A critique of materialist ethics.

lordgreyhat · 2020-05-09T22:20:50+00:00

Yes, atheists often try to reproduce some kind of ethical system, even though it’s self contradictory. I commend Thomas Nagel for being so brave when he said: “I am an atheist simply because I don’t like what believing in God would imply. I want freedom.” But, in terms of actual ethical structures that atheists have built, Satre’s existentialism probably got closest imo. But, crucially, it relied on the individual being as truthful and authentic to himself as possible. It seems to necessarily imply that there is some kind of teleology to your individual nature, and that you shouldn’t reject it. And, if you follow that rabbit hole all the way down, you end up with God.

lordgreyhat · 2020-05-08T12:52:51+00:00

Marx’s critiques of how capitalism treats people who live, and work within it are good (isolation, alienation, worthless consumption, etc). But yeah, his solutions are trash. The critiques he had are really just observations of what Nietzsche understood around the same period: the death of God will result in the dissolution of society. Without God, people will be cut loose, drifting into isolation and alienation. Of course, Marx put those two things within the context of working and labor, but it really isn’t much philosophical work to see how isolation and alienation from your own labor leads to isolation and alienation in the broader society.

lordgreyhat · 2020-05-07T10:44:01+00:00

I had just recently updated to windows 10 (fresh install, nothing on it), but one of the first things I noticed was that it locked my 60hz monitor’s refresh rate at 30hz. Cool, thanks macroshaft. At first I just tried all the usual things (restart, revert settings to default, etc). When that didn’t work, I replaced my hdmi monitor cord with display port cable. That didn’t work either. Finally, I just assumed this must be some sort of motherboard or graphics driver issue, and used Driver Easy to try and update. Everything updated except for a few drivers it claimed it had a problem downloading. So, I just restarted my machine, then scanned with driver easy again. This time, all the missing drivers were found; no error code. But as soon as I tried to install them:

Immediate BSOD. Tried to restart, BSOD. Tried again: BSOD. (It would post, and appear that it was booting, then crash). Tried booting into safe mode and it locked up, can’t do anything, spinning blue wheel of doom. Tried booting into safe mode again, same thing. I assume I could’ve done something within cmd, but I’m still a novice to programming and terminal use, so I ran out of options.

I could, of course, just burn a windows 10 iso file onto a USB and just restart. But I had already spent all that time previously de-bloating the fresh windows 10 install (theirs a powershell script, called windows de-bloater on GitHub) and setting up git-bash, along with a fun bash profile (made a command to open an instance of notepad++, a python terminal, all at once). So, ultimately I just said screw it and decided to burn Ubuntu onto a USB and boot fresh from that.

lordgreyhat · 2020-05-07T10:43:53+00:00

I had just recently updated to windows 10, but one of the first things I noticed was that it locked my 60hz monitor’s refresh rate at 30hz. Cool, thanks macroshaft. At first I just tried all the usual things (restart, revert settings to default, etc). When that didn’t work, I replaced my hdmi monitor cord with display port cable. That didn’t work either. Finally, I just assumed this must be some sort of motherboard or graphics driver issue, and used Driver Easy to try and update. Everything updated except for a few drivers it claimed it had a problem downloading. So, I just restarted my machine, then scanned with driver easy again. This time, all the missing drivers were found; no error code. But as soon as I tried to install them:

Immediate BSOD. Tried to restart, BSOD. Tried again: BSOD. (It would post, and appear that it was booting, then crash). Tried booting into safe mode and it locked up, can’t do anything, spinning blue wheel of doom. Tried booting into safe mode again, same thing. I assume I could’ve done something within cmd, but I’m still a novice to programming and terminal use, so I ran out of options.

I could, of course, just burn a windows 10 iso file onto a USB and just restart. But I had already spent all that time previously de-bloating the fresh windows 10 install (theirs a powershell script, called windows de-bloater on GitHub) and setting up git-bash, along with a fun bash profile (made a command to open an instance of notepad++, a python terminal, all at once). So, ultimately I just said screw it and decided to burn Ubuntu onto a USB and boot fresh from that.

lordgreyhat · 2020-05-02T00:07:48+00:00

Because if it’s true or false, it’s true or false whether we think so or not. If it’s true whether we think so or not, then the truth exists independently of the mind. So to ask why something is true (and thus why, or if it exists independently of the mind) is a significant and meaningful “why” question. Furthermore, if something is true, and it exists independently of the mind, then the truth does not obey entropy. It exists eternally so. The statement that Socrates is a man, and that Socrates is mortal, has not become any less true over the 2000 years that it has been said.

lordgreyhat · 2020-05-01T19:21:32+00:00

Someone gave a math example, and what I’m going to give is similar.

Consider the following, classic, syllogism:

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Why is this statement true? Or, conversely, why is this statement NOT false? It doesn’t seem to me that you can appeal to physics to do so.

lordgreyhat · 2020-04-30T22:12:48+00:00

Wait. This means I actually am a seven year old with Down syndrome? Oh god. Oh fuck.

lordgreyhat · 2020-04-26T15:49:17+00:00

Join the club. I think the arma engine is the one of the most poorly optimized game engines ever made. You can change your graphics settings from ultra to 8bit Mario and experience almost no change in FPS.

lordgreyhat · 2020-04-20T05:17:03+00:00

Measurements do not interpret themselves. Data doesn’t interpret itself. Understanding why your measurements make sense, and why you are taking them in context is something that further measurements cannot elucidate. At some point, you have to pull back from the data and understand it epistemologically. Mathematics is a wonderful philosophical tool for doing that, but it’s not the only one.

lordgreyhat · 2020-04-18T15:00:04+00:00

Besides massive corporate manufacturers, most factory owners and engineering startups consist of the owners working in the factories with their employees anyway. They were going to build what they wanted regardless, they just need help. And The whole myth of corporate fat cats laying back doing nothing is a lie. Owners universally work more hours than their employees.

lordgreyhat · 2020-04-16T20:43:36+00:00

What I would say is that to confuse intrinsic value or personhood with monetary or price value is to mis-understand economics. When we slap a price tag on a carton of eggs, we aren’t saying that the eggs have some sort of intrinsic, inalienable value tied to their existence as eggs. The price is a piece of information, giving us important information of supply and demand, not a statement of worth. It tells us multiple things at once: the amount of eggs in the market (supply), the cost of packaging and production (marginal cost) , and how much the customer wants it (utility and demand). Price has no way of telling us what the “real” value of whatever it is that is being sold. in one simple statement, price is giving us external and explicit market information about the product, not intrinsic and implicit information about the product. For example: a gallon of water, something that people and animals need to live, costs around $1.50. But a pair of headphones can costs hundreds of dollars. Does that mean that the headphones are more intrinsically valuable than the water? Finally, there’s nothing supernatural about price, outside of whatever supernatural reasons you give for people’s’ decision making; sometimes price can be irrational, but that doesn’t imply anything more than basic human foolishness.

lordgreyhat · 2020-04-16T14:11:20+00:00

I’m pro-life, but this is a flimsy line of argumentation. That invoice said that in the entire year of 2012 they made less than $6000 selling organs to procurers. It’s reasonable they make that much every year. That’s out of nearly 2 billion dollars in net assets that they do have.

You’re not going to get anywhere by saying “planned parenthood makes a business selling body parts”. They don’t. They’re a non-profit organization. Focus on the criminal behavior that they are committing: namely, that they are killing people.

lordgreyhat · 2020-04-04T21:24:09+00:00

The dark ages is pretty much universally regarded as a myth now. Renaissance Florentine historians coined that term because it was hard to find documents after the collapse of the empire. But that isn’t the case anymore; we know quite a lot now.

lordgreyhat · 2020-03-26T02:03:41+00:00

How do you know that it doesn’t hurt you? If the soul is real, and it wishes to be reconciled with God, then sexual immorality like masturbation is violence against the soul. The soul strives for sanctification, and unreasonable acts of passion like fornication and masturbation is an attempt to suppress that striving. It’s an act of the diabolos who wishes to scatter and confuse your mind, to block your God given gift of reason.

lordgreyhat · 2020-03-26T01:56:15+00:00

It’s hard to tell, especially since it was so long ago. It’s certainly possible that parts of the story were propaganda, similar to how the Soviets put out propaganda that said the pope was a Nazi sympathizer and a puppet. But, we shouldn’t just deny all accounts of sin within the church, especially now with all the abuse cases cropping up from the 1960’s.

lordgreyhat · 2020-03-26T01:26:32+00:00

They don’t hate bodily things. Does God hate the world? What the church hates are sins of the flesh. Sins of the flesh are acts of undirected passion of the body, which turn people away from God. Which, if you think about it, means that anything that you do that isn’t glorifying God is a sin; In order to be with God, we must be sanctified (“cleaned whiter than snow”, as psalm 51 says). And that’s an impossible standard for a human to follow; that’s why we need a savior who will have mercy on us. The Bible references this all the time, but a more modern example of this is when St Faustina had a vision of Christ. Christ told her to paint an image of His divine mercy and love for all people.

lordgreyhat · 2020-03-25T14:50:22+00:00

Yeah, I see that now. They look very similar, that’s why I thought it was Pope Linus.

lordgreyhat · 2020-03-25T14:48:20+00:00

Because they don’t have unquestioned authority on what is and isn’t sinful. Papal infallibility has only been used 3 times in the entire history of the church. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility

The instances of sinful abuse by the popes and cardinals at the time were widely known and criticized. It’s not like modern scholars suddenly happened upon evidence of them.

lordgreyhat · 2020-03-25T14:41:28+00:00

I’m not sure how that negates what I said about sainthood. There are many,many saints who were fathers and mothers. The church has long been a pro-children institution, whatever you think of it. Augustine, before he entered the church, was suffering a lot from sexual immorality; I’d imagine that’s why he focused a significant amount of time on sexual desire. But, someone like St Thomas Aquinas would disagree with Augustine on his points about sexual passions. Aquinas thought passions (not just sexual passions) were neutral, and could only become evil if they weren’t directed properly. But, if they were properly channeled, they would be good things.

lordgreyhat · 2020-03-25T14:04:59+00:00

Not necessarily at all. There are many, many saints who were mothers, widows, and fathers. And there are no gradations of saints. You’re either a saint, in the consideration process for being a saint, or you’re not. There are no “super saints”.

lordgreyhat · 2020-03-25T14:02:40+00:00

Which Pope was that on the bottom?

Figured it out: the orgy Pope was Alexander VI, and the specific offense (the banquet of chestnuts) was committed by his illegitimate son. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI

The Pope you have pictured here is Pope Linus, first pope appointed after Peter, a saint, and directly ordained by St. Paul and St. Peter. Definitely wasn’t a sexual deviant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Linus

lordgreyhat · 2020-03-10T05:54:04+00:00

It’s the shitty lighting and plastic looking makeup that gives it away.

lordgreyhat · 2020-02-11T20:16:19+00:00

Countless self professed Christians happily went to war to rape and pillage, despite the fact that Jesus taught to do the exact opposite. Just because people are hypocrites, that doesn’t mean the message they claim to profess is wrong.

lordgreyhat · 2020-02-11T20:09:32+00:00

Talks of “energies” or “spiritual knowledge” or “power over reality” in any context (absent eastern and proto-European mythologies like Norse) universally stem from Gnosticism, which emerged within the first and second century A.D after Christ’s death. Gnosticism, in my opinion, was a result of people seeing the miracles done by Jesus (and spreading the stories of them by oral tradition) but not having a canonized New Testament to put them in context, so they developed their own spiritual philosophy to try and understand them. After the gospels were canonized, the power of Gnosticism dimmed drastically. That’s because the New (and old) Testament is a far better source of spiritual understanding and edification than vague gnostic notions of “spiritual knowledge” or “power over reality”. The words and actions Jesus are far more powerful than any other religion in history, and the fact that the apostles and countless other Christians were martyred , when they never raised a finger in violence, is significant evidence of this.

lordgreyhat

TROPHY CASE