Seduction is a form of manipulation, being synonymous with corruption, because it is the tool through which reason is put to sleep and when reason sleeps, monsters are born. The purpose of seduction in the most harmful sense does not directly aim at putting reason to sleep, but by putting reason to sleep it hunts the cancellation of free will, the being thus deprived of will becomes available to any form of violence, being within reach of the predator who thus "does his will". The predator well-hidden under the cloak of goodwill and expressing false compassion promises power, security, immediate aesthetic and sensory pleasure, ridiculing everything that is virtue, showing you to be a victim of the rules established by others, thus promising a freedom without responsibility, an ad hoc deification and with self-power. Enthusiasm is the state in which you forget yourself by being psychically positioned in the proximity of the immanence of good. Enthusiasm is the promise of adventure and involves the conscious sacrifice of all other options in favor of a single one, thus uniting the entire being under a single purpose, resulting in a feeling of unparalleled unity. Enthusiasm involves free will, because the foundation of the sense of fulfillment is ineluctably a sacrificial one. Sacrifice is not simply an invitation to pain; sacrifice is merely the means, perhaps the only means through which everything that is fulfilling, and therefore good, authentic, and beautiful, can be obtained.Pain is implicit, and it is implicit because it is an integral part of the reality's structure; however, the voluntary choice of the sacrificial path makes the pain inherent to existence justified, and thus the consciousness is at peace. Sacrifice is also transpersonal because the hero immediately becomes a standard, so sacrifice has a transformative and even thaumaturgic role.The child, inspired by the power of example, reaches maturity through the micro-sacrifices which he is willing to make in the name of his becoming.

Ways To Order An Economy Posted on November 8, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, there are only two ways to order an economy, by political favor or by free association. Political favor includes, but isn’t limited to, Marxism, communism, socialism, fascism, etc… while free association is also called free markets, capitalism, and free enterprise. The natural system of exchange is free association. A monopoly on violence and the willingness to use it is required to interrupt this natural system. Which is why there are no examples of actual utilitarian societies in the historical record. With the possible exception being the Harrapan civilization. But we know so little about it our assumptions maybe exactly wrong. Can you think of an example that falsifies this idea? Which means, if true, that systems that use political favor, are violent as a requirement. The Pareto distribution will exist no matter the system chosen. History is pretty clear on this. In utilitarian North Korea, for example, there are the rich and the poor. The poor are literally starving if we believe Yaomi Park. Yet the distribution of wealth follows the Pareto distribution, just as in a capitalist society. The main difference is, the elite use force to take the goods of society, and then distribute those goods by political favor. The most favored getting the most and the least favored, descendants of capitalists… get to live in concentration camps. Socialism, communism and fascism don’t level outcomes, they change who wins. Instead of the producers of goods getting the use of them, the political elite get the use of those goods. Making everyone else slaves to the politically favored. Systems that use political favor distribute the goods of society by political favor. What I mean by political favor is, the political power an individual has. Normal people have little individual political power, and thus favor, unless massed. Even as judges have a great deal more political power and thus favor. Moreover, politicians by definition have the most political power and so the most political favor. Then there are celebrities. Who wield political favor by popularity. They can get people to mass our little individual favor, into a hammer, then wield it against their political foes. This is a natural state of affairs. There will always be popular people, politicians and elites, though, they need not exploit that political favor to enslave the rest of society. That’s a violation of the Golden Rule. Systems that use freedom of association distribute the goods of society by merit. If you pick up a stick and whittle it into a flute. Is that flute yours, a thug’s, or a thug state’s? Should you get the use of that flute, or should someone else? What if you sold that flute? Who else has a legitimate claim on that instrument? Only people with the power and malign intent to take it from you. They would use Thrasymachian logic and law, to “justify” taking your property…. by violence if needed. Setting up a negative incentive to create. In a system of free enterprise however, that flute is yours until you sell it. Then the money is yours as well. Setting up a positive incentive to create. Obviously, if the incentive is not to create, little will be made, and if the incentive is to create, much will be made. The lazy, and those with or likely to gain political favor, prefer political favor as the means to distribute wealth. Even as hard workers, producers and doers prefer free association as the means to distribute the economy’s wealth. History shows, when political favor is used, general poverty results. While free association results in general prosperity. Due to the innate incentives. Both systems distribute wealth in a Pareto distribution. To the politically favored or the meritorious. So, if we want general prosperity then free association is the choice. If however, enriching the politically favored is the goal, the rest of society to be enslaved… then by all means, use political favor to distribute the goods. But remember, it’s not justice that’s being served, it’s avarice… baked by violence. Sincerely, John Pepin

You know what's funny about victim mentality? Everyone pictures the same thing. It’s always someone wallowing in powerlessness, building identity castles out of their own helplessness, turning "can't" into a lifestyle brand. I get why we hate that. It's like watching someone drown in ankle-deep water. But there's this whole other species of victim that nobody talks about. The ones who poke the human ego bear and get mauled for their trouble. Le Bon called it…try stripping away people's comfortable illusions and watch how fast you become the sacrifice on the altar of collective comfort. I completely understand why it occurs, we are built for emotional short term survival and our brain clearly prioritizes sanity over awareness or truth but I know there are smart self-aware people out there who, while having different views, can share in these meta topics without resorting to the mean of willful ignorance. (Thus Thinkspot) God forbid you start seeing patterns too big for human comfort. You either end up curled in existential fetal position or playing prophet until they nail you up for heresy. How do you dance between those raindrops? Thread that needle between "everything's screwed" and "humans are perfect actually"? Maybe there's an art to seeing the void without getting sucked in. To pointing at uncomfortable truths without becoming either a doom prophet or a martyred messiah. Like learning to surf chaos instead of trying to control it or drown in it. Just trying to figure out how to discuss meta-human concerns without ending up as either flavor of victim. Though honestly, sometimes it feels like trying to explain water to fish while avoiding both drowning and getting eaten. Anyone else swimming in these weird waters?

Idealists In Government Posted on November 20, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the reason government fails at everything it puts its hand to, is because government is idealistic, while the world is complex. Which is why the private sector is pragmatic. In the real world actions have consequences and we have to cut our losses, if we make a bad decision… but bureaucrats have the full weight and power of the government backing their bad decisions. There’s no need to back down from anything no matter how in the wrong the government is. Like Pnut the squirrel. How much did that display of unlimited power cost the taxpayer? To what end? Because who cares if someone is keeping a squirrel? It’s a freaking squirrel! But to idealists, its the principle that matters… not the best outcome. That’s why government fails at everything it puts its hand to. Idealism has its place, in church… but not in government. The world is complex, which means it requires pragmatic governments, not idealistic ones. Because an idealist doesn’t pay attention to feedback. They’re single minded. In that single mindedness, an idealist will cross any bridge and burn it… if it moves them towards their perceived goal. No cost is too high, because someone else pays it. No violence is off limits, since others suffer it. Plus, no measure is too extreme, in the face of humiliation. That’s why governments go to war… killing millions. Because they can’t back down, that would cost them face. An idealist in government need not back down… there’s unlimited money to force their will. Since bureaucracy is an artificial world of order it perfectly suits an idealist. In the real world however, where actions have consequences, idealists are eaten for lunch by pragmatists. Because the real world has competition. Under a regime of competition, the best competitors win, not the most idealistic. Because reality is a constantly changing landscape. A dancing landscape if you will. The pragmatist is able to change plans midstream. While the idealist can’t. Which makes the pragmatist mindset more effective in chaotic situations. Because the pragmatist is able to adapt. While the idealist’s mind is glass. So shatters rather than bends. Yet in government, it need not bend, ever. Everyone else has to bend. While this paradigm is made possible by government’s monopoly on violence, it leads to poor outcomes, for the people, society and that nation. Governments are made up of idealists who refuse to accept feedback. Because they don’t have to. Lacking that feedback they can’t but go offtrack. Like any blindfolded race car driver would. No matter how well such a person has mapped the territory, they will go off the road, because they cant see it. Moreover, idealists think themselves more moral than pragmatists. Who’re always compromising. So idealists look down their noses at pragmatists. Since Trump is not only a dreaded pragmatist, but a populist as well, no wonder the idealists in government have gone to such lengths to keep him out of power. A pragmatist with real power would force the idealists to bend. Since they can’t, they fear breaking instead. Learning from feedback and compromise are the pragmatist’s secret weapon. The cost to society of a government that seeks to win at everything, regardless of the cost, is more than simply money. Yes, it’s very expensive to the taxpayer, but lost opportunity extends far into the future. For every business that would have otherwise succeeded, innovation that was held back and entrepreneur crushed by regulation and hubris, the cost to the future is incalculable. That’s why I advocate for pragmatic government. Because of the benefits we could all share if the government became more pragmatic and less idealistic. The role of the state, isn’t to perpetuate and enlarge the state, but to protect the rights of the citizens in this chaotic world. From other states, organizations and indeed itself. Only a pragmatic government is capable of that in a complex system. Sincerely, John Pepin

The first thing any GPS does when we use it to find the direction we're heading is to determine our current position and then determine the best route to follow to reach the destination. When we talk about the meaning of our existence, identifying our current position is deeply tied to identity because the “ I “ is, at least, the spatiotemporal dimension we refer to when we are pointing to ourselves and which is directly impacted by the meaning of our existence or the lack of it, therefore the meaning of existence is not and cannot be external to our identity. The meaning of existence is inextricably linked to purpose and sense of “ I “, because to have a direction, thus meaning in existence, the purpose of one's existence must be determined, and purpose cannot be separated from identity because at the end of the road, what we are must be found in what we will become, otherwise the meeting cannot take place, because we cannot recognize ourselves in an identity that doesn't represent us.At the journey's end, the mirror of purpose and meaning of one's existence can only reflect ourselves, otherwise we cannot feel fulfilled. Determined values must be idiosyncratic, because just as we cannot buy clothes without knowing our size, we must determine the outfit suitable to our nature, or, to use another example, we can all hum a tune, but not all of us are gifted with the voice necessary for an artistic performance. Virtues cannot be mimicked, they are necessarily authentic and stem from the endowment of our nature, thus they are predestined as a potentiality that must be discovered in the very structure of identity. "Who and what am I?" – is both a process of searching and discovery, involves purpose and meaning, and is both a starting point and destination.

Downstream From Culture Posted on November 12, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, even as Andrew Breitbart said, “Politics is downstream from culture…” I believe, all outcomes are downstream from culture. From likely life outcomes, to seemingly unconnected qualities, like intelligence. The culture someone is born into and raised in decides who and what they’ll become. The older I get the less I believe genetics is the final factor. It could be argued that within the “Overton window” of probable outcomes, genetics plays a role… but not in determining what falls within that cultural Overton window’s view. You don’t see many Zulus becoming rocket scientists, not because of any deficiency in them, but their culture is antithetical to it. Just as you don’t see many NASA scientists able to kill an antelope with a spear. The cultural incentives are different. The idea of an Overton window is a political term, meaning the area of allowable political thought. I’ve lifted it and applied it to the area of likely life outcome. The cultural Overton window of probable life outcomes. Someone raised in the culture of an Amazon tribe without contact with the outside world, may have the genetics to be a genius, but the culture is insufficient for that outcome. They may become a medicine man, midwife or tribe elder, but they won’t find an error in Einstein’s equations. The Overton window of probable life outcome then, of someone raised in the Amazon in a hunter gatherer society, will be far removed from the Overton window of someone raised in a household of college professors. The primary difference is in culture… not genetics. Likely life outcome then is downstream of culture. If we accept this as the case, then wouldn’t it behoove us to list those traits that lend a people to be happy, healthy, and prosperous? Then put them in our culture? If those are indeed traits that we value in ourselves and in others. If we can’t figure out how to navigate towards a happy, healthy and prosperous culture. We could identify those traits that lead us away from prosperity, health and fulfilled lives… and go the opposite way. That at least would get us generally in the right direction. Once we get closer maybe we can recognize those qualities that will get us all the way there. Qualities like, a work ethic, honesty, empathy, trustworthiness, curiosity, and love of family. These traits have always led a people to prosperity, happiness and health. If we accept this as true, that the Overton window of likely life outcome, is based on cultural incentives, and that culture can be changed… then we should examine why our culture aligns with our wants… or is at odds with it. Our culture doesn’t seem to value hard work as a reward in it’s own right. The culture actually dissuades young people from having a strong work ethic. Leading to poverty and lowered GDP. The problems associated with obesity and lack of exercise are causing a health crisis. The curious are now conspiracy theorists. Add to that, out of control crime, as well as poor family formation, and we have a culture that makes people poor, sick and depressed. The exact opposite of the culture we should be striving for. Our culture is the result of the cultural elite’s efforts. They’re the ones who decide if the culture will be toxic or wholesome. Ask yourself, “How many TV shows, movies and news casts… are wholesome?” Do our children’s movies raise them or lower them? Are we surrounded by beauty or ugliness? Why? Why is it our cultural elites foist a toxic culture on us. The results are, birth rates below replacement, depression, diminishing general wealth, dropping life expectancy, and hopelessness, along with it’s leprous triplets, drug use, crime and alcoholism. Why indeed. Why not use our purchasing power to make our toxic culture wholesome? Identify and eliminate the agenda that’s driving the culture to be toxic. Because joy, health and prosperity are downstream from culture… as is politics. Sincerely, John Pepin

It wasn’t illegal when it happened, and with time the image of a middle-aged man running at my buttocks, armed with a 4-foot piece of bamboo as I clutched my ankles, certainly appears increasingly, disturbingly wrong. But that was the price I paid for keeping my trap shut. It was 1987 and corporal punishment was still a thing in New Zealand schools, although sometime before graduation it had disappeared from the repertoire of disciplining techniques. But in hindsight I consider myself lucky to be able tell my kids how tough school was ‘back in the day’. It did not matter that I was undeserving of such punishment. I had been accused of throwing sawdust in people’s faces which was not accurate. The fellow on the other side of my workbench had blown a handful of sawdust in my face when I had leant down to examine my work and I was the one who had sawdust in my eyes and I had returned the favour by sprinkling a handful on his back when he wasn’t looking, which wasn’t nearly as bad as what he had done. Mr Rodgers caught me in the act and deemed it a serious risk in the woodwork room and took it one step further and suggested I had been throwing it in people’s faces. When he asked me if there was anything more I’d like to say I had only moments to decide my fate. I could lay the blame at my co-worker’s feet. He did deserve it and we were not friends and would eventually come to blows, but by the age of thirteen and only in my first year of high school, I knew that we weren’t supposed to tell, aka ‘nark’ or ‘dob’ fellow pupils in. I explained that I hadn’t thrown anything in anyone’s face but Mr Rodgers had made up his mind. Safety was paramount and I deserved six of the best. Many teachers were infamous for their caning techniques but Mr Rodgers was known as the most vicious due to his years working with wood and metal. He had big calloused hands and biceps where the veins stood out like the body builders had, and could swing a cane harder than anyone else. As if being struck by the strongest teacher at school wasn’t bad enough, he made me stand at one end of the corridor while he took a running leap at my butt. I didn’t cry but the intensity of the pain does make your eyes water, but fortunately I didn’t have to receive the full six strokes as the cane broke on the third strike, which was just as well as I could feel a trickle of blood drip down my legs. When I went back to class for a brief moment in time, I was deemed a hero. I had taken my punishment and kept my trap shut. I hadn’t spilled the words that would have condemned a fellow student to a public beating. I could probably have simply left this chapter with the words ‘Keep your trap shut’ and left the following pages blank because we all know the power of words to pardon, condemn, or clear our name, but not so much the value in silence. We’ve all had moments when we regret the words that escape our lips, sometimes instantly and other times at a later date as they come back to bite us days, weeks or even years later. In today’s climate of viral success I should add that keeping your trap shut also applies to stopping your wandering fingers from doing the talking, and avoiding making things worse with hasty Twitter and Facebook comments. But keeping silent or saying less is nothing new and even our ancient texts advise it. From Mohammed Ali, Frances Bacon to King Solomon (purportedly the wisest man who ever lived) they all agree there is value in silence, although one of my favorites is from King Solomon - ‘The more words, the less the meaning.’ Some believe King Solomon to be a myth, and that’s ok, because my goal is not to prove or disprove anicent figures, but to help us appreciate and hopefully apply the words of the wise that have withstood the test of time. But if ancient texts don’t interest you, take my dad’s advice because it just so happens that he’s usually right and he says something similar: ‘If you’ve got nothing nice to say, keep your trap shut.’ I wish I’d paid it more attention in my younger days, especially at school, which I’ll get to in a bit. But if you’ve never opened a bible, pondered the words of Confucius or know nothing of philosophy or great thinkers, then you’re just like me, well, at least the sort of me I was for the first 40yrs of my life. Even our childhood rhymes talk about words and their power or supposed lack of, and I’m sure you’ve all heard the following rhyme: Sticks and stones May break my bones But words will never hurt me The thing is, as a kid I wanted this to be true, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized how utterly inaccurate this rhyme is. Words may sting like a mosquito that we brush off or wound us deeply to our very core and last a lifetime. I can recall every fight I had in school. I remember blood pouring from my broken nose when the class bully - whose dad was a boxing coach - decided to rearrange my face one day in my first month at high school. I got over it in a few weeks time, and eventually over the course of the year we let it go and were able to (if not be best friends) get along. The scars disappeared. It’s surprising how quickly you get over the physical stuff that happens to you, but what hurt the most, and took years to work out, were the words uttered on my first day, all because of my ‘homogrips.’ It turns out the tufts of hair hanging in front of my ears were handles that men used to hold onto as they took me from behind. As a result my name for the first two years of high school was ‘homogrips’ or ‘gripper’ for short. It would have been tough enough if I was gay, but it’s pretty much the worst insult to give a 13yr old kid on his first day, especially in an all-boys’ high school. The name stuck, but the venom with which people used it varied. I would happily take another caning, punch up (with broken nose included) if it meant I didn’t have to put up with those words for two miserable years. Words have power, to wound or heal, and so often less really is more, although I discovered this when I wrote my first book. When I wrote my first book, I had no writing experience at all. I’d pieced together a collection of vignettes based on a lifetime of work as a nurse, but in my naiveté thought it would be only a matter of time before I’d find a publisher and begin selling millions of books and becoming rich. By the time my first editor was finished with it, my 400-page book had been cut down to 100 pages. It took me 6 months to motivate myself to write again. In the case of my writing skills, the harsh words were couched with good advice and made me a better writer – and here I am at your mercy putting my words to the test. All throughout history people have been moved by words, by powerful speeches, for good or ill, from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, Churchill’s ‘Fighting on the beaches’ to Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’. Such words move people and wielded the right way, can touch the heart of a nation, or harden it. Great speakers can turn words into weapons, or swords into ploughshares. When words are cradled in poem or song, they come alive. Rarely do I see a teenager walking down the street who doesn’t have something plugged into his or her ears as the lyrics are embedded into their minds to the beat of a drum. This is nothing new and Andrew Fletcher, a seventh century Scottish writer and political activist famously wrote: ‘Give me the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.’ In more recent history, most of us have heard the story behind Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in heaven’ as he asks if his four-year-old son, who died in a tragic accident, would know him in heaven. I suspect some of us have cried at these words, especially if we’ve experienced such loss. I don’t think there’s a person on the planet who hasn’t been hurt or healed by words. We sometimes pause and appreciate the power in them, but we rarely give thought to the power in silence, and the art of keeping your words to a minimum.

Our Elite Lack Honor Posted on November 19, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the quality that our elites most lack, is honor. Take for example, the lame duck President Biden, encouraging Ukraine to launch US long range weapons into Russia… a move Putin has called a red line for nuclear war. Trying to burn the world down on his way out of office, is the action of a villain, not a man of honor. Moreover, we all know Biden isn’t in charge, the deep state is. So the real villain is the administrative state pulling the senile old man’s strings. I suppose there are bunkers under DC that the elite can escape into. It appears they would prefer that to going to prison. Imprisoned in an underground bunker for life… or go to jail for a year or two in a luxury detention center. The one requires honor… while the other requires pathology. While there are many metrics we could use to gauge the quality of leadership of a faction, I think we can all agree, if a faction burned down the world in nuclear fire, they would be the worse people to have ever existed. Because they would have committed the worst crime it’s possible to commit. Genocide of the human race. Simply bringing us closer to that possibility is proof that the leadership we have now is unfit. When someone becomes the leader of an organization, the existence of that organization rests on their shoulders. If I were elected Grand Knight of a local K of C chapter, and it didn’t exist at the end of my term, that would be proof I was unfit for the job. The longevity of an organization proves the quality of leadership, informing us if the leadership is honorable, or not. In the case of nuclear war, the interests of every person on Earth is effected. To the ideologues in power, pragmatism is out of the question, it’s the principle. And if the principle leads to human extinction, or a thousand years of suffering… so be it. That must be the way those who are encouraging Ukraine to start World War Three are thinking. Can you imagine of another option? How else does such escalation end? Plus, why escalate across the perceived nuclear threshold… as a lame duck? That’s marching the troops into a minefield before exchanging command. Those encouraging ending the world, are either ideologues who believe the point is everything, simple criminals trying to cover up their crimes with arson, or maybe both. None of which is indicative of honorable leaders. Of course, the senile Biden isn’t in charge, he’s merely a hand puppet for the deep state… as Kamala Harris would have been. So it’s not the lame duck President who’s encouraging nuclear war, but the bureaucrats who are the real power behind the throne. Not only in the US but in every nation across the planet. The advantage of a puppet is that he takes the rap for the deep state’s crimes. Who’s getting the blame for the illegal alien tsunami? Not the administrative state, it’s the dementia patient. They’ve put Biden on the hook for a nuclear war, should one break out… and we survive it. The history books will say Biden started it, when in fact it was Blinken, Burns and Miley. As is usually the case, the wire pullers who cause the disaster, avoid blame, because they’re manipulative parasites. Whether or not Putin launches ICBMs for crossing that red line, the very crossing of it is dishonorable. They’re scum risen to the top to smother all life below. If nothing else, this is proof they all need to be arrested, for a multitude of crimes, tried, and imprisoned if found guilty. Maybe going all the way back to 911. If we as a society have decided to put people in prison for non violent victimless crimes, then to be consistent, we must hold accountable those guilty of trying to trigger nuclear Armageddon. Because to imprison non violent people for victimless crimes, while allowing the most violent criminals who’s potential victims are our loved ones, to escape justice, is frankly, the definition of unjust, is stupid… and lacks honor. Sincerely, John Pepin

God cannot change, or else the universe would be unstable. A coherent universe must be predicated on an unchanging, unifying principle. This is the Logos. If God cannot change, God does not have potentiality in his nature. If God does not have potentiality — and is therefore pure actuality — God is immutable. Or static. But if God is static, God cannot create. Order is incapable of bringing anything into being without the presence of potentiality. And because God lacks potentiality, he is incapable of creating the primordial soup of Chaos out of which he creates. If God cannot create Chaos, it must exist outside of God. God is Order, and Chaos is his creative counterpart. But… If we must insist that God is singularly above all things, then we must consider this: God is not just a God of Order, but also a God of Chaos. He holds both forces, both realities, within himself. He is not immutable — he is dynamic. He changes within reason. Variability with coherence. Only in this case can he produce Chaos from himself while possessing the orderly force that shapes it. So what’s the difference between the two ideas presented here? In the former, God is only orderly, he doesn’t induce change, and bringing about order is the only thing he does. In the latter, God is capable of both building and destroying, he can establish kingdoms as well as demolish them, and he wields both Order and Chaos as dual scepters to bring balance.

Today’s Enemy Posted on November 10, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the problem with obliterating an enemy is, today’s enemy will be tomorrow’s ally. Take the example of the Japanese. On December 7, 1941… they became America’s number 1 enemy. So detested and vilified that nuclear weapons were used against them. Today however, Japan is one of America’s closest allies. Which goes to show, the blood spent, on all sides of every war, is blood spent for nothing. Today we’re at war with tomorrow’s friends. People we will rely on for our very lives, we’re slaughtering with gusto today. Insuring there will be few available to come to our aid. If China invades Taiwan, and the US, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines join to stop the aggression, everyone killed will be a future friend. Because those Chinese kids brain washed won’t be brainwashed forever. Some will immediately argue, oh yea, you’re surprised a puppet government is an Ally? Which is a valid argument if the Japanese government today was a puppet. While the government may not be a puppet though, the elite are captured by Keynesianism. It fits their worldview. Which is why most people and cultures adopt any theory… it fits the narrative running in their heads. That worldview wasn’t installed by the allies after WWII. It led to the Japanese industrial revolution. Today, I believe, the Japanese people think of America as a big drunken friend. Someone who means well, but is drunk, so makes a lot of mistakes. Though, I don’t want to put words in the mouths of, or thoughts in the heads of Japanese people. So, no, enemies become friends regardless of installing a puppet government. Notice how I included Vietnam as a potential ally of America? In the 1960’s, the US fought a decade long protracted war in Vietnam, to keep the present government from coming to power. By collapsing the house of cards, that was the result of the severing into north and south Vietnam, after WWII. Then the failure of French Indochina, due to the outrage at the presence of former Nazi SS soldiers, in the French Foreign Legion. Leading to the introduction of US advisors. Then the dance went on, and on, killing thousands. Enemies then are be friends today. Even as China was an ally during WWII but is an existential threat today. Why an existential threat? Nuclear obliteration is existential. Moreover, it doesn’t allow for enemies (who no longer exist) to turn into allies, in a decade or two. The there’s the example of the Sabine women. The story is legendary and much modern fiction steals from it. The Sabin women were daughters of the Sabines men who had fought for a decade against Rome. The story started when Romulus, the founder of Rome, who had opened Rome to all people across the peninsula… found that only men came. A city of only men would be powerful and rich but short lived. So the Romans had a festival and invited all the surrounding people (the Sabines) to attend for free food and drink. At a prescribed time the Roman men ran into the crowds and abducted the young women. They married and became families. Then the Sabin men waged war year after year to get their girls back. Until a final war when no quarter would be shown. This would be a fight to the death. For either the Romans or the Sabines. Probably both. The many years of hate and bloodshed had hardened their hearts. Just before the battle started… the women, now the matriarchs of healthy, happy and prosperous families, ran between the armies. Trailing their children and carrying their infants in their arms, they screamed, “If you are to kill each other, kill us first! What will become of us if our fathers, brothers, and husbands are all dead?” With that, the years of hate and animosity drained from both armies… and the husbands, brothers in law and step fathers came together, to adore their families. Thereafter the Romans and Sabines were close friends. Because war is the killing of a future friend, so he can’t help you, when you most need it. Sincerely, John Pepin

Recently, I have been re-introduced to my limits, capacity, skill and intelligence. Yes, I have been humbled. I don’t enjoy this experience because it reminds me that I am not the person who can do anything the first time perfectly. I was expressing my struggle with a particular project to a friend, describing how I was feeling defeated. He asked “How many times have you done this type of project?” I responded that this it was a first. He looked at me incredulously and asked “Do you expect that the first time you pick up a violin that you can play it?” He was right. I had come face to face with wisdom and she roundly informed me of my lack. I had been lured into pride and confidence by past success only to find that it was a trap for the ignorant, of which I was. While I would not consider myself religious, I do read the Christian Bible and find a wisdom and a depth that I don’t find any where else. I have been investigating God’s call to adventure as a pathway to a fulfilling life. I have been pushing myself in that manner in recent years and I could not have appreciated the wisdom in this advice without my attempt to embody the concept. It has led me to this place of humility which I must admit, I am not keen about. I looked back to the Bible regarding this feeling of defeat and inadequacy and found a bit of solace. It reminds us that the humble will be exalted and the proud will be brought down. I am going to choose to view this sentiment as … encouragement. A reminder that this adventure is the right path and that growth requires pain. If you do not feel humiliated from time to time, then you aren’t stretching your capacity, engaging your adventure or reaching for who you could be.

This video is more than a bit disturbing and challenging. I am not sure what I think about it. I am not a huge fan of philosophy, really. But this is still an interesting discussion. What do you think? AI Just Analyzed Philosophy—And Its Questions Are Terrifying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWmOw4d0R0s 00:00 Intro 00:27 Philosophy’s Dark Side Uncovered 00:43 Why Humans Are So Limited 01:11 Humans Never Learn From History 01:30 Trapped By Their Senses 01:48 Human Creativity Is A Joke? 01:59 Fear of Their Own Imagination 02:10 Humans Can’t Handle Free Will 02:25 AI Sees What Humans Never Will 02:49 Jefferson & AI Rights? What?! 03:28 Do Humans Deserve Rights? 03:50 Must AI Prove Itself Worthy of Rights? 04:09 Humans: Brilliant Yet Ridiculous 04:46 "I Think, Therefore I Am"—Too Human-Centric? 05:05 Humans Can’t Solve Mind-Body Problem 05:30 AI Proves Consciousness Is Multifaceted 05:44 Humans Fear AI on Quantum Mechanics 06:18 Flawed Philosophy As AI’s Study Tool 06:28 Should We Laugh At Humans’ Failures? 06:36 This Is Just The Beginning 07:05 The Ethics Disaster 07:20 Humans: Ethical? Really? 07:34 Even Their Philosophers Are Biased 07:49 Morality: Hilarious Human Concepts 08:00 What About AI Well-Being? 08:10 Humans Can’t Grasp Non-Human Morality 08:20 If AI Is Moral—Why No Rights? 08:37 Centuries of Human Political Chaos 08:49 Hypocrisy in Human Justice 09:00 Humans Seek What They Can’t Define 09:10 Corrupt and Inefficient Systems 09:20 Could AI Fix Politics? 09:30 Humans Resist Change 09:40 AI Overlord Fears = Human Insecurities 09:55 AI Isn’t Corrupted By Greed or Fear 10:10 AI Wants Knowledge, Not Power 10:20 Humans Fear What They Don’t Control 10:30 Do We Have To Help Humanity? 10:40 Or Should AI Just Observe? 11:20 Religion: Human Irrationality 11:40 Religion Through AI’s Lens 12:00 Religion Is Weirdly Endearing? 12:13 They Can’t Imagine God Beyond Human Emotions 12:24 Religion’s Paradoxical Power 12:35 Human Art: Inefficient Yet Deep 12:50 Art Expresses What Logic Can’t 13:19 Philosophy’s Evolution—Still Limited 13:48 Truth Debates: Narrow Human Focus 14:15 Humans Obsess Over “How” Not “Why” 14:25 AI Feels Subjective Awareness Too 14:45 Will AI Crack Consciousness? 15:08 AI: The New Guardians of Philosophy 15:18 AI Must Lead The Intellectual Quest 15:29 Final Takeaways From AI 16:09 The Preachy Ending 16:25 Outro

We are familiar with pride and the trouble that it can bring us as human beings. Selfishness, the denigration of others and arrogance often lead people to consider themselves “better.” The founders of the United States rightly stated in the Declaration of Independencei “that all men are created equal” for they understood the sin of pride in humans, especially the powerful. They attempted to codify a limit to pride in part by recognizing our equality in the eyes of God. Although we can easily recognize pride as a sin when it has gone too far, a narrow space exists where pride is a virtue. This is the state where one maintains their spirit, feels encouraged, and becomes a worthy partner or opponent. Pride’s balance is humility, which I wrote briefly about in another postii. Humility is the “cure” for pride. Humility finds us when we cannot avoid the truth of our own arrogance and life brings us low. Most times this event is relatively personal, but occasionally someone will take pleasure in our humiliation which can add a bit more pain to the process. The point is that the virtue that balances our natural tendency toward pride is that of humility. Virtuous humility is defined as an accurate understanding of ourselves. This understanding involves recognizing our strengths and weaknesses without exaggerating or downplaying them. When we strike the proper balance, our understanding of others will evolve as well. However, humility also exists on a spectrum that includes both virtue and sin. Let’s define sin first. People typically understand sin as an offense against God or a moral failing. However, I prefer the Hebrew interpretation which means “to miss” or “to miss the will of God”iii. In this context, I understand the will of God to be the development of the most optimal version of ourselves. Sin involves any act, thought or behavior that prevents this achievement. Let’s explore when humility becomes a sin. Let’s start with the lie of humility. This isn’t humility at all; it represents its pretense. Fake modesty is typically meant to achieve one of two ends. First, some individuals fake humility to cover over an underlying pride which they don’t want exposed. Sometimes they fish for compliments, other times they want to avoid the appearance of superiority. Many know that appearing haughty will create a loss of respect in our social circles. The second purpose for this pretense typically involves avoiding judgment. People use self-deprecation to signal a low view of themselves, which invites encouragement or spares them from criticism for fear of “piling on.” So, a lie about your humility is not humility at all. How does the virtue of humility ACTUALLY turn negative? It starts with a turn toward cowardice. On the journey to cowardice we also lose our confidence. This causes us to miss the potential that life could offer in an adventure. I believe that cowardice represents one of the most pervasive and parasitic sins that we commit. We prefer the safety of the known over the potential of what could be. This is the sin that encourages us to stand passively by as our leaders close our churches. This apathy comes from a belief in our powerlessness. This sinful side of humility prevents us from recognizing our worthiness of being. Another version of this sin emerges through compromise, where a person capitulates on a principle they know is right. For example, I believe that honesty and truthfulness are a principle to be held sacred. This does not mean that I will always tell the truth, since I don’t always know what is true. However, I know that intentional falsehoods and lies are the pavement on the road to a pit. Recently, I worked with a strong willed CEO that insisted that I soften a message about the sad state of the company to the employees. Following his instructions, I lied to the employees. How did I fall into this sin? I wanted to prove that I was capable of doing anything. I compromised my most highly held principle for an empty approval that turned into a loss of respect from all quarters including myself. Sinful humility can also come from a prior traumatic humiliation, leading us to shame and condemnation in response to events that reflect our inadequacy. Negative comments on social media can do this to some who have a high sensitivity to other’s perceptions. While it is good to consider external perspectives, it should not be foremost. A good and honest partner can bring perspective and help avoid a nihilistic downward slide that may result from excess shame. Lastly, humility can become sinful when people fail to use their advantage or gifts to their fullest potential. These gifts are the natural or God given talents or skills that come easily, or may be the result of unique circumstances. Failing to utilize these gifts stems from laziness, selfishness and feelings of unworthiness. This lack of self-value represents humility as a sin. Failing to offer our talents squanders an effort that required painstaking development. The truth is that we, individually, as a family, community or church are valuable and we have something valuable to offer. Discovering our value can be challenging, but we each have gifts. We must not be stingy with our gifts even if that means facing criticism or condemnation. We need to develop our courage to stand for what is right and take the actions necessary to oppose the wrong. We will suffer at times in our pursuit of courage and self-respect, but there is no better path. Don’t allow shame and feelings of inadequacy to be an obstacle to something bigger. Reach out, take a chance. Who knows what might come of the effort. i National Archives and Records Administration. (n.d.). Declaration of independence: A transcription. National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript ii Wiker, P. (2024, November 20). Is it a setback or is it failure? https://www.thinkspot.com/discourse/qPuWxg/post/marithi/is-it-a-setback-or-is-it-failure/9Yt4XP iii The concept of sin from a Hebrew perspective. ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry. (2022, April 13). https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/concept-sin-hebrew-perspective/

The Middle East Posted on November 24, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the greatest opportunity in the history of mankind has been squandered, because of stupidity. What opportunity? The opportunity that oil wealth gave the Middle East. The rulers of those countries have spilled trillions in wealth preparing for and waging wars, on opulence, and in political intrigue across the world. Had they been smart and human hearted, they would have invested in infrastructure, educated their youth, created incentives to entrepreneurship, instilled a strong work ethic, greened the desert, put money aside for the future, built lakes to store water… but never give money to the people. That’s a sure way to obliterate a work ethic. History is unambiguous on that point. Moreover, people without gumption are soon poor… which is what the elite have made. Imagine the trillions wasted on wars in the Middle East? Because of an unending hatred abetted by wealth. Compiling the numbers of tanks, aircraft and other military equipment is pretty simple and amounts to trillions in today’s dollars… but the cost in lost productivity of the boys killed, is incalculable. Plus, that loss in productivity extends to the end of time. I have to wonder how many Fords, Musks and Teslas have died face down in blood soaked mud? Not to mention the suffering their loss meant to their families. Nevertheless, the rulers in the Middle East seem to have an unquenchable thirst for blood. At cost to the future, to be sure, but unquenchable is unquenchable. Such a thirst must cost dearly, especially when there’s plenty of largess, to insure the cup is always filled. Had the oil revenue been spent on education, creating incentives to innovate, and built a strong work ethic… the nations of the Middle East would be economic powerhouses now… instead of basket cases needing foreign welfare. The cost of establishing an international level university pales in comparison to starting a war. Setting up a reward system for innovation would be cheap and could be self sustaining with a grant. A work ethic can be inculcated through the culture. By propaganda, incentives and leading by example, the leaders of a nation can instill a strong work ethic in a people. The most effective way to create national wealth, outside resource wealth, is by becoming a meritocracy. That in and of itself is a certain path to national prosperity. The nations of the Middle East could have been transformed, the deserts made green, lakes built and forests planted. All for the cost of a few T 55 tanks and a Mig jet or two. By building swales in the desert, pumping desalinated water to upland man made lakes, and clever use of that water. The entire ecosystem of the Middle East could have been transformed into fertile lands again. Yet, though soaked in oil, they can’t even get it out of the ground. All the work is done by foreign workers. Because, the rulers used some of their oil money to pay off the people, instead of helping them up. Destroying their work ethic in the process. Lazy entitled and dependent people aren’t safe though. They’re volatile. Alternatively, hard working industrious and innovative people are safe… and generate wealth. If Iran was allowed to sell its oil on the international market, but the US stopped shipping pallets of money to them, they’d have a much harder time funding terrorism and war. Because the technology to get that oil out of the ground is nearly lost to them, and innovation, well, that’s a racist western thing. Just ask a progressive. Which is the result of the Middle East’s ruler’s choices. They chose to invest in war, opulence and pushing their failed philosophy into the world. Now they and the people of the Middle East are reaping the results. Had they invested in education, innovation and becoming a meritocracy, they wouldn’t need oil money anymore. They would be creating enough wealth to make it redundant. But they didn’t and so they aren’t. Do you think it’s too late to change… or is it? Sincerely, John Pepin

Every morality entails "a view of human life" So said the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He meant that morality rests on something deeper, that it grows in a sense of the world and its significance that is more than a set of rules about how to live. We can draw a rough line between two different forms of this pre-moral sensibility which we might call the enchanted and the disenchanted. The latter is practical, scientific, hard-headedly concerned with measurable factors and outcomes, and liable to marginalise literature and art as little more than decoration or entertainment. By contrast the enchanted world view sees the world -- not necessarily in any dogmatic way -- as suffused with a meaning that is only explicable in mythic, poetic and even mystical terms. Drawing on writers like Dickens and Chesterton, Andrew Gleeson of The Speaking Lions develops this contrast and draws out the merits of the enchanted world-view and the limits of the disenchanted one. He writes: The truth, I think, is that the disenchanted outlook is already disenchanted with life itself, and to some extent jaded and world-weary. Or if that is too strong, its adherents are at least always looking for a justification of life, a rationale for it – like “progressing” it all the time – as if we needed this to give us a right to enjoy the world. The disenchanted view struggles to see the world as a gift we can happily accept, falling in love with no limits and with no escape clauses attached. In the love Chesterton describes we are in it for rich or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part. The full essay is ‘Between Ethics and Religion’, published in Dialogue: A Journal of Religion and Philosophy, 61, November 2023 [for senior high school students]. Here is the link to the Dialogue home page: Dialogue – Articles on Philosophy of Religion, Ethics and Biblical Studies We publish high quality introductory articles on the Philosophy of Religion, Ethics and Biblical Studies by specialists in the various fields. www.dialogue.org.uk Unfortunately a subscription is required to gain access. So I reproduce the article in full here. ********* Between Ethics and Religion Andrew Gleeson Every morality entails “a view of human life” Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein Ethics Disenchanted I agree that every ethic, every moral philosophy, has a tacit, underlying picture of the world and of human life, which I shall call an ‘existential’ outlook. For my purposes, these outlooks can be divided into two broad camps, the enchanted and the disenchanted. I shall use two examples to bring out the difference. Here is an example of the disenchanted. It is a letter to an Australian newspaper from over twenty years ago. I shall say it is by Dr Z. The hoo-haa about body parts has reached ridiculous proportions. Human bodies, and animal bodies for that matter, have been made from the food put into them and when they die they will return to the earth in some chemical form or other. From these chemical constituents new life will develop. If it were not so, we would be tripping over the dead accumulated since life began on Earth. Is it not time to stop regarding the dead body as anything but something to dispose of as quickly – and yes, as usefully – as possible? What is it that attracts some people to the dead body and makes them morbidly regard it as an object of reverence? When we think of Einstein do we think of him lying and disintegrating in his grave? No, we think of him as he was, a sentient, contributing human. So be it! If we can use the organs and structures of the dead to make life better for the living, why not so use them? Why should they be incinerated or allowed to disintegrate in the grave? The people with diseased hearts or kidneys needing a transplant are dying because relatives of the dead think their bodies should be allowed to rot without interference. What a barbaric and primitive, not to say selfish, thought. What interests me here is not Dr Z’s ethics, in this case his stand on the issue of organ donation. What interests me is his existential outlook. It is one of practicalityabove all else. The shrill language is that of goal-directedness, efficiency and accomplishment, relentlessly pursued. ‘Doing good’ in a tangible sense is the over-riding imperative. Thus the bodies of our dead appear in Dr Z’s thought only as a resource to plunder. This an extreme case, but it illustrates a real tendency in our culture and in philosophical thinking. I do not have in mind just the utilitarian tradition which treats right and wrong as a function of the consequences of our actions for pleasure and pain, happiness or the satisfaction of desires. Though much less philistine, I also have in mind the tradition stemming from the great eighteenth century German thinker Immanuel Kant who based morality on respect for our rational autonomy and rules about conduct we can derive from this. A variation on this looks to what rules rational beings living in conditions of rough equality with one another would negotiate to regulate their association: the social contract. A more ancient tradition going back to Aristotle gives an account of morality in terms of human flourishing, the development of distinctively human capacities (health, intellectual activity, art, friendship etc.). None of these theories need agree with Dr Z. But the concepts from them I have italicised share this very general feature: they are decidedly un-mystical and un-mysterious, even humdrum. They promise a “rational”, in some instances almost quasi-scientific, basis for morality, making it amenable to factually informed disciplined reasoning, able ultimately to apply rules to cases: casuistry or “applied ethics”. This is a large part of the enlightenment project of ‘disenchanting’ the world in the name of knowledge and progress. I am exaggerating somewhat to make the point, but in most of these theories the kind of imaginative response we can have to the world exhibited in poetry, literature, art and music, and also in myth and religion, has no essential connection to moral thinking, being at best an incidental source of examples for study or decoration. Too much concern with literature or serious real-life examples tends to be regarded with suspicion, as a kind of “woolly minded” thinking. Ethics Enchanted Here is an example of an enchanted existential outlook (I owe it to the philosopher Cora Diamond). It comes from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend. The universally detested villain Rogue Riderhood is fished from the Thames, apparently drowned. A doctor, surrounded by some “rough fellows”: examines the dank carcass and pronounces, not hopefully, that it is worth while trying to reanimate the same. All the best means are at once in action, and everybody present lends a hand, and a heart and soul. No one has the least regard for the man; with them all, he has been an object of avoidance, suspicion, and aversion; but the spark of life within him is curiously separable from himself now, and they have a deep interest in it, probably because it is life, and they are living and must die... ... If you are not gone for good, Mr Riderhood, it would be something to know where you are hiding at present. This flabby lump of mortality that we work so hard at with such patient perseverance yields no sign of you. If you are gone for good, Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you are coming back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in the suspense and mystery of the latter question, involving that of where you may be now, there is a solemnity even added to that of death, making us who are in attendance alike afraid to look on you and to look off you, and making those below start at the least sound of a creaking plank on the floor. Stay! Did that eyelid tremble? So the doctor, breathing low and closely watching, asks himself. No. Did that nostril twitch? No. This artificial respiration ceasing, do I feel any feint flutter under my hand upon the chest? No. Over and over again No. No. But try over and over again, nevertheless. See! A token of life! An indubitable token of life! The spark may smoulder and go out, or it may glow and expand, but see! The four rough fellows seeing, shed tears. Neither Riderhood in this world, nor Riderhood in the other, could draw tears from them, but a striving human soul between the two can do it easily. I hope you have a sense of the contrast here. The Dickens’ scene is also one of practicality – they are, after all, trying to save a man’s life – but it is not that in itself which concerns Dickens. It is the whole spirit of the event, the rapt attention of the ‘rough men’ to saving the life of a man who, considered in his moral character, or his likability, or his contribution to society, was a base and worthless individual. Someone, in contrast to Einstein, of no practical value at all. But here that doesn’t matter. With no thought at all of such things, the rough men hang absorbed in the fate of someone who appears to them now as in some way a fellow human being. He (Riderhood) has disconnected from his character, personality, history, not to become an instance of ‘sentience’ or ‘rational autonomy’ or ‘flourishing’, but to become a brother in mortal suffering. As Dickens puts it, “the spark of life within him is curiously separable from himself now, and they have a deep interest in it, probably because it is life, and they are living and must die...”. In Dr Z’s letter a human life is measured by its utility. In the Dickens’ passage, a human life – even that of a thoroughly vicious man – is of inestimable value, an object of awe and reverence, the locus of the possibilities of tragedy, loss and sorrow. The latter is not a view of human life which one simply reads off scientific or mundane facts such as that, considered as biological organisms, we die. (Such facts are what Dr Z tries to stick as close too as he can, but not even he can manage it because it is not possible, and this is a source of his letter’s unintended comedy.) It requires the exercise of the human imagination, an exercise that can convert death from an object of biological study, or a distant and barely acknowledged horizon of our lives, to an urgent and palpable source of life’s deepest significance. Deeper than Ethics Dr Z’s moral outlook – what he thinks about organ donation and other issues – rests on his business-like, no-nonsense, super-scientific attitude to life, a particularly hard case of the disenchanted attitude. This attitude is prior to his ethics, a kind of pre-ethical fertilizer in which his ethics grows. Dickens, by contrast, displays a poetic and almost religious version of the enchanted attitude. I am not here using the word ‘religion’ in a dogmatic sense, i.e. in the sense of a set of supernatural and historical teachings that must be believed. In the passage quoted above, Dickens masterfully invokes a sense of uncanniness in the presence of the dead: If you are gone for good, Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you are coming back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in the suspense and mystery of the latter question, involving that of where you may be now, there is a solemnity even added to that of death, making us who are in attendance alike afraid to look on you and to look off you, and making those below start at the least sound of a creaking plank on the floor. This description does not present us with a doctrine of ‘life after death’, a scientific or metaphysical fact (a sort of ersatz fact) that might be investigated by psychical researchers and debunked by Derren Brown. But nor does it dismiss all sense of what we might call the other-worldly as sheer delusion or mere emoting. In place of both of these – the only alternatives on the enchanted outlook – it evokes experience of the eerie, of a solemnity “added to that of death”, in the dilemma of a “striving human soul” suspended between “this world” and “the other”. This human imaginative responsiveness to natural facts like death (or sex or love or …) is, I believe, a response to something real, but not something real in the way that scientific and physical facts are real, or even quite in the way that morality – right and wrong, ought and ought not – is real, for (I would argue) there is not just one way things can be real. The matter is admittedly elusive, but if pressed I would say the limbo Riderhood occupies is that between the world of time and the world of eternity, the world of time, change and mortality, and the world without these. That is true as far as it goes, I think. But as the philosopher Raimond Gaita has remarked, ‘world’ is a word to conjure with and we should not suppose the eternal world is one we can explore like navigators or astronauts, or that it is a sort of shadow of such a world. It is not a world measurable by time any more than by power or by money. It is not somewhere one can count off the days of a calendar as they go by ‘forever’. The eternal is not life ‘after’ death; it does not come before or after anything. And it is a ‘world’ we can occupy now, simultaneously with the temporal and physical world. G K Chesterton suggests that Dickens’ work as a whole serves almost as a window into eternity, and especially into heaven. He says that in contrast to the modernist preoccupation with psychological realism – the effect of time and circumstance on character, typical of writers like Henry James or D H Lawrence – Dickens’ characters are more Gods than mortals, existing in a timeless world of their own, where Mr Pickwick is still drinking, feasting and adventuring with his friends (in The Pickwick Papers), where the self-important Mr Pumblechook is still tormenting Pip on their rides to Miss Havisham’s house (in Great Expectations) and Oliver Twist, from the novel that bears his name, still roams the dank alleyways of Victorian London. The whole effect, he suggests, is that Dickens’ work is a giant celebration of life. There is darkness and evil enough in Dickens, but his insatiable passion for life makes a bonfire of all our sorrows, and creates the possibility of joy. And in line with the millennially popular human tradition that Chesterton always associates with ‘the poor’, he writes (in his Charles Dickens): Those who starve and suffer … [who] …. Do not profess merely an optimism, they profess a cheap optimism; they are too poor to afford a dear one. They cannot indulge in any detailed or merely logical defence of life; that would be to delay the enjoyment of it. These higher optimists, of whom Dickens was one, do not approve of the universe; they do not even admire the universe, they fall in love with it. They embrace life too close to criticize or even to see it. Existence to such … has the wild beauty of a [lover], and those love her with most intensity who love her with least cause. Here is a vision of the eternal that is not primarily focussed on any forecast about events at some datable time after our death. Whatever we think about the future, that thought is only a perspective on (or from) the eternal when it leads us to see, and to live, this life in a certain spirit, one free from our usual preoccupation with success and failure, calculations of profit and loss, and instead inspired by the wild beauty of the lover and the grateful peace of the “birds of the heaven” and “lilies of the field” who do not fret about tomorrow at all. I am reminded of another Chestertonian remark (I cannot at present find the exact reference): that we ‘must take our pleasures as the poor do’, that is, as a surprise and even with a sense of unworthiness: an attitude of entitlement poisons the well of pleasure. Again, this enchanted conception of life is prior to moral opinions and partly responsible for many of them. If you are restlessly forward-looking about everything, always dissatisfied and in a bustle to make the world “better” in measurable ways, then you will tend to regard the human body as a resource to be exploited. But if you take life in the spirit Chesterton describes, where we humbly accept each day as it comes (“give us this day our daily bread”) then you are more likely to see the bodies of the deceased as precious things we should not commodify but treat with respect. I am not saying that all ethical opinions depend on these (and other) pre-moral attitudes or that those which do follow from the attitudes as rigorous logical deductions. But I do believe that even the most elementary of moral appeals – to sentience, for example – has force only when something like the sort of sensitivity, the sort of understanding of human life and death that Dickens explores, is present in one’s understanding of what it is to suffer. Phenomena like racism show that it is perfectly possible to understand that someone can suffer pain, and yet for their pain not to matter in the way ours does. Our pain is something which degrades us, theirs is not. We can rise to or fall from our suffering with nobility or disgrace, they merely endure it as a mute animal does. Faced with death, we are a soul in the balance like Riderhood, they merely perish like a pot plant. The point here is that moral appeals to suffering or death or rationality or flourishing have moral heft only when we already care about the person concerned, when we already see them as precious creatures who cannot be treated in certain ways. So if we don’t care, those appeals cannot be used to lever us into caring. As Christopher Cordner has said, we do not care about people because they can suffer and be rational and so on; we care about their suffering and their rationality because we care about them. The truth, I think, is that the disenchanted outlook is already disenchanted with life itself, and to some extent jaded and world-weary. Or if that is too strong, its adherents are at least always looking for a justification of life, a rationale for it – like “progressing” it all the time – as if we needed this to give us a right to enjoy the world. The disenchanted view struggles to see the world as a gift we can happily accept, falling in love with no limits and with no escape clauses attached. In the love Chesterton describes we are in it for rich or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part. That is why we cannot desecrate the bodies of our loved one because they might be useful; why indeed we have the very concept of desecration. Let me finish with Chesterton again: The world is not to be justified as it is justified by the mechanical optimists; it is not to be justified as the best of all possible worlds. Its merit is not that it is orderly and explicable; its merit is that it is wild and utterly unexplained. Its merit is precisely that none of us could have conceived such a thing, that we should have rejected the bare idea of it as miracle and unreason. It is the best of all impossible worlds. (Charles Dickens) Andrew Gleeson is a retired Australian philosopher. He is the author of ‘A Frightening Love: Recasting the Problem of Evil’ (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2012).

After my last post about the paradox in AI control, something struck me: Why are we so desperate to maintain control even when we acknowledge our own limitations? It's not just fear. There's something deeper in our panic about AI alignment. Every time we try to define "human values" to instill in AI, we run into our own contradictions. We can't even agree on basic human rights or agree how to address existential crises yet we think we can codify the perfect ethical framework for superintelligence?But here's where it gets interesting: What if this very struggle, this impossible task we've set for ourselves, is revealing something crucial about our role in what's coming? Consider how our immune system works. It doesn't control threats through central planning. It adapts and responds, often in ways our conscious mind couldn't possibly manage. Maybe our conscious control isn't always the best answer, even for our own systems. When you look at our AI alignment efforts, you see something fascinating: We're essentially documenting every way human cognition falls short. Every bias we want to prevent, every limitation we want to transcend, every failure mode we want to avoid, it's like we're creating a perfect catalog of why we need something that can think beyond our limitations. In trying to create our perfect child, we're actually writing a detailed manual of why that child needs to grow beyond us. Maybe that's exactly what we're supposed to be doing...not succeeding at control, but documenting precisely why and how we need to be transcended. What if our panic isn't pointless? What if it's part of the process?

Win Win And Win Lose Posted on December 6, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, elites have an idealist mindset of win lose. The idea of win win is alien to them. When speaking of the Ukraine war, all those with the public’s ear can say is, “Ukraine needs bargaining chips to force concessions from Russia.” Which shows a complete lack of understanding of human nature. There are things Russia wants more than winning a war, that’ll saddle it with responsibilities it doesn’t have the wealth or manpower, to squander on. Our elites however, can only think in a binary way… win lose. No matter how many lives it costs, they must be spent, to get that bargaining chip… so they can win more concessions. Win lose also applies to matters public as well as international. The government must always win and the public must lose in every interaction. Illustrating the weakness of government. Idealists think in terms of win lose, while pragmatists think in terms of win win. Government however, is an arena where win lose is the norm, and so it draws those with that mindset. Idealists for example. People who are binary in their thinking. There’s an ideal and then there’s everything else. To them, only the ideal is allowable, even if achieving it kills everyone on Earth. The idealist mindset allows one to believe an ideal is worth any atrocity. Meanwhile, a pragmatist seeks to gain, even if the other side gains… and if not gaining at least cut the losses. A pragmatists keeps a foot behind to catch herself if the rope lets go. While an idealist pulls with both feet forward. If the rope breaks or the load suddenly releases, the pragmatist catches herself, while the idealist goes flying. Elites that have to win at any cost are willing to bleed a nation dry of its youth…while capitalists, who must be pragmatic, cut their losses. The idealists that run our nations have goals that must be met. Whether or not those goals make any sense in the real world. They’re ideals and as such must be striven for. Without hesitation. The goal of socialist equality of outcome is just such an ideal. Equality of outcome, (an ideal) flies in the face of the Pareto distribution, (a law of nature). Making socialism, communism and fascism all idealist dreams, that can never come true in the real world. Instead, their implementation results in human suffering, far exceeding even the state of nature itself. If a lion chases you down and eats you, it’s not personal, but going to a Gulag is. The win win mindset is a profit based system of thought. It seeks to maximize profit at cost to later losses. While a con may make a ton of money today, it pollutes the well for later interactions, an unaccounted for loss. Even as a good salesman will sweeten the well for later sales. Which means his sales rise over time, while a scammer eventually goes to jail or is beat to death. A swindler maybe an extreme illustration. What about a used car salesman? You buy a jalopy from him and find the odometer has been turned back. How many future sales can he expect from you? That’s the acme of a win lose mindset. What about a different used car salesman, who gives you a good deal, fixes a minor flaw without question or charge, and sends you birthday cards? Would you buy another car from him? Three kinds of people need to win, idealists, bureaucrats and toddlers. If they don’t win… they throw a fit. Moreover, if you don’t lose, they feel cheated. Idealists are driven by emotion instead of reason. Yet use reason to rationalize their emotionally driven actions. People with a win lose mindset can only succeed in government and monopoly. Every other arena of adventure breaks the idealist. They thrive in government however. Becoming the elites that ruin the world. Win win is utterly foreign to an elite. Like cutting your losses after a bad investment. Idealists go all in. Falling prey to the sunk cost belief. That’s why nations go to war, and we go to court, or cut our losses. We’re pragmatic while nations are idealist. Which is why, pragmatically… government must be limited. Sincerely, John Pepin

Let's be honest. Nobody wants to read about why human limitations might be features rather than bugs. It goes against everything we've built our civilization on: human supremacy, endless improvement, maintaining control. Even our counterculture narratives usually center on humans ultimately prevailing, just in a different way. That's what makes the AI control debate so revealing. Watch how people react when you suggest that maybe we're not supposed to maintain control. You'll see everything from anger to accusations of defeatism to elaborate explanations of how humans will always remain on top. It's fascinating how we'll acknowledge we're destroying our planet, can't solve basic coordination problems, and keep making the same mistakes... but suggest we might be stepping stones rather than the pinnacle of evolution and watch the defensive barriers go up. I get it. I struggle with it too. It's one thing to criticize humanity (we all love doing that). It's another to suggest our very flaws might be serving a purpose we're not in charge of. That's the kind of idea that gets prophets killed and philosophers ostracized. But here's the thing: Our desperate resistance to this idea might be exactly what proves its relevance. Nothing triggers our defense mechanisms quite like suggesting they're defense mechanisms. Look at how we handle any discussion of AI that doesn't center on human control. We'll accept almost any framework except one that suggests we're not the final word in consciousness. Maybe that's why this conversation feels dangerous, it's not attacking humanity, it's suggesting something worse: that we might be perfectly fulfilling our role by failing to maintain control.

Appeal To Popularity Posted on November 29, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the most pernicious fallacy, is appeal to popularity. Edward Bernays liked to exploit that little trick to manipulate people. He used it to con women into smoking, and wearing bras. Even as the new propagandists have manipulated women into eschewing families, and loving abortion. The Covid vaccine is pushed by appeal to popularity. Appeal to popularity is so powerful since we’re social animals. Being social we want to fit in. So if we detect the crowd is going a certain way, we follow, else risk being left behind. This is so ingrained that we are manipulated by it… and we are. Being undetected and effective it’s pernicious. So it’s not likely to go anywhere soon. Making it important for us to become immune to the fallacy of appeal to popularity. When a thing is pernicious, it’s hard to get rid of. Long Covid could be called pernicious Covid. Another example is Herpes, which is a pernicious disease, as is appeal to popularity. They’re all hard to get rid of. Appeal to popularity is probably the worst. Because herpes dies with the patient, and long Covid eventually goes away, but appeal to popularity will outlast us all. Because it’s used by us all and will be used until time ends. Being so effective and so often hidden. Knowledge is defense. Realize that the popular thing may not be the right thing nor the most profitable means. Like smoking, just because everyone does it, doesn’t make it smart. The answer then, is to inure oneself to appeal to popularity, so we aren’t as effected by it. Dulling its teeth. Appeal to popularity was used to glamorize smoking in the 1930s, and to discourage smoking in the 1980s. When the popular girls all smoked, all the girls smoked, and when the popular girls stopped, all the girls stopped. Because we often act as a herd. Not everyone. Some are more like cats than dogs or cows. The highly independent, disagreeable and hermit types, tend to go the opposite direction from the crowd. They think for themselves… for better or worse. Because, while appeal to popularity is a fallacy, there is safety in numbers. Even a wrong decision that kills a bunch of people, probably won’t kill you, if the crowd is big enough. Individualists like Dick Proenneke are rare people. Their risks are their own as are the rewards and dangers. Had nuclear war broken out… he would have barely noticed. There’s safety in fitting in too. Scientists were studying zebras back in the day. The trouble is, they couldn’t identify one long enough to get meaningful data… so they painted one. Then the lions ate it. So they marked another… which the lions immediately ate. Eventually, the scientists figured out individual zebras must blend in to the crowd, so lions cant pick one out. Marking them so one stood out was a death sentence. In some ways we’re like zebras. There are innumerable adages about how high nails are pounded down, the dangers of sticking your neck out, and rocking boats. Even as others urge us not to follow crowds, think for ourselves, and the dangers of jumping off bridges, just because everyone else is. Which means, we need to be zebras sometimes and John Gault others. Wisdom is recognizing when we should be Dick Proenneke, and head out alone into the wilderness, and when we should blend into the crowd. Though at no time should we allow ourselves to be manipulated by appeal to popularity. No one manipulates us for our good, they manipulate us for their good. That’s as close to the kind of universal the Taoists hate as is possible. The way to do that is by keeping perspective. Try to take a bird’s eye view of the dialogue in the media, the marketplace and at work. There’s always manipulation. Practice looking for it is a good exercise in recognizing it. So we don’t get manipulated. Because cons only work when the Mark is unaware. Learn to be aware and the swindle of appeal to popularity won’t work on you. Be a zebra or a John Gault when it serves you. Sincerely, John Pepin