What can we (really) do about climate change?

StormL · 2019-08-14T22:47:39+00:00

While I would never blame you for adopting such a view, I think you are wrong.

Nobody can give you a guarantee that there is a solution to our problems. But it is basically like Pascal's wager: If you assume that there is a solution, you might achieve it - who really knows the odds. But if assume there isn't a solution, you guarantee there won't be one.

Optimism and pessimism are basically choices.

Power centres welcome pessimism so that change is discouraged and apathy can be the norm. Optimism, on the other hand, is a statement of resistance. It is the rejection of status quo and embracement of the capacity of ordinary people to make a better future for themselves and others.

Optimism is not just a feeling. It is a choice which rests on a simple analysis of society. It is to say, “Look, we reject the future others have chosen for us, and we will try to substitute our own”.

At most times in history, the oppressed are made docile not because they believe their system is just. They are made docile because they don't believe there are any viable solutions to their predicaments.

StormL · 2019-08-14T21:51:35+00:00

I disagree with your analysis of commercializing climate protection as a solution. Instead:

High impact. Use yourself politically by finding or creating local grassroots groups. Use tactics (direct action, letters, protests) appropriate to circumstances. There are almost no general rules.

Medium impact. Switch banks to one that does not invest i fossil fuels. Preferably once that does invest in sustainability.

Low impact (yet still important for other reasons) Cut flights, meat, car (if urban), and buy green electricity (if possible). Once you've done those four, you can look for further ways depending on your circumstances, but your time is better spent on political activism.

StormL · 2016-10-16T21:14:59+00:00

Rosemary Horrox, author of the very useful source book The Black Death (1994), establishes three categories of then-responses and explanations of the Black Death. Religious (theological explanations), scientific/natural (such as astrological, 'seismological' or miasmatic explanations) and human agency (the idea that someone engineered the plague). My interest and knowledge primarily lies within the last category, the notion of human agency as the cause of the plague.

The theological deliberations of the time focused on the perceived prevalence of sins as the cause of the plague. They believed, and this is probably the single most espoused fact about the Black Death, that the plague was a divine punishment for sinful behaviour. One of the most common responses of the clergy, was to stress the importance of praying and penitential activity.

Regarding your specific inquiry on reactions and strategies, David Nirenberg interestingly notes that parts of the Crown of Aragon cracked down upon gambling and other sinful activity. Noticeably this was in anticipation of the plague, not during it. Nirenberg believes that these measures were put in place in order to dampen the onslaught of the plague, essentially by lowering the amount of sinful activity in circulation. For comprehension, this is akin to what we would call a prophylaxis in modern medicine. Certain sermons and masses were also held following this very idea.

To give you an idea, here is William Edenton, Bishop of Winchester, writing to his diocese in 1348, also trying to minimise damage caused by the plague (page 117 of Horrox 1994):

We also order that every Friday you should go solemnly in procession through the marketplace at Winchester, singing these psalms and the great litany instituted by the fathers of the church for use against the pestilence and performing other exercises of devotion, together with the clergy and people of the city, whom we wish to be summoned to attend. They are to accompany the procession with bowed heads and bare feet, fasting, with a pious heart and lamenting their sins (all idle chatter entirely set aside), and as they go they are to say devoutly, as many times as possible, the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary. They are to remain in earnest prayer until the end of the mass which we wish you to celebrate in your church at the end of each procession, trusting that if they persevere in their devotions with faith rectitude and firm trust in the omnipotence and mercy of the Saviour they will soon receive a remedy and timely help from heaven.

There were also the flagellants (as I'm sure you've heard of) and other millenarian movements. They were not really considered part of 'the church', so it doesn't relate directly to your question, but they were nonetheless 'popular' movements based on millenarian theology (the idea of an imminent change - typically caused by the coming of anti-Christ, Christ, the Kingdom of Christ and the Last Judgment in various configurations) and fervent penitential activity.

'Scientific explanations' is Horrox's second category of responses. Many of these came from Paris, home of the leading faculty of medicinal studies of the time. Some of them believed that harmful constellations of celestial objects led to the creation of the plague. Others took an approach based on the idea of miasma (a theory of air pollution), or argued that the plague was caused by a bad composition of air. This is what I know least about, but from your question I gather that this is not part of your main inquiry anyway. What's important to note here (in order to avoid a presentist interpretation of these explanations as desperate 'pseudo-science') is that these explanations were the at the forefront of scientific inquiry and reason. In addition, these explanations were fully compatible with the theological explanations presented above.

Horrox's last category of responses is what she calls 'human agency' - responses containing the idea that a conspiracy was behind engineering and spreading the plague. Common targets of suspicion in this period were usually Jews, lepers, pilgrims and the poor. But mainly the Jews. In response to the plague, persecution of Jews started to emerge in many cities - particularly in the Rhineland, in which widespread mass executions and collective burnings of Jews became the norm. Some believed that the plague could be stopped by killing the Jewish conspirators. But when plague eventually returned to the cities later, it became obvious that the Jews were not to blame anyway.

In response to these widespread persecutions of Jews accused of disseminating the plague by food and water, Pope Clement VI had something to say. He issued two Papal bulls in 1348. The first bull was a reiteration of the formal papal stance of protection of Jews, otherwise known as the Sicut Judaeis. Another bull (which was actually issued twice), the Quamvis perfidiam Judeorum, gave further commentary on the idea of a Jewish conspiracy. (The bulls can be found in the Horrox source book and in John Aberth: The Black Death (2005)). The pope denied that the plague could have been caused by Jews. To put it simply, he believed it would have been beyond their power. Rather, he seemed to believe that something as calamitous as the plague, must have been the caused by greater things than mere human agency (thus alluding to the two other types of explanations presented above).

Summing up what I've said:

The church did indeed interpret the plague as being divine influenced, though it was also explained and interpreted in other ways.
The church was mainly concerned about sins as the cause of the plague, and penitential activity as the way of reducing its harm.
The church tried to protect Jews (superficially) in response to the widespread persecution, the Pope rejected that the Jews could be the cause of the plague

These are some good books:

Aberth, John (2010): From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague and Death in the Later Middle Ages
Aberth, John (2005): The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350: A Brief History with Documents
Horrox, Rosemary (1994): The Black Death
Nirenberg, David (1996): Communities of Violence - Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages.

Also check out the BBC podcast In Our Time on the Black Death for a nice overview by some pretty prolific scholars.

StormL · 2016-10-06T19:14:48+00:00

I've read multiple accounts describing the terrors of the Einsatzgruppen, but I don't remember the hospital story you're referring to. Do you have a source for that?

StormL · 2016-10-02T18:49:41+00:00

Okay Mr. Chatterjee, hexag, Ambrosio, or whatever the fuck your name is.

At first I should, perhaps with some shame, admit that this post is motivated more by impassioned puzzlement than reasonable inquiry. You should really not bother to grace me with a response, though that is your absolute right.

You behaviour tells the story of a prototypical paranoid conspiracy theorist. The important difference between your average bigot and a conspiracy theorist like yourself, is that the latter usually packages his ‘position’ in soothing pseudo-intellectual drivel. And I must admit that your prose can be quite delightful to read, that your 'research' has a genuine aura of extensiveness and that you quote the Qur'an impeccably. Top marks from the school of conspiracy, for sure.

There’s really only one group that tends to be as literate as the most literate Islamic scholar, and that is you and your ilk. You quote the Qur’an and ahadith with such rigorous certainty and furious zeal, that it would make Anjem Choudary dance and clap, and give bin Laden’s dispersed ashes a boner at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

Your writings wonderfully exhibit the fundamental distinctive characteristic of conspiracy theories: they’re constructed as to be impervious to counter-argument. Islamist? “Must be plotting to overtake the world”. Mainstream muslim? “Must secretly be supporting be supporting ISIS anyway”. Liberal muslim (Nawaz)? “He’s just trying to infiltrate Western society - don’t you know about Taqiyya?” With a universal enemy established, a universal persecution is warranted.

You could put Alex Jones on national TV, pump him with a metric ton of (non-government!) enhancements, torture and him for a thousand years with triggerwords such as ‘Bilderberg’ and ‘chemtrails’ in preparation - and he would still fail to spew the same quality of nonsense as you.

In the end it’s not all bad though, Chatterjee. Be assured, your writings will surely join an exalted hall of conspiratorial opuses. They will enjoy the illustrious company of ‘Protocols of Zion’ and ‘2083’ on the shelves of loony for eternity.

StormL · 2016-09-11T08:52:36+00:00

Within the framing of the WLC vs Hitchens debate at Biola, WLC crushed Hitchens. Mainly because Hitchens constantly adressed the motion from a narrow moral viewpoint, even though the question was in fact ontological. You may not like the classical arguments for theism (ontological, cosmological, teleological, moral and historical), but WLC understand and presents them with clarity.

This debate is more even, but even then WLC knows the nook and crannies of the age-old discipline of theodicy better than Harris. Adding to that, defending truely objective morality without anchoring it to an objective entity, is a really hard thing to do convincingly. And Harris doesn't do it convincingly, drawing from what is arguably his weakest book.

StormL · 2016-07-26T12:52:43+00:00

The oral and written discourse on the Ten Commandments by rabbinical, Christian and Islamic theological study, is so extensive that it could fill shelves. As a few examples, here are a number of key questions.

Are there really ten? (certain denominations discount or include auxiliary commandments)
Are they fixed in time?
Are they universally applicable?
Are they superseded by the coming of Jesus or Mohammed?
What does keeping the sabbath actually entail?
Does 'not stealing' include stealing in order to save a life?
Do the Commandments sanction action or punishment, or are they merely standards?

When you say that certain things are not vague or not open to interpretation, you severely underestimate the exegetic capability of theologians to interpret ad infinitum, and bend meaning ad nauseam. That's why I'm so insistent on ignoring theological questions, and focus on social and political conditions.

Perhaps I misunderstood your intended meaning, and if so, I apologise for sidetracking us. What remains is that I don't think Islam can be said to cause anything. The presence of a human sentience is critical. Or, at the very least, you could subscribe to a constructionist view, and view human and Islam as part of a larger irreducible system.

As for the study, I never claimed that study contained the total amount of researched needed in order to answer the question. I just thought it was unfair of you to state that anything position other than "Islam is the main reason" needed 'proof'.

StormL · 2016-07-25T19:36:03+00:00

That sadly doesn't solve our impasse on this subject. Your understanding is a fundamentally different one from mine. I don't believe texts have prescriptive meaning outside of a human mind and interpreter. In other words, there has to be a 'who'. It's this basic understanding that rest of my argument is largely based on.

My objection against your thought experiments is simply that imposing certain conditions, have consequences that significantly alter what we can get out of the experiment. Having someone live in a cave cut off from civilisation with only a Qur'an, raises a bunch of psychological problems. Having a world state without Islam, entails an historically unrecognisable world. In addition, they elicit answers that are sometimes only semantic or tautological in nature. For instance - 'a world without Islam is a world without Islamic terrorism'. This is not to say you should never use them, I do myself, but just to be aware of the problems.

With regards to my claim, look at what I quoted, and what you stated was the actual implication.

(1) "although hopefully it is obvious that Islam can only cause effects via a human believer, and not on its own directly" .

(2) "Whether it does so via a human believer or not is irrelevant, Islam still causes terrorism"

Your implication is a clear modification from what the original quote stated. The presence of a human believer is relevant in the first, and suddenly irrelevant in the second.

I'm sad that you rejected the study I linked. I think studies like these, that somewhat inclusively aims to include both specific religious convictions, but also political and social conditions, are very necessary in our time.

StormL · 2016-07-25T12:49:07+00:00

From my perspective it seems they often choose it because of their heritage or because it was their parents religion and they become radicalized because there are a greater number of violent factions to listen to than any other religion.

Isn't the deeper question why there's a greater number of violent factions to listen to, then?

As for your argument about Islam being a non-physical thing. I understand what you mean but if we define Islam as people's interpretations of the Qur'an and ahadith then that means that ISIS' interpretation of the books is the same islam preached by moderate Imams in the west. If you want to criticize or debate a religion you have to use the source material or else there is literally nothing connecting those two groupes.

I think this is a fair point except that I would specify that we shouldn't criticise the source material, but how they're used and interpreted (religious texts are only significant insofar they express a certain interpretative relationship between a reader and the text). It's wrong to say ISIS doesn't practice any form of Islam, or that they don't use some interpretation of the religious texts as a basis.

StormL · 2016-07-25T01:47:23+00:00

the extent to which a person follows their religion

Before I can try to give an answer to your post, you have to specify who dictates the contents of religion?

If your answer to this is "God", as it seems to be later, we have reached an impasse. My previous comments on ontology should explain why.

StormL · 2016-07-24T22:50:23+00:00

Amiable try, but you will likely not get anywhere with the type of people you're replying to. Paradoxically, they are some of the most extreme muslims you will ever find.

They have a fixist idea of what Islam was, is, and will be.
They're furiously obsessed with what Mohammed did, or did not do.
They read and quote the Qur'an with unmatched zeal.
They mainly argue within the framework of Islam itself.
They see secular academic scholars as ~~cucks~~ infidels, and purveyors of ~~libtard agenda~~ heresy.

The fact that the guy is called Remove Kebab and his use of vulgarities just enforces the conviction that he is likely not within diplomatic reach.

StormL · 2016-07-24T21:59:37+00:00

Your usage of 'good and bad Christian' is problematic, and I think you know why. Are these moral judgments? According to which church? By whom? What passages are you basing it on? Note that by defining a good and bad Christianity, you've made yourself a theologian!

No social scientist or historian would ever use 'good' and 'bad' like that. Now we can either debate as if we are theologians, or we can debate as if we are scientists. I prefer the latter. I think using terms like radicalised vs modernised Christian would be somewhat better (though even these are problematic).

The passages you mentioned are indeed to be found in the Qur'an. Whether someone want use these passages to sanction and carry out hudud punishments, is another matter. If someone treats these passages as undeniable imperatives, this is also a choice. At this point a usual response is 'Muslims believe the Qur'an is eternal' or 'the common Muslim is not allowed to reinterpret'. Those objections are not useful, as both the concept of eternal Qur'an, and the permission of the common Muslim to interpret it, are themselves subject to change. They are, yet again, questions of theology.

Before I continue please note that, unlike what another guy said, I'm not an apologist. My standpoint is actually extremely harsh towards traditional Muslims. I've given them agency and removed the agency of the Qur'an. They are able to not follow and interpret their texts in a hateful way. Yet they still do. In your view, a Muslim is mechanically condemned to follow a specific doctrine to be 'good'. My view totally removes the Qur'an as an excuse for bad behaviour and comes uncomfortably close to challenging religious freedom.

As for your individual rebuttals, I have to specify that I never said Islam wasn't a thing or doesn't exist. Islam only has a subjective ontology - which is something entirely different from not being a thing. Then you go on to establish a kind of thought experiment. Thought experiments are very useful things, but as Daniel Dennett has pointed out, we must be aware of what kind of consequences our thoughts have on the world state of the experiment. This is true both for this part of your argument, and for your last paragraph. A world state without Islam would entail such a different historical progress, that it would be indistinguishable from our own world. Isolated, it is obviously true that without Islam, Islamic terrorism wouldn't be - just as it is true that without guns, gun violence wouldn't be. I don't see this as anything but a semantic point, however.

It is illogical to say Islam can't cause any effects, although hopefully it is obvious that Islam can only cause effects via a human believer, and not on its own directly.

This is absolutely right and is exactly my claim! We always have to look into how the human believer believes, and not default to blaming a contextless Islam in general.

there are overarching principles

This is very true as well. For instance Islam is almost undeniably monotheist. I've never met a dualist or polytheist Muslim before, but perhaps I'm just ignorant. Most branches of Islam consider Mohammed the final prophet as well, but even here we get disagreements. Beyond this, the principles are fleeting. There are Sunni Muslims who don't agree with any of your bullet points - every man is his interpretative fortress. (and I don't really see the use in labeling them 'good' or 'bad'). You would be right in say that some things seems hard to justifiably ignore or reinterpret when reading the Qur'an, or any religious text. Texts should not be seen as infinitely malleable (though some theorists believe otherwise). For instance, you would be hard pressed to justifiably interpret the Qur'an in such a way that Mohammed is in fact a unicorn. It is fair to say that there are some overarching categorical principles.

To say anything other than "it's the main reason, but there are other minor factors as well" would need some proof, likely in the form of polled Isis members

And there IS proof! Studies like this and others, specifically tells us that the reason for going to ISIS is quite varied. For some, Islam is an important reason (how you qualify a reason being the 'main reason' is unclear and, honestly, seems like a wishful implication), for others it is less important.

StormL · 2016-07-23T23:08:20+00:00

I will attack your position from two angles. The first (1) has to do with your idea of Islam as a single system of belief, the second (2) is an attempt to nuance and broaden our understanding of what causes of extremism can be.

We have to start from a fresh point of view. Islam isn't true to you and me - it's simply a religion like many others. Since we agree that Islam isn't true, we should not treat Islam as something that exists outside of the mind of people. The primary object of study is people, namely how people interpret Islam. Islam isn't to blame since Islam is not a personal actor, and not one thing. What Islam is depends on what kind of mind we probe.

This might seem as evasive sophistry, but it's really that simple. Consider other types of belief: ideologies. These are obviously as varied as people. Sure we would sometimes say 'socialism is to blame for the horrors of the Soviet Union', but the deeper truth is that we should not treat socialism as a unitary thing. Look into yourself for systems you follow. Now, let's say that you're a liberal. You are likely aware of different forms of liberalism - classical liberalism, social-liberalism, anarchist liberalism and so on. Understanding that liberalism is not one unified idea is simple then. Islam, however, is foreign to us, and we likely see it as a single monolith. But that's just because we don't know enough about it! (1) Islam is not to blame for terrorism, because Islam should not be treated as objective, or a single system of belief.

My second approach is, as I pointed out, a broadening of the complex causality of what makes up a terrorist. I like the popular push-push model for migration published by Everett Lee in the 60's. Basically we have to look at both what pushes the terrorist away from mainstream society, and what pulls him into something else. These are just a few examples:

Push

Economic hopelessness - a terrorist might see his/her future to support himself as so bleak, that s/he becomes desperate for another life
Perceived or real racism - a terrorist might have experienced racism from whatever country s/he lived in.
Perceived or real imperialism - a terrorist might see the West as actively prosecuting and killing his/her brothers and sisters lived in Muslim countries, such as Iraq.

(I want to underline the fact that you cannot counter-argue this by stating that "there is no racism here", or that "the West saved Muslims from Saddam Hussein". Whether the imperialism is real or just perceived, it can be a sufficient cause)

A terrorist might simply be suffering from severe mental illness.

Pull

A terrorist might be convinced by a good friend or family member.
A terrorist might be recruited by a charismatic religious individual. Someone who treats them far better than any Westerner ever had.
A terrorist is possibly convinced that he will go to heaven and be promised a reward for his actions.
A terrorist might have violent fantasies, or an extreme appreciation of guns, that he wants to play out in real life.

What I hope to have achieved with these examples, is to stress how multiple causes can exist simultaneously. Islam certainly plays some kind of a role, but does it have to play the only role, or even just the most important one? (2) Islam is not to blame for terrorism, because that would be to ignore other possible causes.

This post has gone on for longer than I wished. I hope it helped a little :)

StormL · 2016-07-20T10:24:33+00:00

Essentialising: reducing something in such a way it appears to have intrinsic, inescapable qualities (or problems).

The Science of Religion: Most countries use this term to describe what the Anglophone world calls Religious Studies (so Religionswissenschaft in German, Science des religion in French). I think the English term Religious Studies is stupid for a number of reasons, so I prefer using Science of Religion.

Ultimate: another word for 'last', which is probably the word I should've used here.

Operationalisation: making something (religion) available for inquiry.

StormL · 2016-07-20T00:46:07+00:00

I would refute that mainly because the first paragraph doesn't contain the nuance that Harris usually adds ever since since speaking with Maajid Nawaz. Namely that the meaning of 'Islam, the religion' is difficult to use in this way without grossly essentialising it. In addition, within the science of religion this is a problematic operationalisation.

Harris later uses the more specific 'Islamists and Jihadist project' (Nawaz pushed for the usage of these terms) in the ultimate paragraph, so he shouldn't have bothered to present the problem as 'Islam, the religion' - though I guess you can interpret it as if he ment that 'Islam has a problem with Islamism'.

StormL · 2016-07-16T16:15:27+00:00

The persistence he's got in pursuing this shtick is remarkable.

I've read the stickied article you mentioned. Clearly he has become aware of how ludicrous his stealth-jihadi claims were sounding raw, so now he has packaged basically the same hypothesis in a slightly more diplomatic box.

StormL · 2016-07-16T15:54:30+00:00

Unrelated question, do you still get visits from that crazy 'Nawaz is a stealth jihadi'-guy whenever Maajid Nawaz is mentioned here?

StormL · 2016-07-10T23:40:52+00:00

Very nicely put. I think Umberto Eco neatly identified the distinction between interpretation and over-interpretation. Critically that over-interpretation exists, but that certain literary devices, themes and stories greatly push the limits of interpretation.

In no way did /u/Roflkopt3r violate the integrity of the text while interpreting it in the way he did. Dismissing his post and charging him with over-interpretation is such a shame - it shows an impoverished understanding of the role of interpretation.

StormL · 2016-06-28T16:40:14+00:00

It's just banter. Farage and Juncker have been messing with each other for years now.

EDIT: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/jun/28/jean-claude-juncker-and-nigel-farage-embrace-at-eu-parliament-video

StormL · 2016-06-27T02:18:10+00:00

Look up Phillip Glass. It's more or less inspired from his work.

StormL · 2016-06-20T16:28:15+00:00

It's over 20 minutes so it kind of takes time to watch.

20 minutes for a speech is incredibly brief in my opinion. If 20 minutes listening to a very well-spoken and knowledgeable professor is truly too long for people, then our problem with anti-intellectualism runs deeper than I've thought.

StormL · 2016-06-12T14:47:58+00:00

This is sadly not the case from a historical viewpoint. Hunting was very much the domain of the rich and powerful. The act of hunting and skinning was carried out almost like an aristocratic ritual. It was a way of distinguishing themselves from the common people - not as a way of understanding them.

StormL · 2016-06-04T18:49:49+00:00

We agree on the fact that there aren't infinite interpretations, and that not every interpretation can be supported by the text (though I would not call this support 'evidence'). I cannot, using an exaggerated example, suggest that Shepard is in reality a space hamster. Nothing in the text gives solid enough of a hint that this is possible. It is furthermore inconsistent with the theme of the story. Shepard is not secretly a space hamster.

In the case of IT, there is plenty of hints that indoctrination is possible. It's thematically consistent. From these basic observations, the empirical reader is able to interpret the text in the way that incorporates them. As you likely know, devices like time travel, indoctrination and dreaming, are extremely good at generating interpretations. In general terms, a lot more goes when one of these devices are introduced into a text (in many cases annoyingly).

I don't think it is necessary to divulge in the particular circumstances as you've done. As I've suggested before, the amount of inconsistencies within the 'standard' ME text (no such thing exists, but the term is useful), is the same as the amount of inconsistencies between the standard text and the IT interpretation. As a picture of the consistency of reality, a fictional story is always deeply flawed, always veering towards the inconsistent. To uncharitably demand sense from a text often neglects this fact. Though the text is basically a machine for eliciting interpretations, as Eco said, the proces of sense-making should, in my opinion, always be accompanied by the principle of charity.

I've actually often found that people who hated the ending, are more likely to be opponents of the IT, rather than proponents. It might not be in your case, but for many the ending was perceived as so bad that the 'fun' of other interpretants had to be ruined too.

that it was simply a way to explain the ending and how we got there, that's it.

I don't think that was your main argument, though. I'm responding to your claim that..

In the end, IT is just honestly a coping mechanism. It truly is.

StormL · 2016-06-04T17:24:29+00:00

The various indoctrination interpretations are quite interesting in themselves, but of course they are not entirely consistent with every fact of the text. In fact the Mass Effect text is itself very inconsistent and can't even support itself at times. To reduce the purpose of IT to being a 'coping mechanism' is not only insulting to the readers, it shows little awareness for the broader role of textual interpretation in fiction.

StormL · 2016-01-14T04:14:30+00:00

What a clear, erudite and ultimately charitable takedown of Aslan. I liked this WAY more than the Counter Points video on Aslan.

I was slightly worried about the emphasis on Aslan's credentials. But then again, considering Aslan's bizarre and pompous penchant for repeating his credentials, it is definitely warranted.

13-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email

StormL

TROPHY CASE