant. (Or you just die.)

I think theologians who say “God is in control” are contradicting themselves when they say evil is necessary because of free will. Either God is guilty of creating evil, or he is not completely in control (and people have free will).