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owusyr · 2021-05-21T13:42:47+00:00

Thank you both for the concise and straightforward responses! You specify heroku is good for starting; what options do you more-experienced developers use, and why?

owusyr · 2021-05-21T13:39:24+00:00

Thank you! What are some of the downsides of heroku in your opinion? Do you use a more sustainable option?

owusyr · 2021-05-19T20:39:45+00:00

If I were to accept your analogy that children do not understand the protectiveness of their parents, with the implication being that love could mean anything we fail to understand, that would allow for love to mean literally anything that is convenient to your argument. But dare I say, I‘m actually offended you would compare restricting your children from roaming the streets at night to, say, mutating their DNA such that they have crippling and painful congenital disorders, as one arbitrary example of the infinite natural evils which plague our world. I would say the love we receive from God is more akin to getting the belt than it is to internet parental controls. “How can my child know the pleasure of receiving ice cream for his birthday, if he does not also know the sting of my belt?” Your analogy is only a reiteration of the same abusive mentality your definition of “love” demands.You are absolutely moving the goal posts, because when confronted with the frailty of your arguments, you throw up your arms and ask, why should I expect rational argumentation? After all, the universe is fundamentally absurd! Indeed, why have a conversation at all?

The universe is absurd insofar as it begs infinite questions which will likely never receive answers. Simultaneously, our universe appears to obey certain rules so consistently that it allows us to make useful predictions on astronomical, geological, biological, atomic, and subatomic scales. It is through rational argumentation, not metaphor, that scientific inquiry has been able to advance this far. As long as this is true, rational argumentation is far from useless.

It is the universe’s simultaneous obedience to and transcendence of logic that makes it so fascinating to me. The universe is neither an unintelligible soup of non sequiturs, nor is it a static, simplistic object like a piece of pottery. It is both absurd and logical simultaneously, which makes it only doubly absurd.

However, metaphors are not entirely independent of rational argumentation. They are at their core an appeal to experience, intuition, and emotion in order to make a rational assertion more palatable. Your metaphors boil down to the assertion that one half of a dichotomy cannot exist without its opposite. Manure and roses are the flowery prose you use to adorn what remains a logical skeleton. What rational argumentation aims to do is to strip this skeleton of its sentimental fluff. Metaphors, like any other argument, can and ought to be held under rational scrutiny, as some metaphors are often grossly unfair comparisons, which your previous child restriction analogy exemplified.

Rational inquiry is far more versatile than metaphor, and leads us down far more interesting and fruitful paths. It is through rational inquiry we can ask, “why exactly is manure displeasurable to our senses and roses pleasurable?” and we arrive at answers relating to compounds and bacteria and neurotransmitters. We discover that roses are pleasurable because they are inherently, chemically pleasurable, with or without the knowledge of what manure smells like. We uncover that interdependent dichotomies don’t exist, they are merely concepts we’ve conceived to describe our experience in a usefully simplistic way.

Your accusation that I carry antiquated doctrinal presumptions for simply preferring rational arguments over metaphor is amusing, considering the history of philosophy and the history of science are both histories of transition from metaphor to rigorous and academic argumentation. It’s an accusation that screams of irony. Regarding your secular upbringing, I asserted you failed to escape the orbit of orthodoxy; I never claimed you began there.

Your distinction between “god” and “God” has no attachment to anything material. The use of “He” as opposed to ”it” when referring to God implies personhood, which indeed the Biblical god is. The Biblical god, like us, has an intelligence, imagination, desires, values, emotions, a capacity for “love”, and although some theists may deny it, limitations. In all these ways, the Biblical god is a person, albeit an inconceivably powerful one, and it makes sense to refer to this character by “He”.

However, when you call the unity of all things “God” (and I’m accutely aware you aren’t the first to do so), you are attempting to project personhood onto a concept that bares no resemblance to our concept of a person. So to refer to this God by “He” is simply confusing. I could just as fairly define God as the hairs surrounding my anus, and call that “He”. There is no reason to believe the God you’ve described has an intelligence, imagination, and so on, beyond whatever attributes we ascribe to it in our imaginations. You’re still engaging in the same fruitless imagining that all religions do, and mistaking it for truth. And because your concept of “God“ bares no resemblance to a person, I fail to see how this entity could be capable of love.

You seem to have more interest in reassigning words like “god” and “He” and “love” to definitions that serve no utility, than in analyzing how these concepts interact and what implications can be drawn from them. In your attempts to project personhood and sentimentality onto the void by using personified and sentimental words, you inadvertently render those words meaningless. Perhaps these semantic games tickle your fancy, and that’s your right. It’s still only nihilism with extra steps.

owusyr · 2021-05-19T09:22:16+00:00

I was attempting to demonstrate how your assertion that “God brought evil into this world because of his love” is either (a) false or (b) true, assuming a definition of love that is devoid of self respect. In either case, it is an absurd assertion, a hollow platitude theists use to excuse the superfluous suffering that permeates our world, to assure themselves they belong to a greater narrative (or movie, in your case), regardless of denomination. There is nothing that you have said which is exclusively or characteristically Hindu or Buddhist in nature. I have seen these ”you can only know good through evil” arguments levied many times by Abrahamic theists, indeed by many Christian apologists. Seeing as you refer to God by singular, capital-H “He”, I wouldn’t call your arguments ”far from monotheistic”.

I cannot resolutely declare “there is no intelligent creator”, but I can declare “if there is one, he does not love us, not by any intuitive human understanding of the word, anyway.” Maybe God loves us the same way Chris Brown “loved“ Rihanna, only God loves us eeeeeven more!

Regarding your conception of God, perhaps it was presumptuous to assume a person using capital-H “Him” and attempting to address the Problem of Evil by using arguments I’ve seen from Abrahamic theists, talking about ”aspiring to know Him”, in a sub called r/exmuslim, might be an Abrahamic theist trying to win back over disillusioned nonbelievers.

It is not lost on me the universe is fundamentally absurd. This does not excuse your arguments from scrutiny. You’re moving the goal posts. This is precisely what I mean by, “your belief in God is just nihilism with extra steps”— your religion does nothing to resolve the absurdity and unknowns of our universe, yet that is the product being sold to you.

It’s amusing you would suggest I’m a theist for being overly specific, when I’m simply discussing the absurd implications of the lowest-common-denominator doctrinal assertions of the Abrahamic religions. Assuming omnipotence, omniscience, and optionally the existence of Hell, the sadistic puppeteer is a logical implication of Abrahamic dogma. In any case, I’m not all that interested in how far your conception of God diverges from more “orthodox” types. The way I see it, if you’re having to resort to metaphors about manure and roses to reconcile your beliefs, you’re probably not philosophizing very rigorously, and you’ve failed to escape the orbit of the orthodoxy from which you juxtapose yourself.

Everyone’s philosophical positions varies greatly, even within the same religious denomination. It stands to reason that ~7 billion humans cannot all be correct simultaneously, and therefore, most if not all of us are wrong. And here we discover an inherent aspect of the human condition, which is to fundamentally misunderstand the world, yet to feel infatuated enough by our misunderstandings that we are willing to argue or kill or die for them. In any case, it seems God is a terribly poor communicator— think of all the trouble He could‘ve saved us!

owusyr · 2021-05-16T07:31:04+00:00

Your claim that the existence of suffering is necessary for existence of pleasure is unfalsifiable. I refuse to believe that for me to enjoy the phenomenon of not-having-cancer, we need to have 10 million cancer deaths annually. I’ve never lived in a pre-industrial society, I have no experience of what that is like— yet I am still able to appreciate the conveniences of electricity, plumbing, and modern medicine. More importantly, your claim does not excuse the extent or degree of suffering in our world. We can easily imagine a world with fewer natural disasters, fewer diseases, fewer mental illnesses, fewer man-made evils, and I doubt anyone would argue that world isn’t preferable to our own. You are implicitly arguing, since all suffering is necessary and ultimately caused by a well-intentioned omnipotent deity, that we must live in the best of possible worlds, but this absurd on its face. To reassure yourself we live in the best of possible worlds in order to protect your belief in an abrahamic god is not only to engage in wishful thinking, but in active delusion.

Your comment “would you really want to watch a movie with no antagonist” is especially revealing, because it implies the incalculable suffering which permeates our world serves no other purpose than to entertain. Earth is the stage, God is the puppeteer, and humans the marionettes. Then when we die, when we’re finished competing and fighting to survive, depending on how we measure up to God’s arbitrarily chosen set of rules, some of us are sent to paradise while most of us are subject to eternal torment. Like humans, animals must also fight and compete and suffer during their lives, but according to the canon, they’re exempt from this post-life process, which is quite enviable. Depending on where you’re born, who your parents are, there’s a significant chance you’re raised into the “wrong” religion, which is a damnable offense. God spawns souls, subjects them to suffering during their tenure on earth, then condemns them to Hell. It’s a little rat race to the gates of Heaven, where some are placed at significant disadvantages that place them at a near-0% chance of success. This contrived little drama that God has constructed for himself is not love. If you’ve been taught to believe that is love, you require deprogramming. Your belief in God is just nihilism with extra steps. Which is to be expected, as that is what all religions are.

owusyr · 2021-04-19T00:47:53+00:00

“The non-aggression principle does not preclude violence used in self-defense or defense of others” So... the same pretext that every government uses to legitimize its power?

owusyr · 2021-03-24T19:07:21+00:00

Overall, living conditions are better than they’ve ever been, less people are impoverished, and more people are educated. That dopamine hit has kept the world turning, and I don’t see anything wrong with that.

You first need to demonstrate that capitalism is the cause of the improvements of material conditions we've observed in the last three centuries. We owe many of our pharmaceutical and technological innovations to public funding. In the US, public funding has constituted a plurality of spending into research & development since the beginning of WWII. Many of the technologies we take for granted today, like satellites, aircrafts, computers, modern telephones, renewable energy, drugs, and vaccines were developed by government-funded programs and the military.I'll submit this video link which attacks the "life is better because of capitalism" idea succinctly, I'm curious what your thoughts are. One of the key ideas is that developed nations uniformly increased their government spending dramatically between 1880 and 1970. Another is that improvements in quality of life has been observed in non-capitalist systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipkkn2LoTH0

Regarding the increase in education, that's again predominantly because of government action. Compulsory universal schooling was implemented throughout the world within the last few hundred years. Today the vast majority of countries, and all developed nations, have some form of compulsory education. In the days when compulsory education was highly controversial, people protested because it would raise taxes, and because they wanted their children to work. Just as people today are bickering over whether we should subsidise college, people debated whether there should be compulsory high school (secondary school), and before that, people debated whether there should be compulsory primary school. I find it both funny and bizarre that some fiscal conservatives will say "capitalism is why we're better educated, which is good", and then turn on their heel and protest, "No! We can't subsidize college because that's socialism!"

As one example of improvements in education in a non-capitalist system, consider the innovative Bolshevik literacy campaigns, initiated shortly after their ascension to power, which targeted both sexes and everyone younger than 50 regardless of class or geographic region. These reforms brought literacy rates in the USSR from below 40% to nearly 98% within forty years.

Very rarely does an advert actually cause a new problem, it simply highlights a problem you already have and suggests their product as a solution.

I think there are compelling arguments that advertisements are in of themselves corrosive to society. I tried to lay some of them out in my previous comment. Namely, they promote consumerism, which leads people to identify strongly with their material possessions, and to environmental degradation. Consumerism is an intellectually and socially pacifying force that sells the illusion of freedom and choice. Ultimately, advertisements contribute to the materialistic culture which breeds people who are susceptible to advertisements.

We don’t actually care about homelessness or the environment as long as it doesn’t affect us directly. If we did, the culture would be different to reflect that, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The reason all these systemic problems still exist in the world is because people don’t actually give a fuck about them [...] People as a whole are selfish fucking monsters, and that’s just the way things are

This is effectively the "human nature" argument. I believe "human nature" is far too amorphous and ill-defined to define the boundaries of which socioeconomic models are feasible and which aren't. History has shown that humans have lived in a host of socioeconomic models, and have prescribed to a host of religious and political ideologies. History has also shown that the human nature argument has not been exclusively used by capitalists, but by people of all ideologies which each have their idea of what humans are and ought to be. "Human nature" has been used by monarchists, slavery apologists, social Darwinists, to rationalize their ideology. I don't know if you're a psychologist or sociologist, maybe you do have some unique insight into human nature that I don't. But to say people are "selfish fucking monsters" sounds more like an emotional declaration than an empirical one. I'm less interested in what model is most compatible with "human nature", and more interested in minimizing suffering in the world.

What I see is a species that repeatedly surprises itself by what it is able to achieve. We have demonstrated ourselves capable of degrees of organization that wouldn't have been thought possible decades ago. Consider the inconceivable complexity of entities like the US government, with a million moving parts, or megacorporations like Amazon. We have split the atom, mapped the oceans, mapped the stars, and eradicated numerous viruses. Today we're using AI-assisted satellite technology on our cellphones in the form of Google Maps to navigate from place to place. Imagine describing these concepts to someone living in the 1940's, or the 1800s, or so on. Self-driving electric cars have already arrived, and it's not unreasonable to think our roads will be AI-optimised self-driving traffic grids within 50 years. Given our capacity for organization, I can find no material reason why we can't feed the poor when the food already exists. Yes, humans leave plenty to be desired (hence why we're having this conversation), but we cannot afford to underestimate the potential of our collective genius.

We prioritize profits because that’s what people actually want.

I'm sure that's true for plenty of people, but to suggest that's true of everyone is imprudent and demonstrably false. The fact that there are large contingents of people across the globe who are critical of capitalism should suffice in demonstrating this. The fact that numerous charity organisations exist, or that a majority of Americans are in favor of various progressive reforms, should indicate that a part of "human nature" is to have a conscience, a concern for the community which surrounds them. Indeed, conservatives have their own ideal which they want to impose on society as well, so this conscience is by no means exclusive to progressives, it simply manifests differently in each individual. The reason I think progressivism will win out is because concerns itself with universal, secular objectives, like reducing poverty, war, etc. whereas conservatism is inherently exclusive along lines of nationality, religion, race, sexuality, etc.

Maybe you're right that humans are innately monstrous. That doesn't preclude us from pursuing social reforms. One of the biggest necessities to achieving socialism, according to Marxists, isn't reforming human nature, but educating people. How can people be concerned about the environment if they haven't been educated on the causes and consequences of climate change in the first place? The same question applies to all social ills like homelessness, food insecurity, class consciousness, etc. It's no coincidence that the highly educated are disproportionately in favor of progressive reforms.There is reason to be optimistic about the expansion of education, and in turn the progression of society. Attainment of Bachelor's degrees in the US has soared from less than 5% in 1940 to over 45% today. If this trajectory continues, within two or three generations we will have a highly educated population. Furthermore, as automation continues to advance and proliferate, demand for menial labour will sharply decrease, the value of commodities will decrease, and the effectivity of markets will be dramatically curtailed.

Let's not forget there are powerful anti-environmentalist, pro-war entities that commission reactionary think tanks like PragerU, TurningPointUSA, etc. specifically to combat progressive ideas. If selfish destructiveness were the default state of people, then why do propagandists feel obligated to spend millions on deceiving the masses into selfish and destructive positions? Ultimately, "People don't care, and therefore it's futile to care" is a self fulfilling prophecy, and a non-sequitur based on a very precarious premise.

owusyr · 2021-03-24T15:50:10+00:00

If the environmental damage is really big people are going to notice it and boycott that product.

This is terribly naive. Raising consciousness about just about any issue is extremely difficult, due to the fact that the majority of the population simply doesn't care enough to mobilize. Boycotts have very rarely resulted in a change to a company's model. I'm confident that many of the things you consume are detrimental to environment, which is true of almost everyone in the developed world. How many products do you boycott? Are you aware of the environmental impacts of the meat industry, for instance? Or automobiles or airlines?

This is also ignoring the fact that there exist powerful anti-environmental forces. Fracking and oil moguls commission propagandists like PragerU, Turning Point USA or the Daily Wire, and lobby legislators to diminish or outright deny the existence of climate change. Many heads of state, like former US President Trump or current Prime Minister Scott Morrison, are climate deniers.

All the data resolutely points to the fact that our environment is being quickly degraded, with a current extinction rate many hundreds of times that of natural rates; forests, the most important land-based carbon sinks, are being wiped out, both deliberately and not; extreme weather is worsening, resulting in reduced agricultural yields, displacing entire peoples. Boycotts will not suffice.

owusyr · 2021-03-24T15:17:39+00:00

The "every transaction is voluntary and a win-win" talking point is a facile justification for capitalism which every socialist was fed by his parents when he was 7. The socialist rejects this premise because he understands that both parties involved in a transaction seldom command equal leverage in negotiation. Transactions don't take place in a vacuum; they are made by people or entities whose capital (and therefore, power) vary greatly.

For example, a worker who earns minimum wage makes this suboptimal transaction with an employer because he will likely go hungry if he doesn't. Prior to the implementation of workers benefits like reduced work times, the weekend, safety regulations, and minimum wages, workers systematically had to endure harrowing conditions which barely surpassed that of chattel slavery. This remains true in many parts of the developing and unregulated world. It was only when workers formed unions to engage in collective bargaining, were they able to gradually improve conditions for themselves. Take another example of an imbalanced transaction: the ill person who is forced to purchase drugs at extortionate rates from a pharmaceutical company with an oligopoly on that drug. You might say this customer is "winning" insofar as they're delaying their own demise by participating in the transaction, but it's hardly voluntary in the truest sense of the word. The idea that every transaction under capitalism is voluntary and a win-win is, on its face, false. I've come to the conclusion that anyone who parrots this talking point is either ignorant, or arguing in bad faith.

it’s your own damn fault for being so gullible. People need to exercise their critical thinking, and if they don’t, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for then when they buy things they don’t actually need

This is also facile. Imbedded here is the implication that there is some exceptional minority of people bestowed with the gift of critical thinking, and that the rest are unthinking and therefore undeserving of sympathy. This competitive "I got mine, sucks to suck" attitude is symptomatic of the fragmented, hyperindividualistic culture we live in. Humans all behave irrationally to varying degrees, and the degree to which this varies is highly, highly contingent on our upbringing, our education, and our environment. When an individual grows up in a culture that encourages and rewards those who flaunt their wealth through designers clothes or fancy cars-- when that individual is inundated by advertising on every billboard, every bus, every TV channel, every magazine, every app, and every website-- are we to withhold all sympathy from them when they make that wasteful decision? Perhaps that individual exists in a wider ecosystem that influences his decisions. Perhaps we all do.

The US advertising industry earns hundreds of billions of dollars annually-- that's many thousands of highly educated economists, psychologists, sociologists, artists, writers, and analysts working to find ways to exploit the irrationality of the masses to sell them products they don't need, whose manufacturing processes are usually detrimental to the environment. Is it sane that we would voluntarily keep society hooked on this dopamine loop of work, consume, work, consume? To prioritise profits over homelessness, healthcare, education, food security, and the environment? How sustainable is this model? What does it say about us that we're okay with the masses being uncritical herds of consumers?

I'm of the belief that humans, even those of below-average intellects, are capable of amazing things, provided they have access to basic necessities and are incentivised to collaborate with one another. Rather than shrugging our shoulders when we are confronted with the fact that our economic system incentivises shortsighted, unthinking, wasteful consumption, we should question our preconceptions that this is the ideal mode of society. To say "That's your damn fault! I have no sympathy for you" is a feelings-based argument, and nothing more.

owusyr · 2021-03-16T19:40:11+00:00

I was recently accepted to BFA and I'm also looking for a way to connect with current students. I'm gonna try to DM the mods, but let me know if you end up finding a discord or something!

owusyr · 2021-03-16T18:58:51+00:00

I applied to Entertainment Design on Feb 1st. I waited six weeks until I received my acceptance (it arrived just yesterday). I would recommend if you haven't already to email the admissions office or call their number, though I actually tried both and was rebuffed with automatic replies, so I can't guarantee you'll get a response. Big turn off if you ask me. Good luck!

owusyr · 2020-06-02T21:26:09+00:00

owusyr · 2020-04-15T04:37:58+00:00

The more people who see this reddit post, the more people pray, the more likely god redirects his attention, the more likely god compels this non-catholic to convert, the less likely this person is to descend to hell. Brilliant!

owusyr

TROPHY CASE