xabotage

10 ms·

1.
by xabotage 4y ago
The Fremen Mirage - https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
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by xabotage 4y ago
It's clearly been working for decades. The only reason modern software needs so much attention is because 1) Internet connectivity requires constant security updates and 2) new features to sell, neither of which should apply here.
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by xabotage 4y ago
Homelessness doesn't exactly sound "solved" in Utah... https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/12/22/this-year-least-159-h...
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by xabotage 4y ago
Empathy is a survival strategy that benefits society as a whole whereas sociopathy is a survival strategy that benefits the individual. Humans are complex and diverse enough to display both sets of behaviors within the population. I thought
5.
by xabotage 4y ago
> Which civilization has been built in honor of nothing? It turns out, civilizations are built to serve the purpose of human existence, not to venerate mythical deities. You must be confusing them with churches, temples, synagogues, etc.
6.
by xabotage 4y ago
I don't help the poor as a hobby or because I was told to. I help the poor because I have compassion and empathy. Animals also demonstrate these same pro-social behaviors, and I'm pretty sure none of them are Jewish or Hindu.
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by xabotage 4y ago
You are assuming that magical thinking is the optimal survival strategy as opposed to a lesser-evil byproduct of advanced cognition in a particular environment. This is like assuming that because all humans have appendices, having an appe
8.
by xabotage 4y ago
Why do civilizations need to be built to the honor of something? I see plenty of art and architecture created independent of any mythical deity. I can't remember the last time I listened to a popular or well-renowed song that was relig
9.
by xabotage 4y ago
I somewhat agree, but I am optimistic that society will change in other ways to fill this gap. It need not be any single activity or institution.
10.
by xabotage 4y ago
There won't be an exact replacement because the circumstances that led to the community cannot (or rather, should not) be replicated. For the sake of the survival of the planet/species, I also don't think any institution base
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by xabotage 4y ago
There is definitely a massive breakdown of old social institutions that have not adapted to the modern world. People don't need to be closely knit to their families and local religion in order to survive anymore, and they are simultane
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by xabotage 4y ago
You're looking at weekly religious gatherings through rose-colored lenses. A crossfit gym membership and book club could very well produce a far healthier local community than a church. Religion does not have a monopoly on the variable
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by xabotage 4y ago
Interesting how you just said science "cannot be used to explain everything" and yet now you're claiming "proof" and "evidence" (i.e. science) for your particular religion. Make up your mind.
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by xabotage 4y ago
Numbers are a human construct, just like words in a language. They don't "exist" in the same sense as anything physically real. Nobody has "faith" in the number one, it's just a concept that's proven to be
15.
by xabotage 4y ago
I trust scientific facts proportional to the evidence I have that these facts are true. This is not the case for faith, wherein disproportionately large amounts of trust are demanded without any evidence. Our model of the atom allows us to
16.
by xabotage 4y ago
Faith is not commitment to "truth," but rather commitment to a belief regardless of its veracity. Science has nothing to do with "believing" something - its a process for determining what actually is true based on eviden
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by xabotage 4y ago
How did I know before I clicked that link that it was going to be apologetics. Faith is not a shortcut to knowledge. "Hey, we can't yet find the answer to big questions through rational means, so let's try irrational means!&q
18.
by xabotage 4y ago
Where and when, throughout all human history, have there been significant populations not subject to a religion? It seems strange to suggest that demonstrably unscientific belief systems with incompatible differences tied mainly to geogra
19.
by xabotage 4y ago
No. Faith is belief without evidence or belief in the presence of contrary evidence. If we were to suppose the "base presumptions" of science were on the same level as religious claims, then they could be arbitrarily ignored witho
20.
by xabotage 4y ago
You're saying scientific processes (petri dish experiment) may have created life because we can't yet explain what scientific processes may have created life? And ancient, unscientific mythological fairy tales may somehow have enc
21.
by xabotage 4y ago
You seem to be missing the point. Cults thrive on manipulating social interactions and slowly chipping away at others' boundaries. No cult pitches the shadiness up-front for the incredibly obvious reason that it scares away targets;
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by xabotage 4y ago
Of course Lewis isn't explicitly humanist - Humanism is a "worldly" movement, and we can't let the "evil", "fallen" world take credit for anything good. I would be more inclined to buy Lewis' dep
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by xabotage 4y ago
Trash epistemology is the norm. But it would be nice at the very least to normalize evidence-based knowledge as the default instead of religious mythology. Just because the ideologies are enemies, doesn't mean one of them isn't si
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by xabotage 4y ago
Faith is belief without evidence or belief in the presence of contradicting evidence - people don't "reason their way" into faith, they rationalize. C.S. Lewis is popular because he uses humanist principles to spin a fundamen
25.
by xabotage 5y ago
Buses would be way better if roads were designed to prioritize them over single passenger cars. Instead (in the US), you're just stuck in traffic with extra stops, so you might as well drive.
26.
by xabotage 5y ago
More appropriately, Religion is the rent-seeking landlord of the bookshop who skims all the profits, provides little to no value, and takes all the credit for the literacy of the townsfolk.
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by xabotage 5y ago
In the end it's just falsely attributing divinity to pro-social human programming developed over millennia of natural selection. Religion came much later than pro-social behavior, and in fact it more resembles "let's agree on
28.
by xabotage 5y ago
The post title implies religiosity != happiness, the parent implied other results might differ, my comment was a response to that possibility, for the sake of argument as you said.
29.
by xabotage 5y ago
I never said it was, I'm not sure why you think I did.
30.
by xabotage 5y ago
It's not the point of religion, it's a side-effect. While religion is a remarkably effective control/coercion tool, there are more ethical ways to establish universal shared values. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" isn't

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