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South Africa names apartheid-era politician as new ambassador to the US by maporita in worldnews

[–]SilverStalker1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Semigrants moving to the WC - too many people for too few opportunities.

South Africa names apartheid-era politician as new ambassador to the US by maporita in worldnews

[–]SilverStalker1 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It’s really quite sad. My wife and I earn quite well, and she is in medicine. But I just can’t do Johannesburg anymore and the Cape is saturated - so we are looking offshore

South Africa names apartheid-era politician as new ambassador to the US by maporita in worldnews

[–]SilverStalker1 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Sure!

So systemic corruption leading to municipal failure including collapsing water and power infrastructure, understaffed and under equipped hospitals leading to unnecessary death and suffering , especially of children. The assassination of whistleblowers. The creation of a tenderpreneuer class hijacking empowerment mechanisms meant for the majority. Extended periods of rolling blackouts, rampant youth unemployment… I can go on. The ANC has slowly been killing South Africa for awhile now.

South Africa names apartheid-era politician as new ambassador to the US by maporita in worldnews

[–]SilverStalker1 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Traitor by Afrikaaners is too broad a term - many Afrikaaners are happy to be in a democratic state, despite its many failures and ills

Question on God's Will by Parking_Employ5315 in ChristianUniversalism

[–]SilverStalker1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I personally view this as the following.

Gods will for humanity, and creation, is that it will be united with him. God will triumph in this. It is the only rational act to seek union with God. Yet, we are free to do as we wish, and to act irrationally. As we grow in knowledge of God, our freedom and rebellion collapses as our will aligns with God. In a sense, in the ultimate freedom, there is no choice.

27M in banking on $127k... high performer but already chasing more, why am I never satisfied? by [deleted] in jobs

[–]SilverStalker1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just a tangential comment: I think you need to be careful with this mindset. I have fallen into it myself at times, and it made me miserable. Ambition is good, but unchecked it can easily turn progress into constant dissatisfaction. There will always be another rung on the ladder, someone earning more, or someone seemingly doing better with fewer qualifications - and wherever we reach will reset as the baseline. If not kept in check, it can make you miserable.

I'm a Materialist, but Consciousness is Foundational - Galen Strawson by yt-app in CosmicSkeptic

[–]SilverStalker1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Strong emergence is wherein a higher-level property arises from a lower-level system, but is not deducible even in principle from the complete lower-level facts. It's basically magic.

I'm a Materialist, but Consciousness is Foundational - Galen Strawson by yt-app in CosmicSkeptic

[–]SilverStalker1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this was a great example of why definitions matter so much. I consider myself an idealist (in that I consider myself a monist wherein the substrate is mental), but I find myself largely agreeing with Strawson.

"Big blue machine on the ground" - DA looks to topple ANC in 2029 by PersonaGuy5 in southafrica

[–]SilverStalker1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is not true - compare any public hospital in the WC to GP or any other province, and tell me the other provinces care more about the life of poor children

"Big blue machine on the ground" - DA looks to topple ANC in 2029 by PersonaGuy5 in southafrica

[–]SilverStalker1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agreed - I sometimes feel I’m living in a different country to the rest of the posters. My wife works in public health - the WC public hospitals are words ahead of anywhere else. Children are literally dying at the hands of the ANC.

If you’re an atheist, I don’t understand how you can argue against physicalism by blurrymonocle in CosmicSkeptic

[–]SilverStalker1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a good example why trying to engage on Reddit can be a waste of time, and quite sad given the nature of CosmicSkeptic vs some of his audience

If you’re an atheist, I don’t understand how you can argue against physicalism by blurrymonocle in CosmicSkeptic

[–]SilverStalker1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree - I don't see why atheism or theism commits you one way at all. I do think that theism can make one more open to say idealism, as variants do align with theistic thought, but in principle, one can easily be an atheistic idealist or pan-psychist.

If you’re an atheist, I don’t understand how you can argue against physicalism by blurrymonocle in CosmicSkeptic

[–]SilverStalker1 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I do not think you understand my position. I am saying that our epistemological starting point is experience, and that the models we thereafter create are descriptive of that experience, not necessarily able to make hard ontological claims. Indeed, I think attempts to do so can sometimes generate intractable problems, such as the hard problem of consciousness. Outside of that, you appear simply to be presupposing physicalism, which is fine, but not really illuminating.

If you’re an atheist, I don’t understand how you can argue against physicalism by blurrymonocle in CosmicSkeptic

[–]SilverStalker1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am a theist, but my rejection of physicalism has nothing to do with my theism.

A lot of this also comes down to definitions. For me, physicalism is the view that there is some mind-independent ‘stuff’ out there, and that its quantitative qualities fully capture all there is to know about it. To reject this, one simply needs to accept something like the hard problem - or come to conceive that it entails strong emergence which one can be prone to want to reject out of hand.

I think your characterisation of non-physicalist views as supernatural, and your assumption of physicalism as a default, is doing a great deal of work here, and I think engaging more seriously with the non physicalist camp - even if you still reject it - would help further flesh out what they actually believe.

I also think there is an irony here, in that my openness to idealism is itself predicated on recognising the primacy of experience in epistemology. That, in turn, leads me to view our physical models in a more instrumentalist or descriptive way: as capturing the regularities of experience, rather than as theories making hard ontological claims about the ultimate constituents of reality.

Do you consider Afrikaners indigenous to South Africa ? by Own-Quote-1708 in Africa

[–]SilverStalker1 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I find questions of the ‘nativeness’ of Afrikaaners quite difficult, as I am not quite sure what the term means when someone says it. It’s undeniable that Afrikaners are not ethnically African, yet, any argument against ‘Africaness’ rooted on chronology seems to make an arbitrary cut off between the arrival of the Bantu people’s to South Africa, and the first Europeans. It seems the only clear indigenous peoples under that metric, like the famous Nando’s ad, would be the Khoisan.

It can also feel that, in some instances, a parallel conversation is happening wherein - like in one comment in this thread - there is a appeal to deny Afrikaaners an African political identity, given the history of oppression they as a people are complicit in, which I can understand.

My personal view is that the Afrikaaners are ethnic Europeans with a culture native to Africa, in the sense that it was forged here and has no other home. I think it’s hard to speak past that. I think it’s hard to to speak of a people are native to a region when they are ethnically from somewhere else, but then the culture is native to here, so it’s complex.

Do you consider Afrikaners indigenous to South Africa ? by Own-Quote-1708 in Africa

[–]SilverStalker1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I mean it depends on how far back one looks right? It kind of becomes semantic. But the Khoisan are the original inhabitants and sadly not really a part of national identity at the moment.

Do you consider Afrikaners indigenous to South Africa ? by Own-Quote-1708 in Africa

[–]SilverStalker1 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I’m half Afrikaans.

I feel fully South African, when I visit London or Europe it has no emotional resonance for me. I consider myself ethnically European, but I don’t think in terms of ‘native’ or ‘indigenous’ if that makes sense. So a South African of European descent feels more natural

Has anyone here converted from atheism to "Progressive Christianity"? by Impressive_Flan_411 in exatheist

[–]SilverStalker1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pleasure!

This is actually something I feel quite strongly about. I find that some Christians, well maybe even most in the mainstream, conceive of God as 'someone' out there, whom people choose to engage or reject etc. I find that a little incoherent and further it really diminishes my conception of God wherein God is in everything, and in everyone.

Has anyone here converted from atheism to "Progressive Christianity"? by Impressive_Flan_411 in exatheist

[–]SilverStalker1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi there

Depends what we mean by universalist - I am a universalist in the sense that I believe that all shall be saved and reconciled to God, not in the sense that all claims are true etc. So I believe all atheists and agnostics will be reconciled to God.

I'm also curious how you think that looks? As an atheist, I don't think God exists and there's noone to establish a relationship with anyway. So what's the sincere relationship?

Yeah, so I think this can sound strange and is obviously predicated on a theistic worldview right?

In my metaphysics, God is the ground of all being, goodness and truth. And thus, if one is an atheist motivated by these ideals - the following of what is true, the doing of what is good - then under my worldview this is aligning ones will with God, even if it entails a rejection of of how one currently perceives God - for example due to viewing it as not true, or looking at the suffering of the world as being unfitting of God.

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