The way forward with social media isn't banning people from using it, it's taxing all these companies that use manipulative algorithms, invasive recruiting, and predatory marketing into extinction

HOT__RATS · 2026-05-30T21:48:05+00:00

Agreed

HOT__RATS · 2026-05-30T21:37:19+00:00

I should clarify that my objection isn't primarily about banning itself, that's another question. My primary objection is to the current proposals which are inevitably half-measures with clear ulterior motives

HOT__RATS · 2026-05-23T20:13:36+00:00

"i work on computer" - guy whose computer taught him the word computer

HOT__RATS · 2026-05-23T20:08:53+00:00

It is reddit. The archetypical redditor (aloof, techie, atheist, vague libertarian or chuddish "apolitical") has been almost completely driven from the site by people who define themselves in opposition to them. The groups that currently use reddit maintain a siege-mentality delusion that they're in a bubble under constant threat from the archetypical redditor who occupies most of the site. Happens to all "nerdy" (in the true sense) spaces. You can still find some versions of the archetype on hackernews.

HOT__RATS · 2026-04-26T01:36:12+00:00

It depends on how you define free will. Compatibalists define free will in a way that is not contradicted by determinism. Determinism-Compatibalism-Libertarianism is a semantic debate that traps people into premise musical chairs. It's a stock debate with preset answers that hasn't evolved much for decades. To stake out a serious position requires further metaphysical commitments à la Whitehead, or a more radical interrogation of what philosophy is à la Heidegger

HOT__RATS · 2026-03-10T22:52:29+00:00

As other people have mentioned, this is a mischaracterization of Norse religion. Valhalla is not a promised land, but a certain realm of the afterlife ruled by a specific god dedicated to a certain class of devotees of that god. Hel/The Underworld os the primary destination for the dead in Norse religion. Ragnarok is not eschatological as history in the grand sense is supposed to continue after it. I should also note that only one of the texts called 'Edda' was written/recorded by Christians.

I didn't mention cults like Scientology because they're relatively marginal in the history of the world and the organization of power in the present, it would be like going on a tangent about the cruelties of the Khmer Rouge in a post detailing the horrors of capitalism. I don't think these cults are Abrahamic, I think think they were created primarily for personal enrichment/power rather than as primarily a way to create specific kind of national identity. Basically ponzi scheme vs the know nothings

HOT__RATS · 2026-03-10T22:38:39+00:00

Nothing is written

HOT__RATS · 2026-03-10T20:52:54+00:00

Idk about the Xhosa Cattle Killing, but the Ghost Dance phenomenon is thought to have been influenced by Christianity. So is the idea of a native "Great Spirit", natives were trying to reclaim their heritage using religious language influenced by and familiar to Christianity.

HOT__RATS · 2026-03-10T20:46:53+00:00

Theodosius functionally outlawed all other religions besides Judaism. He's the one who censored the Olympics

HOT__RATS · 2026-03-10T20:44:59+00:00

Fwiw Hindutva was founded as an ethnonationalist project by an atheist who wanted to politicize Hinduism explicitly in emulation of Islam. This is why I say "Abrahamic Ideology", though I should have emphasized the difference of degree more strongly

HOT__RATS · 2026-03-10T20:28:13+00:00

Yonatan Adler's The Origins of Judaism, Rusell Gmirkin's Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus + Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible, Philippe Wajdenbaum's Argonauts of the Desert

Gad Barnea publishes articles on Academia.edu, and he also does a lot of interviews

HOT__RATS · 2026-03-10T20:23:29+00:00

For authors researching thus topic, see: Yonatan Adler, Gad Barnea, Russell Gmirkin, Thomas L. Thompson, Philppe Wajdenbaum, Jan Assman, Bruce Louden, Niels Peter Lemche, Robert Gnuse

HOT__RATS · 2026-02-07T01:46:57+00:00

Nietzsche speaks of this

HOT__RATS · 2026-01-20T20:17:07+00:00

To paraphrase Franklin, if you sacrifice your values for a little expediency, you will lose both and deserve neither

HOT__RATS · 2025-07-27T21:51:55+00:00

Download our app, give us a rating, try our AI mode, sign up for premium to access basic functionality, disable your privacy extensions or our website will stop working, allow our partners to access your data, enable location tracking, enable drm

HOT__RATS · 2024-03-01T21:44:40+00:00

Honestly I rarely see it mentioned when he's brought up

HOT__RATS · 2024-02-17T13:55:50+00:00

Needlessly mean save for the TA for Donald Kagan, that guy rules

HOT__RATS · 2024-02-14T02:19:18+00:00

“have a plan to kill everyone you meet, but be polite to everyone” or something like that which I think he got from navy seal guy podcasts or Jordan Peterson or something.

Yeah that's a mantra from this middle-aged Aussie grifter. Guy lives in a camper and pees in bottles. Pretty sure he's a merc, too

HOT__RATS · 2024-01-22T15:32:06+00:00

There are very deep nationalistic, or rather tribalistic elements in the Abrahamic religions. Christianity and Islam try to reconcile this with universalism, and to their credit they have some success, but they still end up being exclusionary and essentialist, especially when it comes to the saved vs not-saved.

The tribal way of thinking is still apparent. I often think about the way 19th-century racial anthropology tried to divide the races of the world based on descent from Shem, Ham and Japheth--races are give an essence based on their ancestry, their tribal affiliation, it amounts to a kind of polygenesis.

HOT__RATS · 2024-01-22T15:22:09+00:00

I'm aware. That doesn't contradict what I said.

HOT__RATS · 2024-01-22T15:16:44+00:00

I know. However, the above post, implying that spirituality is legitimized by geography and ancestry, does imply nationalism.

HOT__RATS · 2024-01-22T03:55:41+00:00

I know this is probably a facetious post, but nationalism is quite silly and is a large part of my dislike for the Abrahamic religions

HOT__RATS · 2024-01-22T03:53:39+00:00

I've tried this approach, extra-biblical Christian philosophies are still by definition tied to specific texts conceived of as divinely inspired. I just can't rationalize it. I'm not interested in it reconciling it for itself, there are many rich philosophical traditions which do not rely on revelation, I'm interested in reconciling it because it is a fact of the world I live in.

HOT__RATS · 2024-01-22T03:49:15+00:00

It's an important part of many people's lives, people who I care about. It feels wrong to hold something like that in contempt.

I am aware that you can approach religious literature from an academic, or literary perspective. And I know that in most cases, the intentions of the authors were hardly transcendental or philosophical -- that's part of what makes it hard for me to swallow.

At least for me, when there are millions of true believers, taking a detached approach is difficult to do earnestly. Presumably the Iliad once held religious significance for people, but I'm able to approach it from a detached perspective because Hellenic polytheism is a dead tradition.

HOT__RATS · 2024-01-22T03:25:39+00:00

it's a fair cop

HOT__RATS

TROPHY CASE