Scholar

God as defined as existence. It will just be denied that God has the properties that you attribute to him, namely Love, Intelligence and so forth. Can God choose not to create eternal separation and suffering? Would that not deny his Infinitude?

I am assuming you're an american. You guys are naive and gullible in a way that is just awe-inspiring in it's horror. He isn't saying this out of compassion, but because he knows this will appeal to people like yourself. Because you are easily manipulated, easily fooled. This post undermines every single thing you have ever said on this forum in how profoundly it recontextualizes your intelligence.

In this conversaiton, around the chapter "Defining Happiness", the individual from the Research Institute for Qualia makes the point that a world in which all of us existed in a simulation which stimulated our "Well-being" neurons would be a good world, that such a world is desirable. This view is justified through a certain view of what Meaning is. It is stated that we seek Meaning because it provides us with a positive mental state, so in the end, if you changed the agent such that you stimulate that state directly, they would be perfectly satisfied, and on the contrary, perfectly unsatisfied and feel deeply meaningless due to the stimulation of that area of the brain. All of this is true, however, the conclusion that then follows from this, that a world in which we did nothing but stimulate our meaningcenters to be blissfully meaningful, is a good world, is where the researcher plays a little utilitarian trick on us. It's an assumption that just because this is how the human mind works, it is therefore desirable to maximize that which the human mind seeks. And this assumption is false because it neglects the very reason for why things are sought, and that is ones own nature. It is ones nature that determines what one finds meaningful and what one finds not meaningful. It is trivial to say that, by adjusting ones nature, one is therefore also adjusting what will give one the experience of meaning and pleasure. If I changed your brain to enjoy and find deeply meaningful the torture children, then that is of course what you would find deeply meaningful. But there is no "ought" in the universe that tells us that positive sensation must be maximized, and that such a world would be desirable or good. The universe moves completely outside of the need for pleasure. Atoms move, evolution moves, and the human mind moves, without the necessary presence of pleasure at the end of that motion. And that is because of the nature of reality, which is what determines the motion of all things in the first place. The human mind does move towards pleasure, but it also moves towards other things as they relate towards it's own nature. And there is a deep metaphysical blindspot here, in that the utilitarian assumes that because the nature of the human mind is such that it inevitably is pulled towards positive states and pushed away from negative states, that therefore the world ought to be structured under the maxim of hedonism, because that is what the human mind does anyways. The conclusion of this view is that a world ought to be created devoid of nature, that the positive state in of it self ought to be maximized, even if it contradicts our nature. But that is not the purpose of the universe. The universe's purpose is found in it's complete nature, in the motion of every atom. In that way the human nature is an extention of Divine nature. The "meaning" of life is life itself, exactly as it is, and exactly as it will transform itself. It is self-justifying. What this means is that hedonism is not the inevitable conclusion of evolution, as is assumed by the researcher. He believes if human beings were maximally rational, that they would inevitably conclude that pure hedonism is the logical way of expression, the path of least resistance and therefore the way reality will express itself. But reality will not express itself bound by some false, logical maxim he established, but instead by the nature of what it is. The way humanity will express itself will relate to it's nature, and in that way, if we find the idea of simply sitting in a soup of pleasure until the heat-death of universe occurs as meaningless, then that is not how we will express ourselves. There is something far deeper transpiring here that goes beyond mere human nature, beyond mere, simplistic psychological accounts. The mistake committed here is that one has assume that the nature of the human mind is to seek pleasure, rather than part of the nature of the human mind being that it is pulled towards pleasure, and that positives states are a foundational way in which our nature fulfills itself. But the nature is what is fundamental, as a complete phenomenon. Especially on a collective level it will not be reducible to a simple hedonistic account of the brain. This does not mean that the hedonistic server farm is not the end-point of this civilization. It could be, who knows. The point is that the nature of the universe is far deeper than that. Evolution dictates that, even if 999 out of 1000 civilizations become hedonistic server farms, one of them will continue in a way that explores the infinity of reality in a different way, just by the nature of random expression (which is the only way infinity can fully discover itself). There are more superficial points to be made, in relation to the impossibility of transcending ones own nature completely (by adjusting ones nature one will eventually lose the very drive that sought the adjustment, meaning the maintaining of the adjustment requires stability, which requires a rigidity in ones own nature, which translates into ignorance), but that would be for another conversation.

Jesus didn't exist in the way you think he did. If you do believe such nonsensical fairy tales, how can you expect to be truthful? He is a story, a story that was turned into a system of control by the roman empire. That's all Christianity fundamentally is. The perverse nature of religions like Christianity is that they take the gift of the Kingdom of Heaven and sell it to you for gold to enrich themselves. You don't need the pope, the catholic church, or these religious systems to take what is within you.

This is exactly what is going on in China as we speak. It's just stage blue nationalism. There are chinese scientists who make the case that mankind originated from China rather than africa. It's similar to how the Russian nationalists will claim that ancient greece was a product of russian culture. It gives legitimacy to imperialistic and superiority thinking.

Bro what is going on with these nazis. They are talking about racism as if it was some sort diet trend, calling it "being racial". It's like some sort of skit, how is this even real.

You don't get to lock a thread because you don't enjoy being confronted with the truth.

If I talked to a nazi from germany during the holocaust, I would not take his opinion seriously, especially if he was as blatant in his ignorance as you are. The fact that you are native makes you more bias, not less. It makes you more prone to delusion and self-deception, and less informed given you have a clear identity build around the idea that this regime is something that you want it to be. This is just self-deception.

You self-serving lies and delusions will bring nothing but suffering.

You are delusional.

Ah yes, that has aged so well.

What is this standard? Congratulations, you are more educated than a stone-age neanderthal. Is that really the way we measure reason? The people around you are so stupid Leo you don't even understand how profoundly degenerated US culture is, in all regards.

That is not impressive given this his literally his job. He is not a very robust thinker.

Doesn't take much to be one of the smartest progressives. The guy is still a baffoon.

A lot of people accuse progressives of being extreme without understand why they hold such extreme positions in the first place. I will keep this short, but the problem is pretty basic, if we take immigration as an example: If there is a certain group immigrating the country, conservatives will seek to stop that immigration from happening. To do so, they will use arguments that the immigrants are, for example, more likely to commit crime. Now, this could be a reality, but the problem is that the progressive cannot ever admit that (assuming that it was true that immigrants cause more crime) this is a reality because as soon as they did, they would validate the extreme position of the conservatives. The conservatives just need an excuse to ban immigraiton, and even if it was a 2% higher instance of crime, all of them would rally behind that number and feel justified to ban immigrants. So what the progressives have to do is deny reality. They cannot ever admit that the higher instance of crime exists, because they know this might convince the masses of anti-immigration policy. And this applies to everything we see. Trans issues: Conservatives will basically use anything as a boogeyman to severely restrict these issues. The risk of a false positive among a trans person to them would justify taking away all trans treatments for adolescence, therefore progressives must deny any significant risks of false positives among individuals who identify as trans. Abortion: Progressives do not admit that abortion can ever be immoral, it is always "My body my choice", even if the child is already fairly developed, because conservatives use any amount of risk to a child as reason to ban all of abortion. This leads to the extremist position that all abortion must be legal. Islamophobia: Conservatives will use any negative aspect of islam to justify severe discrimination against muslim individuals, as well as banning individuals from immigrating from war zones. This leads to progressives denying all problems with islam, staunchly opposing even feminists who criticize islam for it's patriarchal attitudes. Gender Identity: Progressives will accept any gender construct because conservatives use the same reasons that mock "Cat-Gender" as they use to mock completely valid identities like non-binary or transgender. This leads them to view any resistance to any gender construct as deep discrimination, radicalizing them in the acceptance for all sorts of genders. Consanguinamory rights: Progressives will radically accept any incestuous relationship, even between parent and child, and deny problematic dynamics, because conservatives will dishonestly deploy "power dynamics" or "social cohesion" arguments to justify their persecution of cousin and sibling relationships, even though these standards are blatantly unreasonable. This leads to progressive denying the potential risks of such relationships entirely, because any admission will give credence to the inhumane treatment such minorities experience by conservatives. Notice that the conservatives then use the extermism of the progressives to justify their staunchly conservative stances. "Well, clearly we can see where all of this is going, if we allow them an inch, they will degenerate and leave us into the end of civilization!". But this is literally a self-fullfilling prophecy. The progressives have such difficulty ever admitting problems in their object of activism because the conservatives apply completely unreasonable standards to those problems. A single terrorist attack justifies banning people coming from a war zone entirely. A single misidentified transgender person justifies going back to mocking the idea of transgenderism as degenerate. A single person who goes by "catgender" justifies dismissing the entire idea of non-traditional genders. A single immoral or unreasonable abortion justifies banning all of abortion. A single toxic relationship between two siblings justifies imprisoning and publically shaming all of them. So the progressives have it difficult here because they have to fight the urge to become extreme, which is not easy when the other side will exploit any problem with their causes to frame them as degenerate.

It's the shift, in the US, from a dominant blue to a dominat orange culture. Green is more collectivist and restrictive on freedoms, like blue was, and orange is generally for liberty. But it's a bit more complicated than that.

After Leo told you.

When do we get the Leo cult monkeys who book you appearances on JRE?

You only say this because Leo said it.

Americans are pretty much the most vile, selfish and delusional out of all developed nations.

That's because women generally are raised to be children.

This is what is most dangerous about the current political environment in the US: The presidency is no longer an expression of the will of the electors, but rather, the President has become the one who has full control over the will of the electors. This is what is so dangerous. MAGA-supporters don't have any real stance, principles, values other than following Trump. At this point it's true to an absurd, carricature level. Trump could literally do anything, and not only will his followers accept it, they will fully support it and fit what Trump is doing into the value system, that in fact they are in radical support of what he is doing. This is a cult of personality. Trump could have literally pissed into Zelenskies tea and told him during the interview, told him that he will now fully support Russia because Zelensky is a bitch, arrested Zelensky live on TV and drawn a penis on his forehead, and then send him back to Ukraine, or in fact even Russia, via boat. He could have done all of this and suddenly all his MAGA supporters would be pro-russia. He could say that he wants to make friendship with China and invite them to restructure their entire government, so that peace and prosperity can be achieved such as the CCP has achieved it, and he could easily get away with it and all his MAGA would support and love him for how amazing of a leader he is. The guy is basically one step away from becoming a US version of Xi.

Trump is extorting Ukraines position right now to extract a robber-baron mineral theft deal from him, basically blackmailing Ukraine that if he will not sign his deal, he can "fight alone", which will mean Russia just takes over Ukraine. The US has contributed less than the EU, and especially for the size of their economic their contribution is one of the lowest overall proportionally speaking. The US has never supported Ukraine in a full way, and if it had, the situation on the ground might look different right now. Right now the goal is literal survival of the Ukrainian state and it's sovereignty. The plan is to stop holding back on the aid and actually supporting them so they can position them selves better for potential future peace offer, or wait for the Russian state to collapse in it's current form, which is inevitable given the amount of pressure on the economy. They don't have infinite reserves.

THe news sources are trash because the humans that watch news are trash, that's literally 99% of the problem.