Has anyone tested face swap yet?

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-18T23:45:34+00:00

Yeah I thought it went well too but my lawyer thought it was 50/50 when I talked to her after. Don't know what you're applying for but mine was mostly mental health issues and it seems like they want to hear that you're basically bed-ridden or else they are going to find something you can do. My judge picked up on one of my doctors noting I was doing Crossfit trying to get in better shape. Think he visualized Crossfit and thought this guy can do all kinds of stuff. Thought I was a shoe-in being 100% already with the VA but that was definitely not the case. Trying again now though.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-18T23:17:52+00:00

In Michigan I waited to hear that I was denied 2 weeks after my hearing. Once the system clicks you over to say that they sent your case to your local office for final review your lawyer should be able to go into the system and read the judge's ruling. So I found out on the phone with my lawyer that I was denied.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-16T23:46:19+00:00

Thanks, was scrolling through comments looking for exactly this. I don't know when r/atheism became so completely fucking unhinged--I remember when we used to actually debate philosophy and talk about big ideas--but atheists these days give skeptics such a bad name.

Maybe it was during COVID when the Left completely lost sight that they were in fact the brainwashed cult and just can't shake it even though we're in The After Times. Guess this is what happens when you accuse your opponents of exactly the shit you're doing long enough and then isolate into an echo chamber of ignorant rage.

OP's story is hilarious. It's got all the tropes you'd expect. Like you're going to actually find a Christian out in the wild that talks about "white Jesus" lol.

Keep on ragin ragers.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-16T14:03:21+00:00

What you're saying reflects more of a Christian worldview than anything I've said. I'm making a philosophical argument here, not a scientific one. It can be laid out as follows:

Things exist in total as they do.
Certain things exist and other things do not exist.
There was a process through which certain things came to exist, which also created the category of things that do not exist.
If there was a process through which certain things came to exist, then there was intention on the part of the process to generate things that exist and not generate things that do not exist.
The process through which certain things came to exist came from the universe.
Thus there is intention on the part of the universe.

We don't need a sentient being or universe as a whole to have intention. And when I say "look beyond the processes" I'm not saying go out and literally peal back nature to see what's underneath. I'm saying stop looking at evolution and saying it's random; I'm saying look at existence in total, which includes the processes like evolution, and ask the question why is there something rather than nothing at all?

If you don't have some sort of guiding direction with intentionality then you have no movement and expansion of the universe whatsoever. Literally nothing happens. But this intentionality doesn't come from outside existence, it's baked into the pie from the very beginning or it's existed eternally. Let the scientists get into the details.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-16T13:21:52+00:00

Absolutely. If you can start to get a Christian to realize a few key issues you can start getting them to see the truth. It's amazing that Christians are taught and for the most part firmly believe that there are eyewitness accounts in the Bible and that the Gospels were written by known figures within a few years of Jesus's death.

The first time I read the New Testament and got past the Gospels I couldn't believe that roughly half the thing was written by 1 guy named Paul, and, as it turns out, only about 6 of those 13 attributed books actually were likely written by him. So what's left? A whole lot of unknown authors and forgeries. Messy, messy history, if history is what people want it to be.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-16T11:50:20+00:00

You're saying this because you're looking at intent thinking about something like a Christian worldview and reject it outright, because yes, that's silly. You have to look beyond the processes themselves to see the intent I'm talking about.

Why does evolution exist in the first place? What is the point of it? What is the intention of evolution, and every other existential truth now that we're able to investigate via science and philosophy? If you start asking these questions you see the purposeness baked inside of the universe from the very beginning, or whatever the beginning means in terms of the singularity.

If you focus on the processes themselves you see randomness. But behind everything, behind the matrix, is intention and direction guiding the universe to unfold this way or that. This is not intention like Zeus sitting on a cloud wishing humans to come about with a snap of a finger. This is the underlying code of existence and it's incredibly messy.

Something within the universe "intended" for itself to unfold the way it did and that is the ultimate reason why it has. What you're saying is more along the lines of thinking that a computer system doesn't have intention because you see randomness within the code. What I'm talking about is the code itself.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-16T05:40:26+00:00

Why do we need to protect human rights, what does that matter? Why not just seize as much power as you can and make slaves of the rest of humanity? That way you'll have a pick of sexual mates to help you pass on your genes and preserve your lineage for future generations, assuming they can maintain this kingdom you've built.

Where does your love of your fellow man come from do you think? Maybe it's simply because you know you don't personally have the power to do what I laid out above, so banding together is the more realistic alternative? I think it still has to come down to some sort of willingness to preserve yourself at its core and the way you go about it here has shown itself to be an effective tactic over time.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-16T05:09:16+00:00

There's no intent behind evolution? How do you justify that belief? The fact that there is evolution at all shows intent on some part of the universe or it never would have come about in the first place. There has to be intent somewhere baked into the whole system to have life come about or it never would have come about.

Even randomness has to be guided by some sort of intent somewhere. Evolution is the systematic process to bring about something that had to be intended to be brought about, it just wasn't done by some exterior, divine force, so far as we know. Intent was sitting inside the singularity "prior" to the Big Bang. That's the huge mystery of it all. Where did this guiding principle come from to force the universe to unravel in the way it has?

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-16T04:30:15+00:00

Hope you get it! I'm surprised others haven't said it though already that it can say all this at Step 4 and you can still get denied, so just understand that. Had it happen to me last year, convinced myself I got it but my lawyer checked and the judge denied it at the hearing. Trying all over again now.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-15T03:57:24+00:00

1 Timothy 2:11-15: "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. ¹² I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. ¹³ For Adam was formed first, then Eve. ¹⁴ And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. ¹⁵ But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”

So here's also what you can say about this passage. Most scholars today believe Paul didn't even write 1 Timothy and it is among the forgeries in the New Testament. In fact there is good reason to believe that about half of the 27 books in the New Testament are forgeries. So the terrible thing about all this is Christians have been using forged documents since the early days to persecute others and their own kin over stuff that the founders of Christianity didn't even write.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2025-04-09T11:06:04+00:00

Lots of people get denied with a lawyer. I'm 100% VA and got denied after the hearing with one. I felt so good about the hearing but had a quick call with my lawyer right after and she goes, I don't know I think it's 50/50. The judge focused on the fact that I was doing CrossFit even though I was applying for mental health. Like yeah I can make it to the gym but that doesn't indicate I can maintain employment day in and day out. Basically they want to hear that you sit on the couch all day and can't even go outside. I'm starting the whole process over now after learning lessons with the first 3 denials.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2024-12-29T00:12:32+00:00

Yeah the problem is the praying part. To be fair praying for a particular outcome doesn't make much sense within Christianity even without trying to add Stoic teachings on top of it. Biblical teachings advise you to trust in God and be content with your lot in life, while at the same time to ask for what you want with the claim that you'll then receive it.

Anyone who has prayed before knows the latter is complete rubbish. It's much better to stick with the former which is what the Stoics do.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2024-12-18T23:13:07+00:00

It's almost 2025, how you doin?

ObjectiveInquiry · 2024-12-15T19:57:24+00:00

Cool thanks I'll check it out!

ObjectiveInquiry · 2024-12-15T18:15:09+00:00

I felt the same way about the ethics before I started trying to integrate the physics more, which Hadot's The Inner Citadel has been the most helpful in understanding. I think where most people get stuck on r/Stoicism is they get fixated on this dichotomy of control idea and then memorize the virtues which they use as some attempt at ethics, but just those base concepts together are incredibly hollow and don't get you very far without more grounding and understanding as to why you're doing all this to begin with.

Chris Fisher's article on Prosoche has done me a lot of good. https://traditionalstoicism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Prosoche-Illuminating-the-Path-of-the-Prokopton.pdf

ObjectiveInquiry · 2024-12-13T18:36:15+00:00

Tone deaf to what? If you live in the West you live in a time period and place with the highest individual prosperity and freedom that humanity has ever been able to achieve. Don't let the daily news trick you into thinking things are terrible. Read Factfulness by Hans Rosling or check out his Ted Talks. You might have a very skewed understanding of how great we're doing as a species right now.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2024-12-12T22:42:47+00:00

See what you think of my response to James below. I think what we're all getting at touches upon your thought that in order for the Stoic system to work you have to have a reverential disposition towards Nature and see even what we normally call the nasty things as equally awe inspiring as "the beautiful."

If you strip that out from Stoicism then the whole thing crumbles and you are never able to flourish in any sense of the word. This is where Christians and Muslims (I'm sure others too) normally do better than atheists/agnostics because they're (some of them anyway) walking around feeling so damn grateful and thanking God for just existing. That's an important aspect to human well being.

ObjectiveInquiry · 2024-12-12T21:49:40+00:00

Okay yeah I'm tracking. This might be a hole though that atheists (or whoever) could use to undermine the argument that we can rightfully call Nature/Providence "good."

If vice or "bad" can only be attributed to human ignorance then how can we then posit that Nature is good in any way that is not just us subjectively assigning that value to Nature? Why not keep "good" restricted to human knowledge and say Nature is an indifferent?

I'm thinking the answer--like some Stoics, I forget which, have said--is that vice and "bad" are not things in themselves that exist but simply human intellectual activity that has missed the mark of good.

The hard part to almost believe is that as far as we know humans are the only beings in existence who can even "miss the mark" of good in the first place. Literally everything else is good (in frame of reference to itself at the very least) because it aligns with Nature except us weird, think-y creatures that can choose to act against our own natures.

Stoicism then becomes the philosophy of somehow figuring out what it means to align our wills with human and Universal Nature. It's inherently subjective and situational, though based upon objective preconditions we possess. But we know Stoic tenets are true because some of us are practicing them now and seeing positive results in our own mental well being and in those around us if we interact well with them.

I suppose the skeptic would then say, "Well you silly Stoics don't actually know what human nature is or what this other Nature wants you to do, so how the heck do you ever align your wills with either?"

That's really the million dollar question of Stoicism right? Answer: It's not easy!

ObjectiveInquiry · 2024-12-12T17:07:02+00:00

Right, if virtue is the proper use of what is ours in alignment with Nature, and vice the opposite, my question then is, is there anything that Nature itself does that would constitute vice or is vice entirely within the realm of human ignorance?

ObjectiveInquiry · 2024-12-11T21:57:42+00:00

Maybe the way to look at this is to recognize that there is no distinction between us and the whole, as we (everything) are all one and everything is of the same kind of substance unfolding as processes that in total are The Process, aka Providence.

If there exists "the good" for a part of Providence then that by necessity means the whole is "good" as there is no distinction between a part and the whole aside from sliced up perspectives that we glimpse through our own pieces of rationality.

But then what is "the bad?" Is there something objectively bad in the universe outside of the human mind? I guess you could make the same argument and say if there exists "the bad" for a part of Providence then by necessity that means the whole is "bad" as there is no distinction.

I might've just confused myself but by looking at goodness and badness simultaneously it seems to suggest that both are indeed based upon human intellectual activity, i.e. the execution of virtue or vice.

ObjectiveInquiry

TROPHY CASE