Apr 10, 2020, 9:47 AM Probably not obvious, but the eastern orthodox church has succeeded by knowing its place and function, having smaller numbers, and so being less diverse, being a state religion and by proximity to hostiles (islam, turkey, the stans.). Catholic church doubled down on (a) rule, (b) bureaucracy, and (c) dogma, and (d) they failed at both rule at home and colonial rule abroad, and (e) the dogma which while elegant could not reform. The protestant churches couldn’t reform. The evangelicals reformed and restored christianity to it’s origins as folk religion not a political religion. Islam can’t reform. judaism needs pressure to reform. Buddhism hardly needs reform. Shintoism is perfect as it is, and a lesson for us all.
Source: Original Site Post
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The Eastern Orthodox Church Has Succeeded by Knowing Its Place and Function,
Apr 10, 2020, 9:47 AM Probably not obvious, but the eastern orthodox church has succeeded by knowing its place and function, having smaller numbers, and so being less diverse, being a state religion and by proximity to hostiles (islam, turkey, the stans.). Catholic church doubled down on (a) rule, (b) bureaucracy, and (c) dogma, and (d) they failed at both rule at home and colonial rule abroad, and (e) the dogma which while elegant could not reform. The protestant churches couldn’t reform. The evangelicals reformed and restored christianity to it’s origins as folk religion not a political religion. Islam can’t reform. judaism needs pressure to reform. Buddhism hardly needs reform. Shintoism is perfect as it is, and a lesson for us all.
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World Religions and Their Consequences
Apr 10, 2020, 12:09 PM
—“Curt Doolittle: in comparison between Orthodoxy and evangelical Christianity in making states more or less better or first world or third world?”—Ibrahim Abd El Shihead
Narrow Point: The fact that the orthodox church didn’t or couldn’t compete with the state on one hand, and didn’t try, as catholicism, to compete with science, reason, commerce, and law, (competition) and remained a specialist in family affairs (unity, community, love) is why it is still regarded as sacred to the people. This is why I don’t ever seem to have a problem with the orthodox community “church is for church, law is for disputes to be avoided at all costs, state is for state to protect us, and we all get along fine if we do our f-king jobs”. The problem i have with xianity is that western christians haven’t given up on fantasy of monopoly – theocratic rule, and can’t seem (like russians and traditional americans) to practice the natural trichotomy of state, law, and faith., Under the rather (insane) presumption that the church, having failed so drastically wouldn’t do so again. So to in this sense while evangelical christianity is closest to jesus’ teaching, the orthodox church is closest to the institutional church we need, and the catholic church and the protestant churches to that sought to limit the parasitism of the church, were failures. In other words, orthodoxy seems to have avoided both the catholic attempt to rule, the protestant attempt to undermine the church’s corruption, the necessity of catholic and protestant churches to attract members of the aristocracy as local administrators, and best preserved the role of the church in society. Another example of the value of intolerant monarchies. Broader Point: Aristotelianism seems to produce scientific and technical potential. Christianity seems to produce political and commercial potential but it wasn’t enough in russia probably because they missed the renaissance, reformation, and enlightenment. Islam seems to resist political, commercial and scientific potential, but produces underclass harmony. Judaism produces organized crime families that prey on the commons, which is extremely profitable for them at the cost of the host people. Judaism hasn’t been nearly as destructive as islam – but it’s certainly been bad for germany, russia, america, and now all of western europe. Hinduism is some kind of absolutely beautiful madness that I still struggle to get my arms around, but their problem seems to be demographic and without division into sub-states politically impossible to overcome. buddhism produces an equally kind harmony at the cost of stagnation. china is trivially easy to understand because they escaped religion. japan and korea easiest to understand. Without christianity (enforced) scandinavia, and without buddhism (enforced) japan/korea, would have come provided a pattern we needed. the optimum ‘religion’ was rule of law, militia, monarchy (imperialism), paganism (aristocracy), stoicism(middle) epicureanism (lower middle) heathenism (family), and a priesthood of any kind to take responsibility for the peasantry. This competition serves better than monopoly but it needs strong rule of law to prevent any usurping the rest. The problem is, markets are susceptible to intolerant monopolies and monotheism is intolerant and intolerance wins, so the only ‘total intolerance’ we need is defense of those markets.
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World Religions and Their Consequences
Apr 10, 2020, 12:09 PM
—“Curt Doolittle: in comparison between Orthodoxy and evangelical Christianity in making states more or less better or first world or third world?”—Ibrahim Abd El Shihead
Narrow Point: The fact that the orthodox church didn’t or couldn’t compete with the state on one hand, and didn’t try, as catholicism, to compete with science, reason, commerce, and law, (competition) and remained a specialist in family affairs (unity, community, love) is why it is still regarded as sacred to the people. This is why I don’t ever seem to have a problem with the orthodox community “church is for church, law is for disputes to be avoided at all costs, state is for state to protect us, and we all get along fine if we do our f-king jobs”. The problem i have with xianity is that western christians haven’t given up on fantasy of monopoly – theocratic rule, and can’t seem (like russians and traditional americans) to practice the natural trichotomy of state, law, and faith., Under the rather (insane) presumption that the church, having failed so drastically wouldn’t do so again. So to in this sense while evangelical christianity is closest to jesus’ teaching, the orthodox church is closest to the institutional church we need, and the catholic church and the protestant churches to that sought to limit the parasitism of the church, were failures. In other words, orthodoxy seems to have avoided both the catholic attempt to rule, the protestant attempt to undermine the church’s corruption, the necessity of catholic and protestant churches to attract members of the aristocracy as local administrators, and best preserved the role of the church in society. Another example of the value of intolerant monarchies. Broader Point: Aristotelianism seems to produce scientific and technical potential. Christianity seems to produce political and commercial potential but it wasn’t enough in russia probably because they missed the renaissance, reformation, and enlightenment. Islam seems to resist political, commercial and scientific potential, but produces underclass harmony. Judaism produces organized crime families that prey on the commons, which is extremely profitable for them at the cost of the host people. Judaism hasn’t been nearly as destructive as islam – but it’s certainly been bad for germany, russia, america, and now all of western europe. Hinduism is some kind of absolutely beautiful madness that I still struggle to get my arms around, but their problem seems to be demographic and without division into sub-states politically impossible to overcome. buddhism produces an equally kind harmony at the cost of stagnation. china is trivially easy to understand because they escaped religion. japan and korea easiest to understand. Without christianity (enforced) scandinavia, and without buddhism (enforced) japan/korea, would have come provided a pattern we needed. the optimum ‘religion’ was rule of law, militia, monarchy (imperialism), paganism (aristocracy), stoicism(middle) epicureanism (lower middle) heathenism (family), and a priesthood of any kind to take responsibility for the peasantry. This competition serves better than monopoly but it needs strong rule of law to prevent any usurping the rest. The problem is, markets are susceptible to intolerant monopolies and monotheism is intolerant and intolerance wins, so the only ‘total intolerance’ we need is defense of those markets.
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Graham Hancock
Apr 10, 2020, 3:23 PM
—“Curt, What do you think of Graham Hancock?”—
If I’m sympathetic: I think he is honest about what he does. He makes up, or promotes, myths to inspire and entertain people – to restore wonder to their lives. yes some of what he harps about has a grain of truth in it. I’m charitable because it’s good for us to look back into the past with wonder, the same way we teach children fairy tales so that they will eventually mature into reading history. If I’m charitable, the world needs a few of these people so that we make sure wacky stuff doesn’t get overlooked, and the wrong story entrenched (geology in the past and mathematical physics in the present are the best examples). If I’m doing my job: he’s using pseudoarchaeology (pseudoscience) to get attention, and it’s been a profitable career for him. and given that his stuff is pretty hard to believe I suspect he’s helping us find suckers, catch them, and reeducate them before they do something harmful to themselves or others. Of all the kind of sucker-magnets in the world he’s the least harmful. If I want to correct him, and the audience, it is all but certain that Doggerland, isn’t alone, and the black sea the persian gulf, the red sea, the mediterranean, and the lost lakes and marshes of the south of africa, and various other coastal areas, now obscure much of our long, early, glacial and pre-glacial development with flooding. We may be living in a period of extraordinary technology, but the first five thousand years of chasing the glaciers back north, in doggerland, on the shorts of the black sea has to be about as close to paradise as hunter-gatherers can discover. That said, there is no evidence whatsoever of anything pre-glacial but animals, and nothing obscured by post glacial flooding that gave hints to what is necessary for the evolution of man: fire, metal, and pottery. Yes, people do lose technology (austronesians). Yes people do mature into depth rather than neoteny (equatorial africans). But in general, the long graudal line of history up until the 80-40k, and 40k-10k, and 10k incremental explosions, and the past 400 years of european explosion of knowledge, is so regular in retrospect it looks ordinary.
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Graham Hancock
Apr 10, 2020, 3:23 PM
—“Curt, What do you think of Graham Hancock?”—
If I’m sympathetic: I think he is honest about what he does. He makes up, or promotes, myths to inspire and entertain people – to restore wonder to their lives. yes some of what he harps about has a grain of truth in it. I’m charitable because it’s good for us to look back into the past with wonder, the same way we teach children fairy tales so that they will eventually mature into reading history. If I’m charitable, the world needs a few of these people so that we make sure wacky stuff doesn’t get overlooked, and the wrong story entrenched (geology in the past and mathematical physics in the present are the best examples). If I’m doing my job: he’s using pseudoarchaeology (pseudoscience) to get attention, and it’s been a profitable career for him. and given that his stuff is pretty hard to believe I suspect he’s helping us find suckers, catch them, and reeducate them before they do something harmful to themselves or others. Of all the kind of sucker-magnets in the world he’s the least harmful. If I want to correct him, and the audience, it is all but certain that Doggerland, isn’t alone, and the black sea the persian gulf, the red sea, the mediterranean, and the lost lakes and marshes of the south of africa, and various other coastal areas, now obscure much of our long, early, glacial and pre-glacial development with flooding. We may be living in a period of extraordinary technology, but the first five thousand years of chasing the glaciers back north, in doggerland, on the shorts of the black sea has to be about as close to paradise as hunter-gatherers can discover. That said, there is no evidence whatsoever of anything pre-glacial but animals, and nothing obscured by post glacial flooding that gave hints to what is necessary for the evolution of man: fire, metal, and pottery. Yes, people do lose technology (austronesians). Yes people do mature into depth rather than neoteny (equatorial africans). But in general, the long graudal line of history up until the 80-40k, and 40k-10k, and 10k incremental explosions, and the past 400 years of european explosion of knowledge, is so regular in retrospect it looks ordinary.
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“Stupid” reveals itself in the abstracts.
Apr 10, 2020, 8:01 PM
Fiction is entertainment. Literature is philosophy in slow motion. philosophy is theology in disguise of literature. science, economics, and law – well, that’s for grownups. Math is for grownups who like to make other grownups feel dumb. 😉 “Stupid” reveals itself in the abstracts.
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“Stupid” reveals itself in the abstracts.
Apr 10, 2020, 8:01 PM
Fiction is entertainment. Literature is philosophy in slow motion. philosophy is theology in disguise of literature. science, economics, and law – well, that’s for grownups. Math is for grownups who like to make other grownups feel dumb. 😉 “Stupid” reveals itself in the abstracts.
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China’s Vision for A New World Order – the National Bureau of Asian Research (nbr)
Apr 12, 2020, 7:17 PM by Nadège Rolland In my latest report, I dissect the strands of thought underpinning China’s vision for a new world order and study its emerging features China’s leadership is determined to alter the norms that underpin existing institutions and put in place the building blocks of a new international system. A “vision” is by definition abstract, not fully formed and subject to change. In China’s case, this vision is also buried under layers of propaganda. But if we pay close attention, some key elements are discernible. 1/ The Chinese leadership believes that the existing order is “unfair” (it should allow China to have a greater role, commensurate with its growing power) and is incapable of offering “reasonable” solutions to the global needs. 2/ Instead of considering liberal democratic values as essential conditions for achieving global peace and prosperity, the CCP sees the global promotion of “so-called universal values” as the main cause for conflict and chaos – an obvious reflection of its own survival anxieties. 3/The CCP does not have any appealing substitutes to the existing set of international norms. Even at home, it is trying to bolster its legitimacy with artifices rather than a positive, clearly defined set of beliefs for the country’s overall direction. 4/The Chinese leadership’s vision for what the world should look like is based in the first instance on a negative agenda – the refutation of liberal democracy as the path to peace and prosperity – rather than a positive view of a desired future. 5/China does not need to prove that its own system can be applied universally. Demonstrating that no system is truly universal fundamentally undermines the existing international order’s core principles and undercuts any system based on universal values. 6/Once China has eroded a truly international order, it can hope to carve out a sphere of influence including large portions of the non-Western and mostly non-democratic world where its preferred worldview, rules and norms will be endorsed, followed and respected. 7/China wants to dominate this parallel system. But the 21st Century Chinese version of hegemony does not seek to replicate the old “Rule Britannia” or “Pax Americana” precedents. Chinese elites reject any form of Western influence, even when they think about models of empire. 8/Chinese elites are trying to develop modern, softened versions of the traditional sinocentric order, usually by insisting on its benevolent nature (“humane authority,” “great harmony”…). But imperialistic undertones and intimations of domination are not easy to work around. 9/The various components of Xi’s diplomacy (community of shared future, Belt and Road, global network of partnerships) point to a vision in which China’s leadership is exercised over substantial portions of the emerging and developing world,… 10/…a space free from Western influence and largely purged of the core liberal democratic beliefs supported by the West. 11/In this hierarchical system, China would be akin to a massive, dazzling star pulling smaller planets into its orbit without necessarily exerting direct control over them. 12/Its contours would not be defined along precise geographic or ideological lines, but rather by the degree of deference and respect that those within China’s sphere are willing to offer Beijing.
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China’s Vision for A New World Order – the National Bureau of Asian Research (nbr)
Apr 12, 2020, 7:17 PM by Nadège Rolland In my latest report, I dissect the strands of thought underpinning China’s vision for a new world order and study its emerging features China’s leadership is determined to alter the norms that underpin existing institutions and put in place the building blocks of a new international system. A “vision” is by definition abstract, not fully formed and subject to change. In China’s case, this vision is also buried under layers of propaganda. But if we pay close attention, some key elements are discernible. 1/ The Chinese leadership believes that the existing order is “unfair” (it should allow China to have a greater role, commensurate with its growing power) and is incapable of offering “reasonable” solutions to the global needs. 2/ Instead of considering liberal democratic values as essential conditions for achieving global peace and prosperity, the CCP sees the global promotion of “so-called universal values” as the main cause for conflict and chaos – an obvious reflection of its own survival anxieties. 3/The CCP does not have any appealing substitutes to the existing set of international norms. Even at home, it is trying to bolster its legitimacy with artifices rather than a positive, clearly defined set of beliefs for the country’s overall direction. 4/The Chinese leadership’s vision for what the world should look like is based in the first instance on a negative agenda – the refutation of liberal democracy as the path to peace and prosperity – rather than a positive view of a desired future. 5/China does not need to prove that its own system can be applied universally. Demonstrating that no system is truly universal fundamentally undermines the existing international order’s core principles and undercuts any system based on universal values. 6/Once China has eroded a truly international order, it can hope to carve out a sphere of influence including large portions of the non-Western and mostly non-democratic world where its preferred worldview, rules and norms will be endorsed, followed and respected. 7/China wants to dominate this parallel system. But the 21st Century Chinese version of hegemony does not seek to replicate the old “Rule Britannia” or “Pax Americana” precedents. Chinese elites reject any form of Western influence, even when they think about models of empire. 8/Chinese elites are trying to develop modern, softened versions of the traditional sinocentric order, usually by insisting on its benevolent nature (“humane authority,” “great harmony”…). But imperialistic undertones and intimations of domination are not easy to work around. 9/The various components of Xi’s diplomacy (community of shared future, Belt and Road, global network of partnerships) point to a vision in which China’s leadership is exercised over substantial portions of the emerging and developing world,… 10/…a space free from Western influence and largely purged of the core liberal democratic beliefs supported by the West. 11/In this hierarchical system, China would be akin to a massive, dazzling star pulling smaller planets into its orbit without necessarily exerting direct control over them. 12/Its contours would not be defined along precise geographic or ideological lines, but rather by the degree of deference and respect that those within China’s sphere are willing to offer Beijing.