RT @DegenRolf: The brains of more intelligent individuals are interconnected to a lesser extent, having less dendrites at command in the ce…
Source date (UTC): 2018-05-15 13:37:10 UTC
Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/996383993703649280
photos_and_videos/TimelinePhotos_43196237263/32624876_10156355769522264_4294454773257601024_n_10156355769517264.jpg photos_and_videos/TimelinePhotos_43196237263/32479841_10156355784962264_123486034951405568_n_10156355784957264.jpg WE CAN”T GET OUT OF IT. PEOPLE AT THE BOTTOM WILL INCREASE DRAG
the OECD also highlights a decoupling between productivity growth and higher real average wages in many countries, resulting in continued declines in labour’s share of national income.
In turn, the Compendium shows that the contribution of labour utilisation (hours worked per capita) to GDP growth has risen markedly in a number of countries, notably in the United Kingdom and the United States.
However, rises in labour utilisation reflect two opposing effects: higher employment rates but lower average hours per worker, which points to more part-time working, often in low productivity jobs.
Higher employment rates are welcome. But the fact that they, rather than increases in labour productivity, have been the most important driver of GDP per capita growth in many economies in recent years is a concern for long-term economic prospects, it adds.
The OECD says productivity is ultimately a question of “working smarter” – measured by ‘multifactor productivity’ – rather than “working harder”. It reflects firms’ ability to produce more output by better combining inputs through new ideas, technological innovations, as well as by way of process and organisational innovations, such as new business models.
Source date (UTC): 2018-05-14 14:23:00 UTC
OUR ANCIENT ORIGINS – PART ONE – THE BEGINNING – THE STRONG AND THE WEAK – By Karen Armstrong, from The Great Transformation.
(read this) (required reading) (cites below)
The first people to attempt an Axial Age spirituality were pastoralists living on the steppes of southern Russia, who called themselves the Aryans. The Aryans were not a distinct ethnic group, so this was not a racial term but an assertion of pride and meant something like “noble” 0r “honorable.” The Aryans were a loose—knit network of tribes who shared a common culture. Because they spoke a language that would form the basis of several Asiatic and European tongues, they are also called Indo-Europeans. They had lived on the Caucasian steppes since about 4500, but by the middle of the third millennium some tribes began to roam farther and farther afield, until they reached what is now Greece, Italy, Scandinavia, and Germany. At the same time, those Aryans who had remained behind on the steppes gradually drifted apart and became two separate peoples, speaking different forms of the original Indo-European. One used the Avestan dialect, the other an early form of Sanskrit. They were able to maintain contact, however, because at this stage their languages were still very similar, and until about 1500 they continued to live peacefully together, sharing the same cultural and religious traditions. It was a quiet, sedentary existence. The Aryans could not travel far, because the horse had not yet been domesticated, so their horizons were bounded by the steppes. They farmed their land, herded their sheep, goats, and pigs, and valued stability and continuity. They were not warlike people, since, apart from a few skirmishes With one another or with rival groups, they had no enemies and no ambition to conquer new territory. Their religion was simple and peaceful. Like other ancient peoples, the Aryans experienced an invisible force within themselves and in everything that they saw, heard, and touched. Storms, winds, trees, and rivers were not impersonal, mindless phenomena. The Aryans felt an affinity with them, and revered them as divine. Humans, deities, animals, plants, and the forces of nature were all manifestations of the same divine “spirit,” which the Avestans called mainyu and the Sanskrit-speakers manya. It animated, sustained, and bound them all together.
Over time the Aryans developed a more formal pantheon. At a very early stage, they had worshiped a Sky God called “Dyaus Pitr, creator of the world” But like other High Gods, Dyaus was so remote that he was eventually replaced by more accessible gods, who were wholly identified with natural and cosmic forces. Varuna preserved the order of the universe; Mithra was the god of storm, thunder, and life-giving rain; Mazda, lord of justice and wisdom, was linked with the sun and stars; and Indra, a divine warrior, had fought a three—headed dragon called Vritra and brought order out of chaos. Fire, which was crucial to civilized society, was also a god, and the Aryans called him Agni. Agni was not simply the divine patron of fire; he was the fire that burned in every single hearth. Even the hallucinogenic plant that inspired the Aryan poets was a god, called Haoma in Avestan and Soma in Sanskrit: he was a divine priest who protected the people from famine and looked after their cattle.
The Avestan Aryans called their gods daevas (“the shining ones”) and amesha (“the immortals”). In Sanskrit these terms became devas and amrita. None of these divine beings, however, were what we usually call “gods” today. They were not Omnipotent and had no ultimate control over the cosmos. Like human beings and all the natural forces, they had to
submit to the sacred order that held the universe together. Thanks to this order, the seasons succeeded one another in due course, the rain fell at the right times, and the crops grew each year in the appointed month. The Avestan Aryans called this order asha, while the Sanskrit—speakers called it rita. It made life possible, keeping everything in its proper place and defining what was true and correct.
Human society also depended upon this sacred order. People had to make firm, binding agreements about grazing rights, the herding of cattle, marriage, and the exchange of goods. Translated into social terms, asha/rira meant loyalty, truth, and respect, the ideals embodied by Varuna, the guardian of order, and Mithra, his assistant. These gods supervised all covenant agreements that were sealed by a solemn oath. The Aryans took the spoken word very seriously. Like all other phenomena, speech was a god, a deva. Aryan religion was not very visual. As far as we know, the Aryans did not make effigies of their gods. Instead, they found that the act of listening brought them close to the sacred. Quite apart from its meaning, the very sound of a chant was holy; even a single syllable could encapsulate the divine. Similarly, a vow, once uttered, was eternally binding, and a lie was absolutely evil because it perverted the holy power inherent in the spoken word. The Aryans would never lose this passion for absolute
truthfulness.
Every day, the Aryans offered sacrifices to their gods to replenish the energies they expended in maintaining world order. Some of these rites were very simple. The sacrificer would throw a handful of grain, curds, or fuel into the fire to nourish Agni, or pound the stalks of soma, offer the
pulp to the water goddesses, and make a sacred drink. The Aryans also sacrificed cattle. They did not grow enough crops for their needs, so killing was a tragic necessity, but the Aryans ate only meat that had been ritually and humanely slaughtered. When a beast was ceremonially given to the
gods, its spirit was not extinguished but returned to Geush Urvan (“Soul of the Bull”), the archetypical domestic animal. The Aryans felt very close to their cattle. It was sinful to eat the flesh of a beast that had not been consecrated in this way, because profane slaughter destroyed it forever, and thus violated the sacred life that made all creatures kin. Again, the Aryans would never entirely lose this profound respect for the “spirit” that they shared with others, and this would become a crucial principle of their Axial Age.
To take the life of any being was a fearful act, not to be undertaken lightly, and the sacrificial ritual compelled the Aryans to confront this harsh law of existence. The sacrifice became and would remain the organizing symbol of their culture, by which they explained the world and their society. The Aryans believed that the universe itself had originated in
a sacrificial offering. In the beginning, it was said, the gods, working in obedience to the divine order, had brought forth the world in seven stages. First they created the Sky, which was made of stone like a huge round shell; then the Earth, which rested like a flat dish upon the Water
that had collected in the base of the shell. In the center of the Earth, the gods placed three living creatures: a Plant, a Bull, and a Man. Finally they produced Agni, the Fire. But at first everything was static and lifeless. It was not until the gods performed a triple sacrifice—crushing the Plant, and killing the Bull and the Man—that the world became animated. The
sun began to move across the sky, seasonal change was established, and the three sacrificial victims brought forth their own kind. Flowers, crops, and trees sprouted from the pulped Plant; animals sprang from the corpse of the Bull; and the carcass of the first Man gave birth to the human race. The
Aryans would always see sacrifice as creative. By reflecting on this ritual, they realized that their lives depended upon the death of other creatures.
The three archetypal creatures had laid down their lives so that others might live. There could be no progress, materially or spiritually, without self-sacrifice. This too would become one of the principles of the Axial Age.
The Aryans had no elaborate shrines and temples. Sacrifice was offered in the open air on a small, level piece of land, marked off from the rest of the settlement by a furrow. The seven original creations were all symbolically represented in this arena: Earth in the soil,Water in the vessels, Fire in
the hearth; the stone Sky was present in the flint knife, the Plant in the crushed soma stalks, the Bull in the victim, and the first Man in the priest. And the gods, it was thought, were also present. The “hotr” priest, expert in the liturgical chant, would sing a hymn to summon devas to the feast. When they had entered the sacred arena, the gods sat down on the freshly mown grass strewn around the altar to listen to these hymns of praise. Since the sound of these inspired syllables was itself a god, as the song filled the air and entered their consciousness, the congregation felt surrounded by and infused with divinity. Finally the primordial sacrifice was
repeated. The cattle were slain, the soma pressed, and the priest laid the choicest portions of the victims onto the fire, so that Agni could convey them to the land of the gods. The ceremony ended with a holy communion, as priest and participants shared a festal meal with the deities, eating
the consecrated meat and drinking the intoxicating soma, which seemed to lift them to another dimension of being.
The sacrifice brought practical benefits too. It was commissioned by a member of the community, who hoped that those devas who had responded to his invitation and attended the sacrifice would help him in the future. Like any act of hospitality, the ritual placed an obligation on the divinities to respond in kind, and the hotr often reminded them to protect the patron’s family, crops, and herd. The sacrifice also enhanced the patron’s standing in the community. Like the gods, his human guests were now in his debt, and by providing the cattle for the feast and giving the officiating priests a handsome gift, he had demonstrated that he was a man of substance. The benefits of religion were purely material and this—worldly. People wanted the gods to provide them with cattle, wealth, and security. At first the Aryans had entertained no hope of an afterlife, but by the end of the second millennium, some were beginning to believe that
wealthy people who had commissioned a lot of sacrifices would be able to join the gods in paradise after their death.
This slow, uneventful life came to an end when the Aryans discovered modern technology. In about 1500, they had begun to trade with the more advanced societies south of the Caucasus in Mesopotamia and Armenia. They learned about bronze weaponry from the Armenians and also encountered new methods of transport: first they acquired wooden
carts pulled by oxen, and then the war chariot. Once they had learned how to tame the wild horses of the steppes and harness them to their chariots, they experienced the joys of mobility. Life would never be the same again. The Aryans had become warriors. They could now travel long distances at high speed. With their superior weapons, they could conduct
lightning raids on neighboring settlements and steal cattle and crops. This was far more thrilling and lucrative than stock breeding. Some of the younger men served as mercenaries in the armies of the southern kingdoms, and became expert in chariot warfare.When they returned to the steppes, they put their new skills to use and started to rustle their neigh-
bors’ cattle. They killed, plundered, and pillaged, terrorizing the more conservative Aryans, who were bewildered, frightened, and entirely disoriented, feeling that their lives had been turned upside down.
Violence escalated on the steppes as never before. Even the more traditional tribes, who simply wanted to be left alone, had to learn the new military techniques in order to defend themselves. A heroic age had begun. Might was right; Chieftains sought gain and glory; and bards celebrated aggression, reckless courage, and military prowess. The old Aryan religion had preached reciprocity, self—sacrifice, and kindness to animals. This was no longer appealing to the cattle rustlers, whose hero was the dynamic Indra, the dragon slayer, who rode in a chariot upon the clouds of heaven.10 Indra was now the divine model to whom the raiders aspired.
“Heroes with noble horses, fain for battle, selected warriors call on me in combat,” he cried. “I, bountiful Indra, excite the conflict, I stir the dust, Lord of surpassing vigour!”” When they fought, killed, and robbed, the Aryan cowboys felt themselves one with Indra and the aggressive devas who had established the world order by force of arms.
But the more traditional, Avestan-speaking Aryans were appalled by Indra’s naked aggression, and began to have doubts about the daevas. Were they all violent and immoral? Events on earth always reflected cosmic events in heaven, so, they reasoned, these terrifying raids must have a divine prototype. The cattle rustlers, who fought under the banner of
Indra, must be his earthly counterparts. But who were the daevas attacking in heaven? The most important gods—such as Varuna, Mazda, and Mithra, the guardians of order—were given the honorific title “Lord” (ahura). Perhaps the peaceful ahuras, who stood for justice, truth, and respect for life and property, were themselves under attack by Indra and the more aggressive daevas? This, at any rate, was the View of a visionary priest, who in about 1200 claimed that Ahura Mazda had commissioned him to restore order to the steppes.12 His name was Zoroaster.
When he received his divine vocation, the new prophet was about thirty years old and strongly rooted in the Aryan faith. He had probably studied for the priesthood since he was seven years old, and was so steeped in tradition that he could improvise sacred chants to the gods during the sacrifice. But Zoroaster was deeply disturbed by the cattle raids, and after
completing his education, he had spent some time in consultation with other priests, and had meditated on the rituals to find a solution to the problem. One morning, while he was celebrating the spring festival, Zoroaster had risen at dawn and walked down to the river to collect water for the daily sacrifice. Wading in, he immersed himself in the pure element, and when he emerged, saw a shining being standing on the riverbank, who told Zoroaster that his name was Vohu Manah (“Good Purpose”). Once he had been assured of Zoroaster’s own good intentions, he led him into the presence of the greatest of the ahuras: Mazda, lord of wisdom and justice, who was surrounded by his retinue of seven radiant
gods. He told Zoroaster to mobilize his people in a holy war against terror and violence. ‘3 The story is bright with the promise of a new beginning. A fresh era had dawned: everybody had to make a decision, gods and humans alike.Were they on the side of order or evil?
Zoroaster’s vision convinced him that Lord Mazda was not simply one of the great ahuras, but that he was the Supreme God. For Zoroaster and his followers, Mazda was no longer immanent in the natural world, but had become transcendent, different in kind from any other divinity.I4 This was not quite monotheism, the belief in a single, unique deity. The seven
luminous beings in Mazda’s retinue—the Holy Immortals—were also divine: each expressed one of Mazda’s attributes and was linked, in the traditional way, with one of the seven original creations. There was, however, a monotheistic tendency in Zoroaster’s vision. Lord Mazda had created
the Holy Immortals; they were “of one mind, one voice, one act” with him.“ Mazda was not the only deity, but he was the first to exist. Zoroaster had probably reached this position by meditating on the creation story, which claimed that in the beginning there had been one plant, one animal, and one human being. It was only logical to assume that originally
there had been one god.16
But Zoroaster was not interested in theological speculation for its own sake. He was wholly preoccupied by the violence that had destroyed the peaceful world of the Steppes, and was desperately seeking for a way to bring it to an end. The Gathas, the seventeen inspired hymns attributed to Zoroaster, are pervaded by a distraught vulnerability, impotence, and fear. “I know why I am powerless, Mazda,” cried the prophet, “I possess few cattle and few men.” His community was terrorized by raiders “yoked with evil acts to destroy life.” Cruel warriors, fighting under the orders of the evil Indra, had swept down on the peace—loving, law—abiding communities. They had vandalized and looted one settlement after another, killed the villagers, and carried off their bulls and cows.17 The raiders believed that they were heroes, fighting alongside Indra, but the Gathas show us how their victims saw the heroic age. Even the cow complained to Lord Mazda:“For whom did you shape me? Who fashioned me? Fury and raid-
ing, cruelty and might hold me captive.”When Lord Mazda replied that Zoroaster, the only one of the Aryans who listened to his teachings, would be her protector, the cow was not impressed.What use was Zoroaster? She wanted a more effective helper. The Gathas cried aloud for justice.Where
were the Holy Immortals, the guardians of asha? When would Lord Mazda bring relief ?‘8
The suffering and helplessness of his people had shocked Zoroaster into a torn, conflicted vision. The world seemed polarized, split into two irreconcilable camps. Because Indra and the cattle raiders had nothing in common with Lord Mazda, they must have given their allegiance to a different ahura. If there was a single divine source for everything that was benign and good, Zoroaster concluded that there must also be a Wicked deity who had inspired the cruelty of the raiders. This Hostile Spirit (Angra Mainyu), he believed, was equal in power to Lord Mazda, but was his opposite. In the beginning, there had been “two primal Spirits, twins destined to be in conflict” with each other. Each had made a choice. The Hostile Spirit had thrown in his lot with druj, the lie, and was the epitome of evil. He was the eternal enemy of asha, of everything that was right and true. But Lord Mazda had opted for goodness and had created the Holy Immortals and human beings as his allies. Now every single man, woman, and child had to make the same choice between asha and almj.19
For generations, the Aryans had worshiped Indra and the other daevas, but now Zoroaster concluded that the daevas must have decided to fight alongside the Hostile Spirit.20 The cattle raiders were their earthly counterparts. The unprecedented violence in the steppes had caused Zoroaster
to divide the ancient Aryan pantheon into two warring groups. Good men and women must no longer offer sacrifice to Indra and the daevas; they must not invite them into the sacred precinct. Instead, they must commit themselves entirely to Lord Mazda, his Holy Immortals, and the other ahuras, who alone could bring peace, justice, and security. The daevas and the cattle raiders, their evil henchmen, must all be defeated and destroyed.
The whole of life had now become a battlefield in which everybody had a role. Even women and servants could make a valuable contribution. The old purity laws, which had regulated the conduct of the ritual, were now given a new significance. Lord Mazda had created a completely clean and perfect world for his followers, but the Hostile Spirit had invaded the earth and filled it with sin, violence, falsehood, dust, dirt, disease, death, and decay. Good men and women must, therefore, keep their immediate environment free from dirt and pollution. By separating the pure from the impure, good from evil, they would liberate the world for Lord Mazda. They must pray five times a day. Winter was the season when the daevas were in the ascendant, so during this time all virtuous people must
counter their influence by meditating on the menace of druj. They must rise up during the night, when wicked spirits prowled the earth, and throw incense into the fire to strengthen Agni in the war against evil.23
But no battle could last forever. In the old, peaceful world, life had seemed cyclical: the seasons had followed one another, day succeeded night, and harvest followed the planting. But Zoroaster could no longer believe in these natural rhythms. The world was rushing forward toward a cataclysm. He and his followers were living in the “bounded time” of raging cosmic conflict, but soon they would witness the final triumph of
good and the annihilation of the forces of darkness. After a terrible battle, Lord Mazda and the Immortals would descend to the world of men and women and offer sacrifice. There would be a great judgment. The wicked would be wiped off the face of the earth, and a blazing river would flow into hell and incinerate the Hostile Spirit. Then the cosmos would be
restored to its original perfection. Mountains and valleys would be leveled into a great plain, where gods and humans could live side by side, worshiping Lord Mazda forever. There would be no more death. Human beings would be like deities, free from sickness, old age, and mortality.24
We are now familiar with this kind of apocalyptic vision, but before Zoroaster there had been nothing like it in the ancient world. It sprang from his outrage at the suffering of his people and his yearning for justice. He wanted the wicked to be punished for the pain they had inflicted on good, innocent people. But as time passed, he began to realize that he
would not be alive to see the Last Days. Another would come after him, a superhuman being, “who is better than a good man.””5 The Gathas call him the Saoshyant (“One Who Will Bring Benefit”). He, not Zoroaster, would lead Lord Mazda’s troops into the final battle.
When—centuries later—the Axial Age began, philosophers, prophets, and mystics all tried to counter the cruelty and aggression of their time by promoting a spirituality based on nonviolence. But Zoroaster’s traumatized vision, with its imagery of burning, terror, and extermination, was vengeful. His career reminds us that political turbulence, atrocity, and suffering do not infallibly produce an Axial-style faith, but can inspire a militant piety that polarizes complex reality into oversimplified categories of good and evil. Zoroaster’s vision was deeply agonistic.We shall see that the agon (“contest”) was a common feature of ancient religion. In making a cosmic agon between good and evil central to his message, Zoroaster belonged to the old spiritual world. He had projected the violence of his time onto the divine and made it absolute.
But in his passionately ethical vision, Zoroaster did look forward to the Axial Age. He tried to introduce some morality into the new warrior ethos. True heroes did not terrorize their fellow creatures but tried to counter aggression. The holy warrior was dedicated to peace; those who opted to fight for Lord Mazda were patient, disciplined, courageous, and swift to defend all good creatures from the assaults of the wicked.26 Ashavans, the champions of order (asha), must imitate the Holy Immortals in their care for the environment. “Good Purpose,” for instance, who had appeared to Zoroaster on the riverbank, was the guardian of the cow, and ashavans must follow his example, not that of the raiders, who drove the cattle from their pastures, harnessed them to carts, killed, and ate them without the proper ritual.” “Good Dominion,” the personification of divine justice, was the protector of the stone Sky, so ashavans must use their stone weapons only to defend the poor and the weak.’8 When Zoroastrians protected vulnerable people, looked after their cattle tenderly, and purified their natural environment, they became one with the Immortals and joined their struggle against the Hostile Spirit.
Even though his vision was grounded in ancient Aryan tradition, Zoroaster’s message inspired great hostility. People found it too demanding; some were shocked by his preaching to women and peasants, and by his belief that everybody—not just the elite—could reach paradise. Many would have been troubled by his rejection of the daevas: Might not Indra take revenge?29 After years of preaching to his own tribe, Zoroaster gained only one convert, so he left his village and found a patron in Vishtaspa, the chief of another tribe, who established the Zoroastrian faith in his territory. Zoroaster lived in Vishtaspa’s court for many years, fighting a heroic
battle against evil to the bitter, violent end. According to one tradition he was killed by rival priests who were enraged by his rejection of the old religion.We know nothing about the history of Zoroastrianism after his death. By the end of the second millennium the Avestan Aryans had migrated south and settled in eastern Iran, where Zoroastrianism became the national faith. It has remained a predominantly Iranian religion.
(Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation (Axial Age), Chapter 1.)
CITATIONS
I. Karl jaspers, The Origin and Goal of
History, trans. Michael Bullock
(London, 1953).pp. 1-70.
2. Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams and
Mysteries:’I’he Encounter Between
Contemporary Faiths and/lrchaie
Realities, trans. Philip Maire: (London,
1960). pp. 172-78;Wilhclm Schmidt,
The Origin of the Idea of God (New
York, 1912).
3. Walter Burkert, Homo Nemns:’lhe
Anthropology of Ancient Greek Satrifia’al
Ritual and Myth, trans. Peter Bing
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London.
198 3), pp. 16-22; Joseph Campbell
with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth
(New York, 1988). pp. 72-74.
4. Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries,
pp. 80-81; Mircca Eliade. The Myth of
the Eternal Return, or, Cosmos and
History, trans.Willard R. Trask
(Princeton, 1959), pp. 17—20.
5. Eliade, Myth of the Eternal Return, pp.
1-34.
6. Huston Smith, The World’s Religions:
Our Great Wisdom Traditions (San
Francisco, 1991), p. 2 3 5.
7- Eliadc, .Myth of the Eternal Return, pp.
34-35.
3- jaspers, Origin and Goal of History, p. 40.
1. THE AXIAL PEOPLES
1. Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians:’l’heir
Religious Beliefs and Practices, 2nd ed.
(London and New York), p. 2; Peter
Clark, Zoroastrians:An Introduction to
an Ancient Faith (Brighton and Port—
land, Ore., 1998), p. 18.
2. Mircea Eliade, Patterns of Comparative
Religion, trans. Rosemary Sheed
(London, 1958). pp. 66—68.
3. Boyce. Zoroastrians, pp. 9-11.
4. lbid., p. 8.
5. Yasht 48:5.
6. Boyce, Zoroastriaus, pp. 11-12.
7. Thomas]. Hopkins, The Hindu
Religious Tradition (Belmont. Calif .,
1971). p. 14.
8. Gavin Flood, An Introduction to
Hinduism (Cambridge and New York,
1996). P. 44;]ohn Keay, ludia:A
History (London, 2000), p. 32.
9. Boyce. Zoroastrians, pp. 12- 15.
to. Eliade, Patterns of Comparative Religion,
pp. 188—89; Norman Cohn. Cosmos,
Chaos and the World to Come:The
Ancient Roots Qprocalyptir Faith (New
Haven and London, 1993), pp. 94-95:
Boyce, Zoroastrians, pp. xiv—xv, 19.
11. Rig Veda 4.42.5, in Ralph T. H.
Griffith, trans. The Rig Veda (New
York, 1992).
12. Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World to
Come, p. 77; Boyce, Zoroastrians, p.
xiii; Clark, Zoroastrions, p. 19.
13. Yasna 43.
14. Clark, Zoroastrians. pp. 4-6.
15. Yasna 19:16-18. Quotations from the
Zoroastrian scriptures are taken from
Mary Boyce. ed. and trans., Téxtual
Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism
(Chicago, 1984).
16. Boyce, Zoroastrians, pp. 20-23; Cohn.
Cosmos, Chaos and the Wbrld to Come,
p. 81.
17. Yasna 46:2, 11; 50:1.
18. Yasna 29:1 -10.
19. Yasna 3o.
20. Yasna 30:6.
21. Yasna 46:4.
22.]an1sl1eed K. Choksy. Purity and
Pollution in Zoroastrianism:Triumph over
Evil (Austin, 1989), pp. 1- 5.
23. Boyce, Zoroastrians, p. 32.
24. Yasna 44:15; 51:9.
25. Yasna 43:3.
26. Yasna 29, 33.
27. Yasna 33.
28. Boyce. Zoroastrians, pp. 23-24.
29. lbid.. p. 30; Colm. Cosmos, Chaos and
the world to Come, p. 78.
3o. Edwin Bryant, The Quest jbr the
Origins qfl’i’dit Culture:’lhe Indo-Aryan
Debate (Oxford and New York. 2001);
S. C. Kak,“On the Chronology of
Ancient India.” Indian journal of
History and Seienee 22, n0. 3 (1987);
Colin Renfrew, Archaeology and
Linguqoe: The Puzzle oflndo-European
Origins (London. 1987).
31. Kcay. India, pp. 5- 18; Hopkins, Hindu
Religious ‘Iiadition, pp. 3- 10; Flood,
lntrodurtion to Hinduism, pp. 24- 3o.
32. Shatapatha Brahmana (58) 6.8.1.1. in
j. C. Hecswrman, The Broken ”vivid of
Sacrifice:An Essay inAncient Indian
Ritual (Chicago and London, 1993),
p. 123.
33. Mircea Eliade. A History ofReliqious
Ideas, trans.Willard R.Trask, 3 vols.
(Chicago and London, 1978, 1982,
1985), 1:200-201;_]. C. Hecsterman,
“Ritual, Revelation and the Axial
Age.” in S. N. Eisenstadt, ed., The
Origins and Diversity of Axial Age
Civilizations (Albany, 1986), p. 404.
34. Louis Renou, Religions ofAnrient India
(London, 1953), p. 20.
35. j. C. Hcesterman, The Inner Cory‘lirt of
‘Iiadition: Essays in Indian Ritual,
Kingship and Society (Chicago and
London, 1985), pp. 85-87.
Source date (UTC): 2018-05-11 13:25:00 UTC
https://propertarianism.com/2018/03/19/philosophy-for-grown-ups/PHILOSOPHY FOR GROWNUPS
(repost)
1. The only truths we know for certain are falsehoods. Everything that is not false is a truth candidate. This is the inverse of the fallacy of justificationism and the central insight of the sciences: the means by which we invent or grasp an idea contribute nothing to whether or not it is true or false. Only exhaustive falsification and survival from criticism deliver confidence that actions produce anticipated outcomes due to our comprehension of cause, effect, and the operations that are possible. Otherwise we are forever justifying whatever it is we seek to justify by any set of excuses we can imagine. This is why astrology, numerology, theology, philosophy, and the pseudosciences are so common – justification means absolutely nothing.
2. The only preference we know is the one we demonstrate. The only good we know is the one we mutually demonstrate by acting upon. People report very differently from what they demonstrate. The only morality we know that is we must avoid criminal(material), ethical(direct), and moral (indirect) imposition of costs upon one another. The only moral actions then are those that are not criminal, unethical, and immoral, and that means the only moral actions consiste of productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary exchange, free of imposition of costs upon the investments of others by externality. Ergo, all moral actions are those that are not immoral. There is no recipe for moral action other than that which is not immoral.
3. People always and everywhere demonstrate that they are neither moral or immoral but amoral and rational, doing what they must in all circumstances that they exist in. it is just disproportionately advantageous to act morally for the simple reason that the returns of cooperation always and everywhere defeat the returns on individual action. This is why exhaustive forgiveness of ‘cheaters’ in all walks of life will generally reform them. Because it is in their self interest. This is why we demonstrate altruistic punishment also (high cost of punishing cheaters), because the returns on cooperation are so valuable that we evolved to pay the high cost of punishment in order to preserve the high value of cooperation.
4. People notoriously think they are right and in the right, and acting morally, which is why we have courts of one kind or another among all peoples at all stages of development. And while rules of decidability in courts in matters of conflict vary from the poor and underdeveloped where interests in things, kin, and relationships are rare and collectively owned, to the wealthy and developed where things, interests, kin, relationships, and contracts are universally allocated to individuals and individually owned, the means of decidability in every single civilization is RECIPROCITY.
5. There exist then only one negative moral rule and one universal test of morality: “Do not unto others as they would not have done unto them”. There is only one positive moral rule: the extension of trust to non kin that we extend to kin, until it is no longer empirically possible to trust. – this optimizes cooperation by continuously training malcontents that it is in their interest to cooperate, and ostracizes (punishes) those who do not.
6. There are no conflicts that are not decidable by tests of reciprocity. None. This is why all international law is limited exclusively to the test of reciprocity. So logically(rational choice) and empirically (demonstrated action), and universally (all laws domestica and international at all scales) morality is anything that is not immoral unethical or criminal in that it imposes costs upon the efforts already expended to obtain a non-conflicting interest, in a good, relationship, or opportunity.
As far as I know no argument can defeat this that is not in and of itself an attempt at reciprocity (theft, freeriding, parasitism, conspiracy).
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev, Ukraine
Source date (UTC): 2018-05-09 21:22:00 UTC
In the battles of sophisms between sophists the articulate wins. that’s the problem: we want truth to win.
You can use sophism to state a truth or sophism to state a falsehood. By using sophism to state a truth you have done nothing to insure that truth against defeat by sophisms that are false. (yes, I mean you, jordan peterson, et al.)
I told you in 2015 “We are the new right”, back when it was clear to me that the nazi right and the alt right would run out of gas. Anti doesn’t work. You have to be FOR something. We are the New Right.
(today) woman: “Curt have you picked out your rug and curtains for your place in hell?” curt: “They don’t let you have curtains or a rug in a padded cell….” Lolz….
Truth has no mercy. It slaughters our most cherished lies. Without mercy. And without those lies we have no choice but truth and markets. And no means of circumventing exchanges.
—How many people alive are capable of shouldering that responsibility?”—Dawid Wella
Enough to rule…. …..those who cannot.
—You know there are just enough morons crawling out of the woodwork to make you lose your faith in humanity. Well, actually there are a perpetual series of tidal waves of them, and it’s really hard to get out of the way….–CD
We have seen Baltimore and LA, but nothing will compare to empty ATM’s, Empty Stores, no EBT’s, and hordes of the unwashed in the streets terrorizing the middle classes, and laying waste to the upper middle and upper. #Trump If we have a civil war the disaster will make history.— CD
—“If you aren’t willing to die for freedom you’re already a slave”— Kevin Ruckus … –(I’d use sovereignty instead of freedom or liberty but the sentiment is the same 😉 )–CD
—The vast majority of us would have little need for philosophy if we started working prior to adolescence. It’s the institutionalized infantilism of mandatory but largely useless education after grade six, that forces us to grasp at rhetorical straws out of sequestration, ignorance, and propaganda.—CD
—“God is dead. We killed him. Now, let’s drink his blood and take responsibility for our emotional, mental and social health without the use of lies.”—Bill Joslin There is that whole responsibility thing again… damn. 😉 ( Bill usually provides the gentle version, and Eli the extreme version. But Bill? …Whoa. I don’t even go there… )
If you ever ran a company of any scale at all the last thing you would want is voters controlling the decisions. There is a reason CEO’s exist. And there is a reason Kings existed. It’s one thing to collectively fire a ceo or execute a king. It’s quite another to suggest any form of democracy is a good thing.
The left will continue to double down. The right will say ‘enough’. It’s not complicated.
Well, moral LAW is objective (Logical and Scientific), moral NORMS are evolved, and moral PREFERENCES are expression of personal reproductive strategy. The problem is everyone assumes it works the other way ’round.
—“Civilizations differ radically among themselves. From civilization to civilization, however, the few civilized men acknowledge each other with a discreet smile.”—Nicolas Davila via Ahmed Reda Absolutely. A few of us converge on the truth of it all. The only difference is the drag of our demographics and institutions…. lol And some of us are dragging some serious dead weight… lol
It’s not complicated. Most men just don’t want to be lied to any longer. Whereas women find comfort in being lied to if it increases the incentive for harmony (decreases perceived conflcit, competition and threat).
Yes, well the secret of religious devotion especially for women is that the truth is less important than belonging (conformity). It is almost impossible to find a woman that is not a victim of this particular cognitive drive. It supercedes her reason at nearly all times, and is the cause of victim mentality in women who are simply unsafe and fall in to victim spirals seeing rapists everywhere.
—“Curt: Thanks for writing about autism. I knew nothing about it and I was working with someone on the spectrum – who knows he is – and instead of finding his behaviors frustrating I could frame and understand them them.”— A Friend. Helping each other on the journey man. 😉 -hugs.
—“Women are devoted, and men are loyal. There’s a difference.”—
women choose. women choose what they understand. women must learn to understand what is good, not what is familiar.
( I don’t have the luxury of holding onto ideas I hold dear. That’s my job. Truth knows no mercy. )
Sorry, but if you look at history genocide has an exceptionally successful and beneficial history for the victors. Which is why they’re doing to us what they did to the Itals (Romans)
It is just as hard to deny allies the familiar safe grounds of self destruction than to move them to unfamiliar grounds of survival. Unfortunately the work of the creative theorist includes denying well intentioned fools of otherwise good character, refuge in the familiar but self destructive. In this way we move people into new choices as much by denying them defection as we do by presenting them with opportunities for persistence.
One begs for friends, sells customers, attracts followers, and commands dependents. Your value determines which role you play. Create value.
It never occurs to communists what they have to trade with sovereignists.
—“If we forcibly moved all of them to Palestine, then in about four centuries they’ll be ethically protestant. Why? Landholding ethics, and high trust ethics needed to scale organizations. Either that or they’d be defeated. We forget they had a professional class but never a middle MANAGERIAL class.”—CD
Intuitable and decidable are two very different things.
The reason to lead is because everyone else is even worse. Not because you want to – but because you must.
a band becomes a militia, a militia an army, an army a nation.
The Origin of the West: The Militia Constitution is nothing but a contract. A contract is nothing without insurance. That insurance is nothing but the militia. That militia nothing but moral men bearing arms. —CD
—OK. REPEATING THE BASICS: If you have rule of law of reciprocity, then you must as a consequence produce markets in everything, which will include markets for commons, which will include charity (subsidy) among kin.–CD
—I prosecute disapproval, ridicule, shaming, gossiping and rallying as an infantile substitute for argument – it just so happens that (as you demonstrate) women have a far higher proclivity for emoting rather than debating. Which is why women have the deserved reputation for resorting to instinctual disapproval – as if their approval mattered – rather than doing the work of reasoning to produce truth and truth alone, regardless of their approval or disapproval – as in male discourse. Much to the frustration of feminists everywhere who desperately try create pseudosciences and excuses for justifying worthless opinion over valuable argument. — CD
—Rabbinical Judaism (Pilpul) was to Lying, what Greek Logic (Mathematics) was to Truth. Between lying and truth was an opportunity for lying by myth.–CD
—The problem in discourse is very rarely intelligence. Its either intellectual honesty, lack of agency, or both.–CD
—Men get agency and women get health. Not sure men get much of a bargain for absorbing cellular damage.–CD
—WHAT DOES SJW “EQUITY” MEAN? It means they are rebelling against everyone else for their low sexual, social, economic, and political market value, because of their genetic, behavioral, and aesthetic inferiority. That’s actually the reason. They want equality of outcome, but they mean, literally changing their social status from undesirable to desirable. — CD
—You see, I see african ‘humility’ as both a blessing and a curse. It is not that helpful, but humility is easier to transform into heroic optimism, than islamic overconfidence, and Hindu over-investment in ‘magic’. Islam is the greatest danger to Africa for this reason. —CD
—“This [America] is the only place on earth where a human being is respected for what he is and what he does, and it does not matter who he is and where he came from.”— Rachmaninoff upon becoming an American citizen. Unfortunately, the postmodern effort has attempted to reverse this, such that it matters more who you are (race, ethnicity, class, gender) and where you came from (anywhere other than white).–CD
—The one to kill is Zoroaster. After him, Abraham (assuming he existed), after him Saul. After him Augustine. After him, Constantine before he ascended the throne. After him Muhammed (probably the most important). After him, Napoleon, thereby preventing the need to unify Germany. After him Marx. The only reason to get to hitler is because these people existed.–CD
—( I mean, if you disagree with me, ask a question but don’t come at me all full of sound and fury signifying nothing. I tend to think things because of lots of cross referenced data. Some times I’m defining, some times I’m describing, some times I’m experimenting, sometimes I’m fostering conversation, and some times I’m just creating a bit of havoc. But … jeez, please don’t just give me some mises institute, or marxists idiocy. I don’t actually like calling people stupid.)–CD
—Disapproval, shaming, rallying, as a substitute for argument (conflation of good/bad with true/false ) is gender biased cognitive bias, just as is psychosis/solipsism vs psychopathy/autism. Either make the argument or at least be honest and say you can’t. But don’t waste my time.—CD
—Um. You don’t understand. Law must be constructed in the context of the individual, because only individual crimes are decidable. But legislation, or what we call Policy, because it is only as families we have common interests.–CD
—“Curt, I’ve been following your work since I first heard you on Red Ice and Counter-Currents. You’re ability to synthesize such a wide range of topics is incredibly valuable in a data saturated age. I appreciate it hugely and will continue to closely follow your work. Also appreciate your moderation and tendency to avoid the genetic and other simplistic racial fallacies. Definitely desperately needed on the New Right. Thanks for doing what you do- looking forward to that book!”— A Friend. (Hugs brother. Thanks for stoking the fires of dedication to the work. 😉 —CD)
—I don’t publish these private messages often, but I get them every day, and they are the most fulfilling part of my life:
—“Hello Curt. As I’ve never written you before and believe there’s something that must be said I just will. Thank you for putting your work out there for the public. I think you are doing a great contribution to science as a method as well as how it’s understood. Peterson is doing a lot of good helping people believe in themselves, but I admire your tenacity and commitment to getting to the truth of it all. Cheers.”— Love you all brothers and sisters.—CD
—Are you kidding me? My hero is Palpatine. The Empire did nothing wrong. 😉 –CD
—There are no limits in the bedroom other than the safe word.–CD
—(In response to a Turkish Muslim Rant against the high concentration of homosexuality in the west). Westerners do not judge the character of individuals by whether they practice homosexuality . We do however judge the character of individuals by whether they practice bestiality. 😉 –CD —It’s not that americans are necessarily dumber than europeans, but that they’re worse educated, indisciplined, overconfident, and overzealous.–CD
—My understanding is that men cheat but rarely defect. Women cheat and more frequently defect. The reason being that other than novelty and cost of access, women are marginally indifferent in utility. Whereas other than novelty, men are marginally different in utility. Most of the time, people cheat for novelty, test of sexual market value, and retaliation. Economics in everything.—CD
—INCOME DIFFERENCES ARE LOYALTY PAYMENTS – Specialization in truth, calculation, competition, risk, and winning conflicts is more of a competitive advantage at the top of the organization. Salary Differences are most often (a) that specialization, and (b) loyalty payments.– CD
–BAD TASTE – Bad taste is a matter of ignorance (lack of skill), and therefore lack of ability, lack of investment, or malinvestment.–CD
–Yes scale increases selection influence and decreases drift influence and hence speciation is possible TO CONTROL.—CD
“I pray thee gods, deliver us unto kings, and save us from the people.”–CD
—“Nobody is out of the gene pool, unless they don’t reproduce.”—A Friend. Apparently you don’t understand the difference between pools(ponds, lakes), rivers, and oceans?–CD
—A judge of natural law does not depend upon the comprehension of the judged, any more than a mathematician on the comprehension of the audience.—CD
–Understanding is overrated, and volition over-estimated. I don’t expect people to understand. I only expect them to obey natural law or bear the painful consequences.–CD
–Soldiers should believe themselves valorous and a general should let them. But the reason they win is they were given an opportunity by the generals such that valor was a plentiful reward, and relatively easy for them to obtain–CD
–If we remove the wealth and order, then the tolerance, like the dam will end, and the natural pressure of the conflict will produce deterministic ends.– CD
–What would happen if we prevented renting in cities the way we prevent renting in suburbs?–CD
–What makes women equal to one another and in value to men, is childbearing.–CD
—I define religion in terms of techniques of learning mindfulness(confidence) and the consequent externalities good and bad.—CD
We are only engaged in reciprocity if we are cooperating. if we are not cooperating because of lack of shared opportunity that is still reciprocity. If we are not cooperating because of predation or parasitism, then that is war.–CD
We will either separate or terminate – and termination of whom by whom is a random outcome. Ergo, as always, the optimum solution to conflict is boycott: nationalism.–CD
—“This is a major genetic cause of corruption and low-trust in these nations.The restriction of marriage to relatives decreases the level of outgroup altruism, resulting in the general trend of corruption in these nations.”—CD
—1. Exhaustion of INTERPERSONAL Opportunity to Cooperate wins. 2. The Most Intolerant POLITICAL Group Wins. BE INTOLERANT.–CD
There is no difference between your body and my wallet.–CD
The only people that matter, are the people who fight. That’s why.—CD
—“The only way to defeat intolerance (of civilisation, meritocracy, commons) is by being even more intolerant of deceit and non-reciprocal costs.”—CD
—“Well my take is that the brain structure evolved for graceful improvement and graceful failure of decidability. Our problem is we cannot introspectively observe this process below the emotional threshold.”—CD
—“You don’t understand. Sovereignty is decidable. The first cause of western civ is this decidability – a feature that no other has.”—CD
—So it looks like we are going to start talking openly about a plan for … revolution and civil war to devolve the influence of the federal government. I don’t expect we will publish those conversations here.”— CD
–My current opinion is that verbal ability in a population and low vs high context is disproportionately influential on rates of development – and until we have better understanding of the genome I can’t but say “It sure looks like the causal axis”.–CD
–The reason we have cognitive science is because psychology was pure nonsense and so a group branched off to create a science where previously there was none.–CD
–My presumption of best way = continuous competition (empiricism), and continuous success at competition (dynamic markets), which requires continuous defeat of the red queen (regression to the mean), by continuous improvement of the gene pool (kin group eugenics.)–CD
–I try to write natural law of reciprocity, and not presume a good. In my view all monopolies are false *(bad)*. Instead, how do we provide a suite of market solutions that generally solve the problem without fighting human incentives.–CD
—Doolittle’s Analytic Anglo Law vs Land’s Synthetic Continental Literature vs M’s Jewish Critique vs Hoppe’s Kantian Rationalism. Different grammars. Different justifications[Many roads to Rome], same objective. But, of them which criticism and solution is most complete, and least open to interpretation and therefore most institutable as law? Then, once we have that law, where do we search for opportunities within it? That’s where you look for Nick Land.—CD
—“It’s not that Keynesian economics is unscientific it’s that it’s immoral. It’s not so much that German Rationalism and Jewish Cosmopolitan rationalism are not simply a backwards-expression of intuitionism and operationalism under empiricism, despite it’s inability to produce insights and only explain them. It’s instead, that the rationalist position is an attempt to intellectually outlaw investigation into emergent economic phenomenon – which is the purpose of scientific investigation, just as much as experimental psychology is the discipline that investigates first principles – and which has discovered the reason for our long list of cognitive biases that produce non-rational actions not anticipated by the classical model.” – CD
–“[A]s far as I know, the only meaningful reason to study economics for use in ethics and politics, is to justify the rule of law (Nomocracy), under the single rule of property rights, where property rights is as defined under Propertarianism, as property-en-toto (demonstrated property). And where that body of law suppresses sufficient involuntary transfer of property-en-toto, that the formation of a Nomocratic polity is possible. And where the formation and perpetuation of that polity is possible, because transaction costs are sufficiently suppressed that a rational choice for Nomocracy is possible, over a rational choice for statism. And that the normative preference of nomocratic rule over statist rule is maintained by the constant exercise of that body of law in daily life, rather than a philosophical-rational, religio-moral, pedagogically-instructional, or normatively-habituated means of persistence.”–CD
–“We are not equal. We have different abilities. Limited value to one another. But if we all specialize and do our duty we can defeat the red queen.”–CD
Investment is a fact. Possession is contingent. Property is what the strong agree it is. Property rights are what the strong are willing to insure. Be the strong. It all begins with the militia.
Against Those Who Counter Signal Revolt: —“What you mean is that you are projecting, and you’re a coward. Plenty of us revel in these opportunities. The way you get people involved is to take from them. you take from them by removing their futures, opportunities, property, people, home, relationships, and most of all ‘certainty’. Humans have very little idea how much of their illusion of self confidence and control is dependent upon regularity over which they have no control. if you knew anything about civil war and revolution you would know that. To get people involved in a revolution, you take from them. Even if its only their sense of predictability.”— The herd will run from the pack.
—-“Seems like China is going to be 1984 and the West is going to be Brave New World. The future looks pretty screwed unless something radical is done.”—- Philip Saunders
–RULE IS THE MOST PROFITABLE INDUSTRY – Let’s Return To Our Original Occupation–CD
–WARS ARE FOR-PROFIT ADVENTURES – Venture Capitalism At It’s Finest.–CD
—You wanna priest to tell you comforting half truths, then go ask one. I’m a judge and prosecutor of natural law. Truth and reciprocity aren’t comforting. They just are decidable. And if you don’t like those decisions you have to ask why you’re trying to free ride, seek rents, or steal from others. –CD
The end result of the british goverment is deterministically caretaker bolshevism. The Russian empire needed a means of homogenous conquest. British government after losing the empire has taken on a means of conquest – of its own people. UK=SOVIETS V2–CD
Dont be stupid. The difference between races, subraces, tribes and classes is demonstrated by ingroup preference (Kin selection). The fact that species can or cannot cross reproduce says nothing about what they prefer to reproduce with, and what they prefer to reproduce with is that which they can judge superiority and inferiority (investment) between.
um. We all wish libertarianism was possible, just like we all wish dating victoria’s secret models was possible. Neither is possible because of the asymmetry of interests.. So it’s back to having to do the hard work of constructing rule of law, by the organised use of violence, and obtaining liberty as a consequence. We won’t get scarce tens voluntarily and liberty is a ten.
—Um, just tax people by population density. It’s not complicated. It’s progressive as hell. Higher density means lower cost of commons maintenance and lower opportunity cost, and higher income. Now we progressively tax income but we don’t progressively tax benefits from the commons, and give credit for maintenance of the commons.—CD
—” Lying, Cheating, Stealing > Pilpul > Critique > Postmodernism. Where marxism is pseudoscience, postmoderinsm is simply returning to outright lying by means of critique.”—CD
—“Truth benefits all, at the expense of those who lie. All abrahamism is a lie. All people under abrahamism declined. There is no difference between drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, abrahamic religion, and buddhist religion: It is all to create an environment of lies.”—CD
—“The difference is that speech has been sacred in our civilization, and the opposite in (((theirs))).”—CD
–“Without commensurable categories you can literally make a sensible argument for anything. Thats’ why Pllpul worked, and why it spread to christian theology, then to continental philosophy, and now to marxism-postmodernism. … Grammars matter.”–CD
–“Moral men do not want to rule. That is precisely why we must rule.”–CD
–You are only ruled by others because you refuse to rule. Do you understand?–CD
Um. We don’t live under capitalism whatsoever. We live under financialism, social democracy (the redistributive state), and rule by the mob instead of rule of law.
It’s a very different thing reading what people said in history versus what people said later on about what people said in history. History is not ideological. Wars are for economic reasons: the returns of winning are profitable.
—“Every woman is pandora, and we are the guardians of the box.”–CD
—“Aristotelians: we are here to master the universe, for we are the gods the universe has made.”—CD
–If you won’t start the fight, fight, and end the fight by defeating the enemy completely, you’re a free rider on those that do, not a man of virtue or character. The time to fight is coming.—CD
–“Death prior to reproduction provides evolution’s quality control.”–CD
–Our reproductive strategy assumes a high rate of mortality in order to defeat the red queen. It should not surprise us that dysgenia ensues when we lower rates of mortality.”—CD
“Cities are a great place to visit. They are a terrible place to live. The modern city is just a plantation for the very rich to live well off the very poor.”–CD
Pilpul and Critique vs Science and Law. Semitic Grammar (Excuses), vs European Grammar (Warranty). Once you see it you can’t unsee it.–CD
–The militia owns the commons, and tends it as a garden, or the commons is nothing but weeds – and like all countries lacking a militia – full of trash and fecal matter.”–CD
—“The reason we need a truth is because it’s undesirable.” — Curt Doolittle
(((Success?))) It’s because sophistry sells, specializing in moral hazard is the most profitable industry, and free riding is a tremendous discount, and we are in an era of mass communication, and no defense against sophism.
It takes a great deal of Agency to speak truthfully; and learning to speak truthfully provides you with Agency. Operational grammar of testimonial speech is as important as reading, mathematics, and logic.
-“Northern Europeans are closely related to each other, not Southern. The genetic distance between a Welshman and a Russian is smaller than the distance between a Northeast Frenchman and a Southern Frenchman.”-Alexander Zavialov
The best revolutions are those that are resolved out of fear of fighting, not those that are fought.
I’m an anti-philosophy philosopher. I do science, economics, and law. Everything else is fictionalism.
—“Studying postmodern philosophy at university is painful for me as I don’t like sophistry.”— Sorry man. But take heart, the study of their sophistry only assists us in understanding the enemy. 😉
—“The zombie apocalypse is here. They just have 80 IQ’s rather than 40, the virus is linguistic, and not very contagious, and you don’t have to shoot them in the head – anywhere at all will do.”—
—“By any measure there is no intrinsic value to a given human life. Just the opposite – value is rare, and man is an expensive, destructive, and toxic life form for the biosphere to carry in great numbers. There is no problem facing mankind that is not trivial in comparison to the rates of reproduction of the underclasses. Eugenic reproduction will provide the next century with higher returns than any technology.”—
Men get agency and women get health. Not sure men get much of a bargain for absorbing cellular damage.
—“We define ourselves more so by what we are against, less so by what we agree upon.”—Liupold Engelwulf But to make a new world we need something to advocate for.
Well the USA did to Europe in the 1800s what china is doing to America, in the 2000’s and what Africa will in 50-100 years do to china. The difference is that Africa sits on the Motherload of resources, and china is her dependent the way the arabs sit on a Motherload of oil and the west are their dependents.
CIVIL WAR – The reason we’re going to ‘go there’ is because we have to ‘go there’ before they do. They will. Every time in history. They talk about it openly.
End Tax Sexism. Time for Tax By Income, Cellular Damage, and Risk.
—You may run on an income statement, but nation, civilization, earth, and universe run on a balance sheet. There are no free rides.—
—“Christianity simply can’t survive outside the Age of Ignorance.”—Alex Macleod
THE MOST INTOLERANT WINS This is whether it is excessive feminism in women, or excessively feminine religions, or excessively feminine politics. Entertainment from men not women.
Tradition, Norm and Fashion are different points on a spectrum of rates of change of behavior.
Feminine, Monopoly, Herd. -vs- Male Market, Packs. It’s not complicated. It’s lying about it that makes us perceive complexity.
EVERYTHING IS SIMPLE Everyone seems to think Art is a complex topic. It’s not. Math isn’t a complex topic. Nor are morality, ethics, and law. Nor is psychology and sociology. Nor are the sciences. THE UNIVERSE IS VERY SIMPLE- IF WE STOP LYING.
—As I’ve said repeatedly, and will continue to, the primary economic advantage any culture can seek is demographic. This will exacerbate over the next century such that smaller states with superior demographics will constantly outperform larger states with worse demographics. The people you live with have greater influence on your potential than do your abilities.—
The criteria of decidability vary greatly between the male and the female. This is easily demonstrated. Men and women judge by very different criteria.
Supernatural religions produce trust in a proxy, and by conformity predictability in one another. This is a dramatic cost reduction over the need to learn about one another sufficiently to try trust.
—There are only two social sciences: the law of tort (property), and its facility and measurement: economics. The problem is macro economics seeks to circumvent the law, and the law is ignorant of macro economics.—
—“The only time you get to choose your own death is when you choose to be a hero.”—Scott Deckard
—*Speech causes us to vastly underestimate our evolutionary differences. Language may demarcate man from animals, but agency separates humans from man. Some of us are more human than others.*—
The degree with which women will self modify to maintain the peace is often detrimental to the women, the men, and the peace.
Quotes of the day from an Arabic speaking friend: –“I wasn’t really terrified of ISIS’s speeches until I read them in English.”— I could do a podcast on what that means. English is… clear. Because it is a legalistic and scientific language. So the poetic translates very differently.
Well, the only thing I can say about the inquisition is that it was too soft. But we learn not to repeat past mistakes.
I mean, Natural Law (The White Law) can certainly serve as a messianic religion of human transcendence. There is no greater duty, nor mission. Give “The Purge” a whole new meaning.
Noose, Pike, and Pyre. Every. Last. One. Dii Velint! (“the gods will it”)
You know, when you preserve hanging by community prosecution (hanging) it’s pretty easy to eradicate crime and malfeasance over the course of a generation or two. Removing lynching and the duel was a tragedy.
—“Thay’ah ey’uz wohn may’thohd ov say’elf d’fay’ense – uh guhn. ev’rih’thin ay’uhls iz fo’ wohn’in, co’rek’tin, dis’ih’plihn, ay’uhn puhn’ish’mayuhnt.”— The Colonel. Translated from the Southern Dialect: –“There is but one method of self defense: a gun. Everything else is for warning, correcting, discipline, and punishment.”–
Abrahamism, both ancient supernatural, modern pseudoscientific, contemporary pseudo-rational is a threat to the future of humanity. It is want of the herd: dysgenia.
You know, a homogenous polity can feel boring, and the cheap novelty of different peoples interesting, exciting and a learning experience. But it is one thing to import different peoples, and another to visit different peoples. And that is that we reward others by visiting, and impose costs upon others by staying.
Diversity? Never confuse vacation, and cooperation, with cohabitation.
I look forward to that time when Steinbeck and Dickens are grouped with Rousseau, Marx, Lenin, and Mao.
A world without truth is only a postmodern dream until the aristocracy (market meritocracy) is eradicated and we are once again reduced to authoritarian monopoly, and the poverty that ensues. And power is held by people who exploit the poor, rather than those who eliminate poverty but cannot eliminate voluntary reproduction beyond one’s means.
Speech consists of measurements. Those measurements are either identical in correspondence, marginal, adequate, inadequate, biased, or deceptive.
The people that matter are thought leaders, organizing leaders (marketers), and direct-action leaders (fighting). When those three packs align, and you have an opportunity for action to seize, then you have revolution.
My understanding of political conflict in the present era is an attempt at speciation, and a political structure, and religions counter to it.
– ethnocentrism is the optimum group political strategy. – markets the optimum economic strategy. – eugenics the optimum group competitive strategy. – neoteny the optimum genetic strategy.
The reason for natural law of reciprocity is that it is the only reason under which the strong and able have a greater interest in cooperation than predation.
Violence is the only answer. It is the least expensive, fastest, most certain answer, with the most dependable consequences.
We don’t need to increase our rates of reproduction so much as separate. Separation will provide the economic and cultural incentive to maintain population.
Stupid and immoral people only matter under universal democracy. But while one cannot fix stupid people, one can however eliminate them from democratic participation.
We use the term Nanny State for the Feminine and Effeminate State. Which then begs the question, now that the nanny state has infantilized the population, who parents the nanny state so that it raises adults?
Speciation: “Cognitive Speciation through Neurological Gender Dimorphism”
Language gives us the impression we are more similar than we are, while the concepts that we think with and the values we attribute to them demonstrate that we COGNITIVELY SPECIATE.
By any measurement, the result of a democratic government is to turn assets in to consumption and production into rents.
—“Aryan man seeks to leave the world improved for having lived in it, and to be remembered for it – and therefore immortal.”—
Might does make what exists whether or not it is right (reciprocal). we have conquered one another since the beginning of our species.
—“I’ve gotten in the habit of checking the last name of the author of everything I read. It’s helped tremendously.”—Darren O’Connor
History isn’t so much written by the victors as the liars that produce history for them.
Gods? If there are to be gods, then we must become them.
Is the demarcation between animal and human speech or agency? Because I am increasingly convinced it’s agency and the vast majority of humans are in fact merely animals.
—“What do you mean by “Masculine men conversations”?—Kari Anne Dorstad Um. A stream of facts about stuff you can light on fire, eat, hunt, kill, have sex with, or use to obtain any one of the previous. (Or any proxy thereof.);)
Death (a life) is a very dear thing to spend. One can spend it on nothing. Or one can spend it on something. I want to spend mine on something that cannot be purchased by any other means.–CD
—Certain (((Factions))) spent a lot of words on propaganda creating a debate between capitalism and socialism when the only debate there ever has been is over rule of law vs rule by discretion. If we have rule of law, markets will develop, and we can redistribute some amount of the proceeds. All economies have always been mixed and always will be. It was the (((attempt))) to produce authoritarian monopolies that put the world in chaos.–CD
Jehovah is a demon and the abrahamic religions his design for hell on earth. —“Says a beneficiary of Christendom.”— James Fox Higgins: Says a survivor of the Abrahamic Dark Ages – saved only by the remilitarization of europe under the vikings, the reintroduction of greek and roman thought, the development of printing that broke the church’s monopoly on propaganda, and the revolution in british law and steel. There was nothing good in christianity that was not extant in europe as far back as 1500bc, and everything bad in christianity (and all abrahamic religions) was invented by christians. Lies are lies are lies. Truth is enough.
—“Who are you to…..!!!!!”— (sarcasm) Well, domesticated animals lack the agency for self determination, and people below the threshold of reason and reciprocity, are just domesticated animals. Or as Heinlein said: “If you can’t do math you’re just an animal that’s house-trained and doesn’t need to turn around three times before laying down.” So I don’t grant sovereignty to those lacking agency, because they are incapable of it, any more than I let children run with scissors or women talk politics and war. lol — CD