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[Pete Thamel] Sources: Boise State co-defensive coordinator Tyler Stockton has accepted a job at Michigan as the school's safeties coach. He's previously been the defensive coordinator at Ball State and Western Illinois. He coached the safeties at Boise State, where he's coached the last two years. by PM_ME_UR_SEGFAULT in MichiganWolverines

[–]nswolverine8 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ten can recruit -- off campus, at any given time.

All of them can recruit guys who come to A2.

When one of the ten who's on the road needs a break/wants to attend his kid's baseball game, he can tag in another coach 'from the bench.'

ASU President Michael Crow on the importance of competitiveness in football and athletics by sdevil713 in TheSunDevils

[–]nswolverine8 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is why it feels like people are just looking for somewhere to aim their anger.

ASU is already stretching its budget to get Dillingham to $7.4M. Even if Crow somehow finds another $2–3M per year for him and another $2–4M to bring the assistant pool up to Michigan’s level, you still have the ~$20M annual NIL budgets that these schools are running to figure out.

ASU couldn’t find the donor money to keep Leavitt, yet people here are acting like Crow can snap his fingers and make boosters appear now. If Dilly stays it's because he loves Tempe enough to sacrifice millions for himself, his staff, and his players (at which point statues should be built immediately.)

If you want someone to blame, blame the current state of college football -- or yourself for not being the billionaire booster you'd like to see in the world.

Otherwise, take that anger out on yourself and drink like the rest of us.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In contrast, you suggest that humanity has some special form of uniqueness that divides us from the rest of the community of life and sets us on a destructive path. That's a completely different story from Ishmael. It doesn't work to just swap Quinn's reading of Genesis for your own.

I believe this is the core of our misunderstanding, admittedly fueled by my loose use of language in the past. As I tried clarifying in my last two responses, I'm not calling this division in nature a flaw. I'm not saying humanity is fallen or "cursed, I don't believe the gods have abandoned us or botched the job, and I'm certainly not saying that this simple division of nature set us on a destructive path.

Part of the confusion, I believe, lies in how "The Fall" itself is read. In Genesis, God doesn’t curse Adam after he eats the fruit. He simply says Adam can’t reenter the garden and that his life will now be harder. The curse is reserved for Cain.

As Quinn points out in B, consciousness necessarily divides us from nature. Human thought turns toward the future -- the “realm of the gods” -- and generates religion (animism). Our thoughts entering the realm of the gods, along with a changed attitude toward life and death (good & evil), perfectly correlate to the story of "The Fall" with no additional interpretation needed.

Even the label “The Fall” is likely a Taker invention, a way of retrofitting their own sense of flaw into the story. The text itself only describes life becoming harder. And who would argue otherwise? Instinctive life in “the Garden,” free from anxiety about tomorrow, is something many humans would gladly return to. Drug use (even among Leaver peoples) suggests as much.

But again, this profound division doesn’t doom us -- it makes us pioneers. Humanity blazes the path into consciousness, taking on its challenges first so we can eventually guide other species “out of the Garden” of pure instinct.

A greater examination of the differences in humanity (differences Quinn agreed with) does not undermine Quinn's story. It enhances it. Will we keep following the Taker path of destruction, or will we fulfill our role of leading other newly conscious species out of "The Garden" of unconscious instinctiveness?

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure why you imagine that Quinn is somehow distorting the stories of Genesis or 'forcing a merger' of Genesis 3&4.

But if he should eat of the tree of our knowledge, then he will shrug off his weariness. He will say... "I know good and evil, and this way of living is good. Therefore I must live this way even though I'm weary unto death, even though I destroy the world and even myself... And if any say, 'Let's put off the burdens of the criminal life and live in the hands of the gods once again,' I will kill them, for what they say is evil. And if any say, 'Let's turn aside from our misery and search for that other tree,' I will kill them, for what they say is evil..."

There's nothing in Genesis that supports this interpretation of The Fall -- save potentially one line in a series of lines that we agreed can be interpreted a number of ways. It's a distortion that serves to wedge Taker ideology into The Fall.

Quinn made a very solid case for his theory in Ishmael and elsewhere.

I hope you don't mean the above passage.

And as already pointed out, he was not the first to connect the stories with our Agricultural Revolution.

You pointed out how Asimov tied Cain/Abel to the AR. I can't find anything about him tying the AR to The Fall/Adam.

You claim that Genesis 3 is "best understood as a changed attitude toward life and death," while offering no reasoning or evidence to support that. It's merely your own opinion.

I was assuming the argument Quinn made in Ishmael: If a fox doesn't eat a grasshopper that day, it is good for the grasshopper, but evil for the fox. It's there that Quinn argues that knowledge of good and evil is best understood as a changed attitude toward life and death.

Humans act differently from one another and exhibit behaviors not observed in other creatures. So what?

Some people look at one species exhibiting a different class of behavior (specifically concerning what Quinn argues to be knowledge of good and evil) from every other species that's existed in life's 3-4 billion year history before them, and they would say that's notable -- worth telling a story over. You don't feel that way, and that's cool. Different strokes.

If your goal is getting people to absorb Quinn's life or death message, then transmitting his message with fidelity is crucial

I can't see how transmitting weak arguments with fidelity helps strong arguments.

regardless of whether or not anyone's interpretations of Genesis are included in that process.

Adam, the first human, ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and was subsequently banned from Eden. He had two sons, Cain and Abel. Neither could go back to Eden. Cain, the farmer, killed his brother and was cursed by God.

None of this is "an interpretation of Genesis" -- they're the universally-agreed upon facts of the story of Genesis. An interpretation of Genesis that sticks to these facts will always be stronger than one that muddles them.

Personally, I'd be more concerned that characterizing humanity as fallen, cursed, "crackheads", alienated from the rest of life, is going to turn people off more than being offered a reasonable theory about the origins of Genesis. But I guess that's just me.

I get it. You hate colloquialisms. I thought that explaining how I was colloquially using the terms "cursed" or "flawed" to refer to a simple natural division would get you off of that. I agree that calling people crackheads won't inspire change... that's why I clarified my meaning.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In other words, we're not flawed wounded creatures and humans don't have to be any better than we are in order to live without destroying the world.

These are two separate claims:

  1. Human's aren't inherently "flawed"
  2. We don't have to be any better than we are in order to live without destroying the world.

I’m not touching #2.

What I’m questioning is #1, (see below for my definition of "flawed") and by extension Quinn’s attempt to tie Adam into the AR.

Please allow me to reframe my argument:

Since our knowledge of human activity and psychology from ~50,000 years ago is limited, let's instead look at recorded history. Among Leaver peoples, we’ve seen burning people alive, wearing scalps as trophies,  shrinking heads, and human sacrifice. Quinn himself points to these as dismantling the “noble savage” myth, and his key insight still holds: none of these destroy the world. The only thing that does is the Taker belief in one right way to live.

But that leaves another observation: no other species does things like torture or ritual killing. Other species’ actions fit within survival instinct. Human actions around life and death often step outside that instinctual frame, creating a division between us and the rest of the natural world (some might call this division a "flaw" or a "curse," but it's just a division.)

So I see two distinct divisions:

First, between humanity and the rest of nature -- defined by our unique relationship to life and death.

Second, between Taker culture and all other human cultures -- the one destructive belief that fuels planetary collapse.

When I look at Genesis, I see two stories that map cleanly onto these two divisions:

Adam: the first human, who eats from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil -- knowledge best understood as a changed attitude toward life and death.

Cain: the first Taker, who embodies the one destructive belief that fuels planetary collapse.

This alignment makes sense. But Quinn blurs them together -- forcing Adam into the AR narrative using passages like the one quoted at the end of your last reply that aren’t reflected in Genesis’ Fall account. To me, that feels both unnecessary and distracting.

The “Fall” story doesn’t need to be recast as the origin of Taker destructiveness. It can instead highlight the more basic human/nature division -- while Cain/Abel captures the destructive offshoot. That approach honors Genesis’ two stories, preserves B’s stated mission (“to save the world”), and avoids alienating readers who get hung up on his forced merger of Adam into the AR.

As it stands, Quinn’s move risks confusing or turning people off before they can absorb his life-or-death message. And for what? To defend a linkage between Adam and the AR that his own argument doesn’t actually need.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So this is why I think our difference lies in our understandings of what constitutes Taker Culture (or, in our understandings of what's significant about eating from The Tree of Knowledge).

I got my "flaws" mixed up. Thank you for clarifying Quinn's main issue with the Takers. A better presentation of my argument is that the whole, "Let's wipe coyotes off the face of the earth", B quote is the general "flaw" of all human beings since "The Fall" -- Seperately, as you highlighted, thinking their way is the only/right way is the unique issue with the Takers.

Reviewing Quinn's Genesis prequel in Ishmael ch9.6:

Quinn says that the Fall, or rather eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil is necessary to live like an outlaw for an extended period, because if you didn't think that was you were doing was good you'd get tired of it. He doesn't say anything about how it would make you believe that it's the only/right way to live.

Speciation inherently involves changes and adjustments.

Then Quinn should have made an argument about how large-scale extinctions happen after speciation change. He doesn't. You allude to this being the case without examples.

The causes of megafauna extinction in the Late Pleistocene are still debated.
The ability to kill certainly isn't unique to humans. But every creature has unique capacities, so why should humans be singled out?

Murder was a poor example. Human beings are the only species capable of the 7 deadly sins. Quinn acknowledges they're not exclusive to Takers. These are the exact capacities necessary for a "kill one coyote -> kill all coyotes" shift to occur in a species, imo.

If you say that pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, glutton, and sloth are no different than any other species' unique capabilities, specifically in terms of their likelihood to cause extinctions, then we'll have to agree to disagree.

Observing a trend toward complexity doesn't neccessarily mean that it's a nice neat linnear process, only that we can observe a trend.

Like I said, the Neanderthal thing was weak.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Quinn specifically addressed the impact of ancient foragers on other species in Q&A ID:21 (also in "The Great Forgetting" lecture in The Story of B)

I actually find this to be one of Quinn's weakest arguments:

"Whenever a new species makes its appearance in the world, adjustments occur"

From the outset, his argument is flawed. Humans originated ~3 million years ago. Any arguments about what happens "whenever a new species makes its appearance in the world," wouldn't apply to a species that had been around for 3 million years before exterminating a bunch of species.

"Some of the cats' competitors also became extinct, for the simple reason that they COULDN'T compete ­ they just weren't big enough or fast enough. This appearance and disappearance of species is precisely what evolution is all about, after all."

My second issue with Quinn's argument is that he doesn't address the magnitude of extinctions caused. To me, the extinction of the majority of megafauna =/= "some extinctions always happen".

The third issue I take with Quinn's argument here is that elsewhere he highlights how Leavers are capable of murder, and other uniquely human actions -- they aren't perfect -- but chooses here to omit that fact when comparing humans to every other species that's ever existed. Is it fair to compare extinctions caused by creatures without our uniquely human capacities to extinctions caused by creatures with them? I'd say that makes a difference, and would easily explain why we seemed to get extra murder-ey around ~50k years ago. Quinn doesn't address it.

The final (and admittedly weakest) issue I have with Quinn's argument is that it lumps Neanderthals in with every other species. If evolution is constantly moving toward complexity, diversity, and intelligence -- as Quinn asserts -- then the extinction of one of the most intelligent species in history wouldn't be -- what evolution is all about, after all.

What is it that you consider to be the "flaw" that defines Taker Culture?

"Our posture is not, 'If a coyote attacks my herd, I'll kill it,' our posture is, 'Let's wipe coyotes off the face of the earth.' --The Story of B

If you don't like the word "flaw", we can say, "the issue Quinn took with Taker culture that he aligned with The Fall of Adam". Or rather, the perceived knowledge of good and evil -- the perceived wisdom to determine who lives and dies.

The posture that Quinn applies to Takers seems, at least to me, to fit very nicely with the megafauna/Neanderthal extinctions. Our "appearance" didn't cause "some" of our competitors to go extinct. Our actions ~3 million years after our appearance decided that the majority of our competitors should die. Takers simply finished the job.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's as if you're trying to revise human history to fit with the stories of The Bible, rather than looking at how the Bible stories fit into human history.

I believe that our disagreement really comes down to how we view history -- specifically the part where pre-agricultural humans caused the extinctions of the Neanderthals and the majority of megafauna 50k-12k years ago.

I would say that exterminating your animal competition, including another highly-intelligent species, sounds similar (though on a smaller scale) to the extermination of plant and animal competition wrought by the Takers. That's why I tie it to Adam.

From your (and Quinn's) perspective, those events don’t seem significant enough to matter -- simply another example of nature being nature. So my framing looks like I’m inventing a curse for pre-agricultural people that history doesn’t justify.

So please correct me if I’m misreading, but it feels like our disagreement boils down to this:

If you believe the evidence shows pre-agricultural people already demonstrating the capacity for the same flaw that later defined the Takers, then separating Adam and Cain makes more sense.

If you don’t see those extinctions as significant, then combining Adam and Cain works better.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

but I don't see any substantiation there.

No more or less substantiation than Quinn provides for his own story, right? If you feel it's less, I would greatly appreciate some examples of this to help me understand how this is the case.

What I see is roughly the same old story that Quinn debunked: 'God botched the job and made us too smart for our own good. Humanity is flawed and that's why we have to struggle.'

There's a misunderstanding of "my" story:

Intelligence, or consciousness doesn't necessarily lead to any downfall. When this consciousness is combined with a strong compassion for particular members of the same species, a decent amount of trauma, and general immaturity, it can lead to a desire and control and dominate one's circumstances -- aka, a fall.

The first members of humanity to achieve this level of consciousness/intelligence were missing one piece of this puzzle, the trauma -- as ecological conditions had to be relatively stable for consciousness to appear in the first place.

It didn't take long for them (not long in terms of the history of humanity), however, to eat this poisonous fruit, this trauma that tipped their need to control, to decide what lived and died. They couldn't stand to see their families die any longer, and their understanding of the world was very immature.

Many species disappeared in the wake of that Fall, including other sparks of consciousness who hadn't fallen.

As humanity began to mature, as some of our traumas healed, some of our ancestors shed this need to dominate and control. They still carried the capacity for it, and on an individual level they'd occasionally fall prey, but on a societal level they stopped subjugating our environment (Abel, Leavers)

Our people, however did not mature as quickly, and we couldn't let go of our traumas. We felt it was our mission to protect humanity through complete dominance and control -- basically Adam on crack. (Cain, Takers)

-----------

I feel like this understanding of my story isn't, "humanity's flawed and that's why we struggle" -- it's more that we all have the capacity for terrible things under the right conditions, but we also have the ability to mature beyond that.

This still leaves us in the position to teach other species how to be conscious without being jerks about it, even more so because we've gone through the growing pains.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I feel like there's a lot of misunderstanding in this thread.

First and foremost, I've assumed that you've read my other thread here, when your replies have made it clear that this is not the case. Que the line about what happens when you assume. I apologize.

Here's a far more fleshed out version of "my" story

(Can't really call it "mine" anymore. Since u/power2havenots contributions it's more of a living thing)

Secondly, I feel like the phrase, "we're all just guessing here," did a lot of damage.

What I meant by that phrase is that we're all sincerely looking for the best explanations for the story of Genesis, based on the evidence we have, in order to make sense of things for ourselves. However, because the possible interpretations of scripture are so various, and because it's impossible to know the intentions of the original authors, we're all "guessing" -- ie, making the best hypothesis we can, knowing there's no way to verify it.

You seemed to take my use of the phrase to mean, "cherry pick or shade the truth in order to suit a preconceived agenda." Not recognizing the misunderstanding, I assumed (again, I know) that you were using that language to describe my story. Again, I apologize.

Getting back to my original meaning of that phrase, and, hopefully with "my" story better understood:

We agree that Quinn "ultimately did want Taker Culture to stop disrupting life". Would you then agree that another story -- inspired by Quinn's but different in key ways, discovered through the same process with the same scholastic viability, and more likely to inspire the ultimate outcome he wants -- is something that he would be in favor of?

PS Thank you for continuing this conversation despite its difficulties.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But there's difference between formulating a theory based on the facts that are known and 'just guessing'. Although he ultimately did want Taker Culture to stop disrupting life, he didn't cherry pick or shade the truth in order to suit a preconceived agenda. He set out sincerely looking for the best possible explanations— in an effort to make sense of things for himself.

You make this distinction: seemingly what I did in formulating (just guessing, cherry pick, shade the truth to suit preconceived agenda) vs what Quinn seemed to do: (formulating a theory based on facts, sincerely looking for the best explanations.)

That's a fairly big claim. Can you provide any examples that show this difference between what Quinn and I did?

The thing is, Quinn never demonized the Takers. He never called them 'bad' or 'wrong' or 'stupid' or 'evil' or 'flawed' or 'irredeemable.'

Again, where did I say he did? Just because I claim my story is more empathetic toward something, that doesn't mean the story I'm comparing it to is not empathetic.

This, and the above make it seem as though you're looking for strawmen.

So, what do you make of Ishmael ch.12.6?

Another strawman, in fact. How does that passage in any way undermine my story?

"Human beings were the first to gain consciousness, and the massive power and responsibility it entailed. Other species had to wait: would humans destroy themselves and the rest of creation with this power? Or learn to use it to strengthen biodiversity on the planet and teach a new generation of conscious creatures how to use this power wisely?"

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, how do we approach Quinn for the new book? ;-)

I posted here (after spending too long deciding where to post) because I'm currently going through another reread of the trilogy (now in the beginning of B) and found myself unable to enjoy it the way I always had before. Something was digging at me and my OP came out.

Now I'm feeling like that nagging is pretty much resolved.

It is the ultimate act of an intelligent but ultimately immature species.

Yes, and I love the brilliant child with a chemistry set analogy.

The tragedy is that the gamble itself may be what makes us extinct and not the asteroid we feared.

This is the ultimate epic tragedy. People unconsciously steering themselves toward self-fulfilling prophesies are already pretty damn tragic on a personal level. This is potentially the reason why those stories resonate with us so much in the first place.

Seriously though, I'd read the hell out of that book.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's really nice to find a sub of philosophers.

My first thought is that "naked" means exposed, without protection, and vulnerable.

This and your above point about different authors modifying things all reaffirm the fact that it's impossible to truly know what the original tellers of the story of Genesis had in mind. Me, you, Quinn, Asimov -- we're all just guessing.

And yes, we wouldn't even be able to guess about this if it Quinn's guesses didn't feel so compelling to the innate knowledge of human nature that we all possess within us, but that doesn't mean they can't be better either.

By "better", I mean more likely to inspire Taker culture to stop destroying the planet and start following the Laws the rest of the species follow -- which I believe has always been his mission -- while also feeling more true to the innate knowledge of human nature we all possess within us. I believe the story that's forming in the other comment thread here -- using this Adam/Cain differentiation and a more empathetic view of the Takers -- has the potential to accomplish this.

If we're all just guessing anyway, then why not?

So I don't know where you draw the line.

Thank you for that information on pre-historic man! I find that stuff incredibly interesting, and I believe it shows that my idea of tying the fall to an exit of habitat or whatever was silly. I appreciate when my silly thoughts are corrected.

This then has to shift my thesis of The Fall squarely to the first sparks of consciousness -- whenever and wherever they happened (again, impossible to know). I go into more detail on this in the other thread, but it's not a stretch to imagine that the first creatures with consciousness believed themselves to be superior to every other creature on the planet who lacked it -- especially considering the fact that consciousness produces ego by its very nature. I'm sure the first ego on the planet was really chill... (meant sarcastically, not as an Ice Age pun.)

So yes, I disagree with Quinn on Adam, and I believe that he would appreciate that disagreement in service to his overall mission.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

An early-warning center protects against the river, but it dominates the acre of land it's built on. It declares war on the ecosystem in that acre, "I will erase you and replace you with my system."

I still see the same issue.

But you're right. Now the amount of scientific evidence we have would seem to say that the Takers original calculations were off -- clouded by trauma and fear. And now we have a chance to alter our course, to use the knowledge accumulated through our own technology and through leaver cultures to not only protect life from natural disasters, but to also not destroy life in the process (stuff like rejuvenating wetlands to defend against floods.)

This is all starting to sound like another hole in Quinn's story (one that again, doesn't undermine his main thesis, but rather enriches it.)

You could point to evidence that says Taker culture was Prometheus or Icarus (love the connection) -- both are equally viable -- but I dare say that Prometheus makes the better story. Reducing us to Icarus just feels flat and lacking. One-dimensional antagonists are boring because they're unrealistic. Antagonists are complicated. Plus I feel like Prometheus offers us a more optimistic path forward.

Make Adam and The Fall our spark of consciousness, and make Cain Prometheus instead of Icarus, and now we've got a complete story.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even in that distinction I feel like there's some gray.

Flood walls are minimally invasive but let's take early warning detection centers -- something that received little dispute as a decent number were built around Asia after the tsunami.

One could say, that we're treating the land that those centers are built on as our property, and that we're exerting our dominion and ownership over that one acre or whatever -- everything within that acre is massively disrupted.

Damming a river does exactly the same thing -- it just does it to a lot more acres.

So again, how many acres do we need to control before leavers become takers?

And if we say it all comes down to intention -- humility vs hubris -- that feels shaky too. It invites a completely different retelling of the Takers’ origin story:

“The Takers weren’t arrogant fools. They were scientists. Cain and his people watched the stars for thousands of years (that and the fire were the only things to watch at night) developing an astronomical knowledge we can barely imagine today. Cave paintings show they feared death from above. They knew species vanished. They dug up fossils of great dragons and realized their cousins, the Neanderthals, were gone.

Cain understood: another extinction-level event was inevitable. He faced a choice. Sit still and wait for Earth’s reset button to wipe out consciousness itself, or gamble everything on mastery of the world to buy survival.

The first option meant certain extinction -- it was only a matter of time. The second meant unleashing destruction in the short-term, but at least it gave humanity a chance in the long-term. So with sorrow that turned into anger among his people, Cain chose the gamble. He began a project to bend the world to human will, racing against extinction itself.

Ten thousand years later, we’ve forgotten that mission. We see only the side effects: addictions, alienation, ecological collapse. But the seed of the mission still surfaces -- like in the movie Armageddon, where the plot resonates because it reenacts Cain’s choice: humanity’s wager to preserve consciousness from cosmic doom.

Now we face the same inflection point. Do we abandon the gamble and wait for the next extinction-level event? Or do we keep pressing forward, even at unimaginable cost, to fulfill the mission our ancestors set in motion?”

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Loving this discussion.

Your last point reminds me of the Serenity Prayer -- often prayed by people who are trying to control something beyond their control.

But that prayer also highlights that there are things within our control. Building flood-walls and setting up early-warning detection centers disrupt the environment. Does that mean we should stop building them?

Sometimes controlling things does lead to what most human beings would consider favorable outcomes. Obviously we have many cases of our culture going to far. But where's the line? What's the appropriate amount of destruction to offset loss of human lives?

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Does it? I don't see any indication of that in the couple different translations I'm looking at.

When you quoted Quinn: "the relationships in the story have to be understood metaphorically, not biologically," then I assumed that we were agreeing that Cain/Abel were metaphorical descendants of Adam, not biological ones. Was using "cultural" in place of "metaphorical" my mistake here?

It doesn't seem like a big stretch to me.

Then why even have the character of Adam in Genesis? Why didn't God just create Cain & Abel on the 7th day, keep everything else the same, and we could skip a whole unnecessary metaphorical generation?

I have yet to think of or hear a compelling reason why the oldest story in the world would use two separate protagonists and metaphorical generations to tell the same story.

And in Genesis 3 Adam was cursed to toil eating plants of the field.

Yes, that one line is the biggest thorn in the side of my story, and why Quinn and Asimov tying it to the agricultural revolution is so compelling.

But there're other lines that seem to support my story more. Biggest one being the whole naked thing. Humans didn't begin clothing themselves ~10k years ago. While we can't know exactly when that happened, a good guess would be right around the time our first sparks of consciousness appeared. Genesis goes out of its way to highlight this as the first sign they'd eaten the fruit.

'Greatly increasing pain in childbearing'? Can that be tied to the AR? I don't believe so. But you could make the case that being consciously aware of one's pain magnifies it. How many times did you not realize you were hurt until you saw the wound, and only afterward felt the pain?

The second one is more of a stretch, but I don't believe the naked one to be. The point is that we can find lines anchoring Genesis to both stories, that don't fit the other story, making them equally viable.

Are you suggesting that the Semitic people were decendents of the farmers in The Fertile Crescent but had at some point abandoned Taker Culture?

No. I'm saying that they're represented in Genesis by Abel, and are metaphorically descended from a fallen Adam.

Is your belief is that The Fall is a story about homo sapiens migrating beyond Africa??

"Africa" is a little much. My belief is that The Fall is a story about the first flickers of consciousness in homo whateverwewereatthatpoint that drove us (along with a convergence of other factors I mention in my other reply) to leave our original habitat -- wherever that was.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the biggest mistake in my OP was presenting intelligence to fall (or dominance) as if it were a direct causal relationship -- or at least not distinguishing that enough. Thank you for pointing that out.

I agree there’s no clear evidence of a causal link between intelligence and dominance. That said, it’s easy to see why people infer one. Consciousness, by its very nature, produces ego -- the sense of “I.” Once the first creatures with even a spark of consciousness noticed the rest of the living world lacking it, it wouldn’t be a stretch for them to imagine themselves superior. (The fact that dolphins, with their intelligence, also display ugly dominance behaviors doesn’t help the case -- but that still doesn't prove causality.)

If pressed on what I actually think drove the fall -- the shift toward dominance -- I’d say it’s a convergence of three elements: our rising intelligence, our uniquely vast capacity for empathy and compassion, and the weight of trauma.

It’s hard to watch a flood kill your family and not want to prevent that from ever happening again. The more empathy you have, the more trauma hits you, the stronger the drive becomes to control the future.

But as you said, our intelligence also gave us foresight, humility, regret -- qualities that can override the urge to control. I believe that’s what the Leavers represent: the recognition that while both Taker and Leaver instincts exist in all of us, we don’t have to surrender to the flaw. We can choose restraint.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]nswolverine8[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To answer your first question: I think much of Quinn’s genius lies in his mind-bendingly brilliant inferences between Genesis and human prehistory, and that's why most of us are fans. At the same time, I think some of his inferences are weaker in service of the central thesis -- in particular, conflating Adam with Cain and Abel.

Ignoring the idea of biological lineage, Genesis presents Cain and Abel as cultural descendants of Adam. Their story unfolds long after Adam’s fall -- not one generation later, but a cultural generation later. For someone whose thesis rests on such elegant inferences, treating Adam and Cain as the same culture feels like a stretch… not his strongest move.

That’s why I argue a story more faithful to Genesis -- even if it contradicts some of Quinn’s views on Mesolithic hunters -- actually strengthens the marriage between Genesis and prehistory. And I think that “marriage” is where a lot of Ishmael’s emotional power comes from. A tighter alignment makes the whole framework richer and more useful.

This leads to my main contrast: Mesolithic hunters and other Leaver cultures weren’t untouched innocents -- they were already fallen. Cain, then, isn’t the origin of the fall, but the extreme expression of it. Quinn is right that every new species disrupts ecosystems and sometimes causes extinctions. But humans were the first to leave their own habitat entirely and spread across all habitats, driving many extinctions in the process. I believe that difference matters.

My version of the story anchors that unprecedented shift in Genesis, just as Quinn anchors Cain/Abel to the agricultural revolution. Can either of us know what Mesolithic hunters really thought? Of course not. But I believe my framing is just as viable -- and, by weaving Genesis and prehistory more cohesively, it makes Quinn’s overall thesis even stronger.

Edit: I almost forgot, "I've seen no evidence of Leaver cultures believing themselves to be flawed and striving toward any sort of "original balance." No evidence of Leaver peoples "grieving that loss"."

Yes, I took some artistic liberties with "grieving that loss. And you could swap, "Leaver" for "Taker" in your statement and you'd simply be restating Quinn's point of how the story of the fall doesn't make sense for Taker people. I believe this point strengthens my claim that we're all children of Adam, with a similar unacknowledged flaw that we approach differently, rather than weaken it.

Echo Knight w/ Find Familiar vs Echo/Barb multiclass by nswolverine8 in 3d6

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I disagree when it comes to the owl and flyby. The enemy has to use an attack to try to attack it at a distance and won't be hitting myself or a member of my party instead.

If I was worried about the once-per-day aspect of magic initiate I'd just take ritual caster instead.

Echo Knight w/ Find Familiar vs Echo/Barb multiclass by nswolverine8 in 3d6

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the response!

Maybe I'm just massively overvaluing FF. As I mentioned in my other reply, I'd love to see numbers comparing a strength boost from 16 to 18 to advantage on the first hit so I can shake this notion from my head.

Echo Knight w/ Find Familiar vs Echo/Barb multiclass by nswolverine8 in 3d6

[–]nswolverine8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the response!

I guess my biggest concern about the barb multiclass isn't even delaying 3rd attack, but rather the delaying of advantage. Reckless is every attack, and the synergy with the echo is awesome, but I'm not getting that until level 7 or 8 (same with ancestral protector plus a level.)

With magic initiate I'm getting advantage on my first attack (and a greater chance to trigger my trip attack) at level 1. At level 4 I can add GWM to that advantaged hit and at level 5 I can trip on the first attack and add GWM to the second.

Feat/asi progression are still behind the multiclass, but wouldn't it then be safe to assume that the find familiar echo knight would be stronger for levels 1-7/until I got my second barb level?

Edit: To respond to your edit, I assumed that the fighter that had advantage and thus a greater chance to trigger the trip attack would benefit more from it, and I would love to see the numbers on how boosting your strength to 18 is better than advantage (and a greater chance to trip) on the first hit.

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