(edited for clarity) In the matter of gods we have only the testimony of men, and the means, motive, and opportunity to lie in their testimony. Given means motive and opportunity to lie, and no evidence of all that they speak the truth, then all gods are merely fictional characters. Those characters serve as anthropomorphic analogies. Those analogies serve as to provide decidability when we have no other means of deciding. It is not that gods – like all units of measurement – are not useful. They are. Particularly for the intergenerational transfer of such units of measurement. But there is no difference between Gandalf and Jehova and Allah other than that we make no false testimony to the existence of Gandalf, and we give false testimony to the existence of Jehova and Allah. We must give false testimony because we cannot give testimony of any other kind. It is not possible. None of us have observed the existence of any god that cannot be explained by more simple means. We can however, give thanks to our ancestors. That is because we have ancestors worthy of our thanks. The reason for the fabrication of Jehova and Allah is that the people who invented those fictional characters had no ancestors worthy of their thanks. Means, Motive, and Opportunity. Guilty as Charged.
Form: Mini Essay
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Gods? Guilty as Charged
(edited for clarity) In the matter of gods we have only the testimony of men, and the means, motive, and opportunity to lie in their testimony. Given means motive and opportunity to lie, and no evidence of all that they speak the truth, then all gods are merely fictional characters. Those characters serve as anthropomorphic analogies. Those analogies serve as to provide decidability when we have no other means of deciding. It is not that gods – like all units of measurement – are not useful. They are. Particularly for the intergenerational transfer of such units of measurement. But there is no difference between Gandalf and Jehova and Allah other than that we make no false testimony to the existence of Gandalf, and we give false testimony to the existence of Jehova and Allah. We must give false testimony because we cannot give testimony of any other kind. It is not possible. None of us have observed the existence of any god that cannot be explained by more simple means. We can however, give thanks to our ancestors. That is because we have ancestors worthy of our thanks. The reason for the fabrication of Jehova and Allah is that the people who invented those fictional characters had no ancestors worthy of their thanks. Means, Motive, and Opportunity. Guilty as Charged.
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Curt Doolittle updated his status. LESSONS FROM THE GULAG 3. I realized that fri
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
LESSONS FROM THE GULAG
3. I realized that friendship, comradeship, would never arise in really difficult, life-threatening conditions. Friendship arises in difficult but bearable conditions (in the hospital, but not at the pit face).
4. I realized that the feeling a man preserves longest is anger. There is only enough flesh on a hungry man for anger: everything else leaves him indifferent.
6. I realized that humans were human because they were physically stronger and clung to life more than any other animal: no horse can survive work in the Far North.
7. I saw that the only group of people able to preserve a minimum of humanity in conditions of starvation and abuse were the religious believers, the sectarians (almost all of them), and most priests.
8. Party workers and the military are the first to fall apart and do so most easily.
9. I saw what a weighty argument for the intellectual is the most ordinary slap in the face.
Excerpt from “Forty-Five Things I Learned in the Gulag”
Source date (UTC): 2018-07-04 17:41:08 UTC
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RELIGION IS A POOR SUBSTITUTE FOR THE HUNT All religion is poor substitute for t
RELIGION IS A POOR SUBSTITUTE FOR THE HUNT
All religion is poor substitute for the initiatic brotherhood of warriors, their hunt, the feast that results, and the thanks of all for it. There is no greater promise than the oath. No greater mindfulness than the hunt. No greater bond than the with those with whom we fight and kill. No greater thrill than winning (Killing). No greater social experience than the feast. No greater thanks than for the feast.
Pity the weak their substitutes.
Source date (UTC): 2018-07-04 17:17:00 UTC
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There are an infinite number of fictions we can fabricate. There is only one mos
There are an infinite number of fictions we can fabricate. There is only one most parsimonious description. As far as I know a god is a fictional character. A demigod is a fictional character. A hero is a fictional character. And archetypal measurements are the easiest for man.
Source date (UTC): 2018-07-04 14:28:53 UTC
Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1014516402194087936
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Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1014511953119711233
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Curt Doolittle updated his status. GODS? GUILTY AS CHARGED (edited for clarity)
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
GODS? GUILTY AS CHARGED
(edited for clarity)
In the matter of gods we have only the testimony of men, and the means, motive, and opportunity to lie in their testimony. Given means motive and opportunity to lie, and no evidence of all that they speak the truth, then all gods are merely fictional characters. Those characters serve as anthropomorphic analogies. Those analogies serve as to provide decidability when we have no other means of deciding.
It is not that gods – like all units of measurement – are not useful. They are. Particularly for the intergenerational transfer of such units of measurement.
But there is no difference between Gandalf and Jehova and Allah other than that we make no false testimony to the existence of Gandalf, and we give false testimony to the existence of Jehova and Allah. We must give false testimony because we cannot give testimony of any other kind. It is not possible. None of us have observed the existence of any god that cannot be explained by more simple means.
We can however, give thanks to our ancestors. That is because we have ancestors worthy of our thanks. The reason for the fabrication of Jehova and Allah is that the people who invented those fictional characters had no ancestors worthy of their thanks.
Means, Motive, and Opportunity.
Guilty as Charged.
Source date (UTC): 2018-07-04 14:01:57 UTC
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Curt Doolittle updated his status. THE FRAUD OF “AN OPEN MIND” —“There is no p
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
THE FRAUD OF “AN OPEN MIND”
—“There is no point in arguing with someone with a closed mind”— Anon
The problem is knowing when you are asking for an open mind : meaning “time to consider the argument”, and asking someone to agree, believe, or express faith in that which is not an argument but a fraud.
The only non-fraudulent version of that statement is:
–“there is no point in arguing with someone who is intellectually dishonest”–
Appeals for an ‘open mind’ are always frauds. ALWAYS. Either you have an argument or you don’t. Either the you AND the other person(s) are intellectually honest or you are not.
Source date (UTC): 2018-07-04 13:48:18 UTC
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Curt Doolittle updated his status. “Guilt Pangs of Autistics” Pangs from those m
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
“Guilt Pangs of Autistics”
Pangs from those many times throughout your life where you correct teachers and professors with autistic frustration over some error they’re making, and they they interpret it as emotional investment on your part, or offense, or criticism of them.
No. Um. We just can’t stand mistakes. You’re just an object like a desk or a pet. It isn’t personal. We don’t have the concept of ‘personal’ until later in life. Really. And we’re horrified when you ‘take it personally’. You just convince us that the world is full of crazy people.
Those of us who succeed, learn to role play by imitating others. And we obtain through discipline and study that which you obtained at birth. I still may not always be able to read your facial expressions but I can read your body language just fine. The reason being that your face is subtle but your body is not. It states your understanding of our relationship every second, the way your face states your feelings.
I have a lot of guilt pangs over those episodes. Not the least of which is in the knowledge that I couldn’t control my impulse to ‘correct’ the teachers and professors. By the time I was in my early twenties I learned to just leave the room. “There is nothing to be learned here”.
And into my thirties I did the same with meetings (really). “There is nothing smart going on here”. I learned to vote with my feet. This had the consequence of producing respect (and fear). When it was just an attempt to control my frustration at ignorance, error, and stupidity, and to devote my time to more important issues. Walking away from stupidity is the greatest negative reinforcement you can provide.
Now, my understanding is that along the spectrum – before we develop unrecoverable damage, we largely have higher neural density, and it simply takes longer to program that neural density with intuition than it does with practicing (repetition).
If that is the case then we are the next step in evolution, and that next step in evolution. Why? it will take us longer to mature a human through learning than it does an animal through instinct.
And that is an interesting evolutionary risk. Since at some point if you are so dependent upon learning over intuition, then it is a weakness for a genome.
Source date (UTC): 2018-07-04 13:27:35 UTC
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“Guilt Pangs of Autistics” Pangs from those many times throughout your life wher
“Guilt Pangs of Autistics”
Pangs from those many times throughout your life where you correct teachers and professors with autistic frustration over some error they’re making, and they they interpret it as emotional investment on your part, or offense, or criticism of them.
No. Um. We just can’t stand mistakes. You’re just an object like a desk or a pet. It isn’t personal. We don’t have the concept of ‘personal’ until later in life. Really. And we’re horrified when you ‘take it personally’. You just convince us that the world is full of crazy people.
Those of us who succeed, learn to role play by imitating others. And we obtain through discipline and study that which you obtained at birth. I still may not always be able to read your facial expressions but I can read your body language just fine. The reason being that your face is subtle but your body is not. It states your understanding of our relationship every second, the way your face states your feelings.
I have a lot of guilt pangs over those episodes. Not the least of which is in the knowledge that I couldn’t control my impulse to ‘correct’ the teachers and professors. By the time I was in my early twenties I learned to just leave the room. “There is nothing to be learned here”.
And into my thirties I did the same with meetings (really). “There is nothing smart going on here”. I learned to vote with my feet. This had the consequence of producing respect (and fear). When it was just an attempt to control my frustration at ignorance, error, and stupidity, and to devote my time to more important issues. Walking away from stupidity is the greatest negative reinforcement you can provide.
Now, my understanding is that along the spectrum – before we develop unrecoverable damage, we largely have higher neural density, and it simply takes longer to program that neural density with intuition than it does with practicing (repetition).
If that is the case then we are the next step in evolution, and that next step in evolution. Why? it will take us longer to mature a human through learning than it does an animal through instinct.
And that is an interesting evolutionary risk. Since at some point if you are so dependent upon learning over intuition, then it is a weakness for a genome.
Source date (UTC): 2018-07-04 09:27:00 UTC
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Is Mises’s Action Axiom Self Evident?
My answer to Is Mises’s action axiom self evident? https://t.co/X0C0GANSPg Is the statement an axiom? No. It’s a Law. The difference between an axiom and a law, is that an axiom is declared (created and therefore arbitrary), and a law is discovered (existential, and therefore unavoidable). Is the law self evident? Self evident means ‘obvious’. Yes, that man acts and must act, is obvious. What does the law that man must act tell us? Absolutely nothing. It is meaningless. To react we must only biologically respond. To act we must decide. To decide we must reason. Like all Libertarian Tropes (nonsense-arguments) both “Man Acts” and “Non Aggression” are incomplete statements. Abrahamic sophisms (Pilpul and Critique) rely heavily upon suggestion. Suggestion refers to providing only partial information, such that the individual consciously or unconsciously provides the rest of the information – but provides his judgement or value of it. As such, when we make moral suggestions (half truths), we force the recipient to substitute his value judgements in order to complete the sentence (transaction for, or contract for, meaning). This is why non-aggression is nonsense and libertarianism is a dead end: because everyone intuits his moral standard of property. Thus agreeing with NAP yet in truth, agreeing only with himself. So we have millions of idiots running around claiming NAP is a standard of something other than one’s reflection. (Quite stupid really.) The complete sentences are (a) man acts to acquire all that is necessary for survival, discounts on acquisitions, and opportunities for reproduction. And (b) reciprocity requires non imposition upon (aggression against) the demonstrated investments of others regardless of whether they are physical, kinship, interpersonal, organizational, the commons, institutional, or informational. In other words, anything people have born any cost to obtain an interest, and which they demonstrate defense of.