News

This is part 1, then space-time wonkiness in part 2:-).

Sheee’s bAAAAaaaaack 😱

She is absolutely the BEst biTCH!:-) (I really hope you take that as I meant it, in that I mean that you are awesome:-P)

Ngl, I think Darwin's Dangerous Idea took me a year to read through. Except that's got to be a lie - it surely took more:-P. And I never did finish the other one... - nor iirc did the person who ~~unloaded~~ gave it to me:-( Anyway I am glad that I read the former one at least, and have at least heard about the latter, b/c when I was young I was taught "young earth creationism" (as pretty much everyone in America is, despite how most people outside of the USA iirc pretty much never are), and that (first one) was perhaps the chief resource that helped me logic+reason my way out of that - not alone, but it helped. So it had personal significance to me to be worth that investment of time. I don't know if either of those books would have that kind of punch in your case, but I did want to share so that you could make that determination on your own, knowing that they exist:-).

Your example of Religion is perfect: real or not, it has enormous benefits, as too does the placebo effect. Jesus Himself used it, even as He commanded to redirect it - e.g. towards taking care of widows and orphans, which implies everything up to and short of that as well, e.g. paying workers their wages. That said, it can also become horribly corrupt, as can anything that People touch - e.g. Science+Technology can lead to nuclear war, genocidal tools, even experimentation upon being beings; Education can be twisted to become "re-education" in a totalitarian regime (see e.g. Uighurs); Math can... well I am sure it can somehow be used poorly as well, maybe by making numbers go brrr i.e. chasing after "efficiency" i.e. profits at the expense of the human beings involved:-(.

But if it can be used poorly, then surely it could be used well too, like you mentioned, to turn someone's life around by offering them a REASON to exist. We all need that. Fome some, atheism or agnosticism is enough, but not everyone - e.g. not me personally. That said, it can also be super great to break away from a poorly-used, poorly-run one, like an overbearing one that actively hurts people. Especially here - but really almost anywhere except the hardest of the hard sciences, like it happens in politics - there is a huge gulf between things like the real, actual, full Truth (which for religion nobody knows - e.g. the Christian Bible even explicitly says that it is impossible to know, like "now we see dimly, in part, as if a reflection from a dirty mirror..."), and then what we think is true, and then also distinct from both of those how people chasing after power use as their method to control others. e.g. when I am at my job, it is not Religion that is used to control me - all mention of personal beliefs is highly taboo - so there it is rather Authoritarianism that accomplishes that purpose for them. Relion is one tool of control over the masses, but it is not the only one, and it is not inherently either good or evil. (Arguably it is good when it says to e.g. "hold fast to what is true", but that can be bad when what it thought to be true is incorrect, and the people are willing to e.g. behead someone over a disagreement)

Moreover, even full "Logic", in the hands of a child - i.e. virtually everyone, especially those among us that choose to act that way, as in child-ish behaviors observed in adults - becomes mere "justification", to serve their ends, rather than being an end unto itself. This is why I place a lot of value on "stories" to help us see that - Isaac Asimov, Pinocchio, Star Trek TOS's Spock's emotional quest to gain parental & societal validation through (ironically) expunging his emotions by achieving Kolinahr (his motivations for that are explained much deeper in the book than the movie), and the converse of that in TNG Data's perfectly-logical quest to become more "human" by discarding logic when appropriate, e.g. to appreciate and be able to tell a joke.:-D So... even logic itself, becomes a mere tool to be used for some aim, in the hands of our monkey selves. Whether it "should" be this way or not is irrelevant, as it simply is.

So anyway, philosophy is so extremely central to these foundational aspects of our lives, and many can find their meaning in Religion, and in Logic, and I like that:-). It deepens us, which is good, but if used improperly, then just like a surgeon's scalpal or again like any tool at all, it can harm us just as if not all the more readily, by virtue of touching our lives in such a vulnerable spot.

Speaking of, if I can make a suggestion: PLEASE only think about these matters if and when they are fun for you. I want to enjoy your company, not add to your burdens:-), like if any of this would stress you out.:-D

And further along those lines, I hope that you take heart in that all of our relationships with our mothers are this way, it seems to me. From when you were the tiniest little baby all the way forward until now - e.g. you would kick and scream and spit up onto her, not even b/c it was "her", but then later especially, yeah, b/c it was specifically her. I am no child psychologist, but that is the "normal" state of affairs it seems. For all monkeys even. At the same time, I am glad that you grew out of it. Also fwiw, that seems unlikely to be the sole reason that anyone would "believe" something - surely it must have been a big one, but also if she grew up in it that would be another point towards it, the "sunk cost fallacy" you know, and so on. But everyone is different - e.g. for me I don't even necessarily "want" to believe (or if I do then I am deceiving myself - which is also a distinct possibility!), but I have to chase down wherever my investigations lead me, and if that causes me to ditch it one day then I will. On the other hand, the latter viewpoint of life is rather unusual, so I cannot project that onto everyone, and yeah maybe she actually was holding onto that thought for her own sake, plus whatever other background reasons, in which case I am glad that she had it - false or no. We do need our security blankets - I used to think the more solid they are the better, but the more I see how society is crumbling around us (and the corresponding suicide rates), the more I question my belief in that. To be clear, I still believe that for ME, and I would hope that others would STRIVE for the same, but I must accept that the vast majority of people will not do so.

I am not really a "teacher" at all I think - it was kind of a career path that people just "expect" for others to follow, but my problem is that I only care about helping people who WANT to be helped, so I think I am more of a "helper" at heart. So now I am a software engineer where I get to do that. I have lost some autonomy, but that could be good as well. I never had any ability to truly help people who REFUSE to be helped, and it would have killed me to keep trying and fail. In that sense, NOBODY who has that kind of "teacher" mindset should have a job where they have to actually TEACH in today's current capitalist societal framework. It self-selects otherwise.

What he [Trump] does not deserve is my time and energy.

YAAAASSSS QUEEN! Except... hrm, it will keep coming up, every few years and also rearing its ugly head. It is something that we cannot ignore, except for the sake of our mental health, we have to, even though we couldn't if we tried. Doesn't that just about sum it up!?!?

I also "feel like" I know what you mean there about predestination or whatever we are calling it - "fate". It is one of the most dangerous mindsets b/c it robs people of their agency - but we really do seem to also have that!?!? (Maybe?) So it's like there's a Truth there somewhere, but darned if I know what it is, and whether True or not, how does it even help me either way? This is why I like CS Lewis: he also talked like that, having lived it first. Like, if we had not believed that first, and then late in life learned it, that might have been more helpful for us. Instead, we (all three of us) stumbled upon it earlier, and now do not know how it fits in with the rest of the framework. I liken it to a mage/sorcerer type who learned some kind of arcane branch of magic, so while their buddies are going around doing all the cool, useful stuff like fireball, we basically got nothing to show for it, except that we happen to know (what might be, MAYBE) a deeper Truth. It could end up being the most powerful magic of all, but what good does that do for us, practically speaking, on a daily basis?!

If you were asking more about the Russia connection, Fox News is what has damaged America, and Russia funded/started Fox News. There is a documentary about it on Netflix, which I haven't watched, just piecing that together from other sources. But I am guessing that you rather meant the other thing:-).

But I will have to put the time/space thing in a separate part again due to space limitations.:-D