Donald Trump

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Juicebox360 wrote:

who's to say everything is natural or not? cognition, life, our very existence could simply be the side effect of a simulation designed to solve some kind of equation that we don't even know.

and there may be multiples of these simulations running in tandem, or in chain.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/simulated-world-elon-musk-the-matrix

I don't subscribe to the simulation theory. Once in awhile, when a well known celebrity is in the news as dying - and I remember that the news reported them dead years before, it feels like a simulation for a few moments.

That's just Déjà vu though.

It's like when former Secretary of State Obama was chucked into a van like a side of beef after collapsing from pneumonia during his 2016 I'm with Him campaign to become president. A lot of people watched that video and said that they remembered him being president and Hillary running for president in 2016, but of course that never happened. That is just Déjà vu.

oh, nobody said you had to subscribe to it. we may never ever know. but it is human tendency to see what they know firsthand in what they don't know firsthand - and for me, the concept of modeling video games and video game culture to the world around me is one such application.

you may recall my "fanfic" from months ago. "our items are soulbound, please give solo self-found". i don't really think anyone got the point out of my story. it wasn't about self-found needing to be supported as a disenfranchised playstyle. it wasn't about making fun of people who clamour for ssf.

rather, it was a thought experiment into reality as a simulation, more specifically, as a game.

what if reality was a video game? and, sometimes, people impose limits on themselves, play purposefully gimped playstyles and builds for the challenge.

what if people who are born as minorities in our reality are actually people who "played the game" once or multiple times around as people with privilege and power, then got bored and wanted to "reroll" as people without that level of accessibility?

of course, this would imply that you know "reality" is nothing more than a game, but not while you are in the game itself, which is a bit of a stretch. but then that begs the question - is being born black, or gay, or aneurotypical really a matter of nature, a product of just "being born that way?" or are we inadvertently choosing our own demise?

Believing in the Matrix is like believing in God. Can you imagine an invisible interface which stands as an intermediary between the neural output which moves your limbs and the neural input of your senses, acting as a middleman for reality? Of course you can. You can also believe in an invisible man in the sky who watches your every move and decides what experience you'll have after death. But there isn't a shred of credible evidence for either. Furthermore, if either exists, they seem to have little or no interest in interfering.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Believing in the Matrix is like believing in God. Can you imagine an invisible interface which stands as an intermediary between the neural output which moves your limbs and the neural input of your senses, acting as a middleman for reality? Of course you can. You can also believe in an invisible man in the sky who watches your every move and decides what experience you'll have after death. But there isn't a shred of credible evidence for either. Furthermore, if either exists, they seem to have little or no interest in interfering.

not speaking for the "general simulation" scenario, but for the "video game/interactive simulation", it wouldn't exactly be "matrix" because our own consciences are being controlled by our prime conscience by their own volition, just as you would be controlling a shadow in path of exile.

let's take this "you're playing this shadow" analogy a bit further, shall we?

i see it essentially as highly advanced VR, where the system essentially induces high REM states of dreaming, while constantly feeding it protocoled data that turns the human brain into the graphics card.

and as for that shadow, maybe he's in a softcore league, maybe he's in a hardcore league. so yeah, i guess the invisible person in the sky that's been watching me 24/7 (apparently, but personally, spectres gotta stay alive, so...) and that person's gonna decide my fate. keep sticking on with that lost exp, or maybe reroll anew?

and if the "player" does exist, and not the "character", they would obviously have no interest in "interfering" because they aren't developers, they have no access to the root game/debug menu. though many wish to do so, they can't interfere.

as for the evidence - i did say it was a thought experiment, not "the secret behind life and existence and you should believe my morals and ideals or you're doing everything wrong"

"Rutgers Professor Forced To Undergo Psychiatric Evaluation Over Anti-Trump Tweets"

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/11/16/rutgers-professor-anti-trump-tweets/





Rutgers Teacher: "There Are No Good White People … Only Less Bad White People"

he's right you know

though the solution towards that problem isn't what they suggest

personally, i think "the technology just isn't there yet". give it 20 or 30 more years, and i think we'll start to see these topics disappear. whether that's because it'll evolve into transhumanism, or because we'll start entering a broader, global post-scarcity world that'll start reflecting the internet in form - since people can "live anywhere", you'll start to see more decentralised living situations that essentially form their own microcosms.

2040 queer hippie commune life. you heard it here first!

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DalaiLama wrote:

You choose to disbelieve and live your life as you see fit. I choose to believe and live my life as I see fit.

do you believe in this?

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If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them

Thing is, science backs the shit up with evidence, even on the minisecule level that spieces so unimportant like humans can interpret the "world". That's how it works though. You have a hypothesis, you are doing research, and then you are backing or dismissing said hypothesis. However Every scientist, and and everbody who dismisses religion and beleives in science, is ready to reject everything that we have "found" so far, if new evidence appears. Religious people won't, and that's the big difference.

I can accept religious text as political/philosophical ones, where you can read them, influenced by them and keep the things that are good to you and leave the rest. I mean i do not agree with everything that Nietsce or Sopenhauer are saying, but i can read them and be influenced to some degree by both. There is not that "all or nothing" mentality of religious texts. The biblical form of Jesus, was the creation of Paul, and his text have decent things to say, with very prevalent Aristotelean influences. The Quran has also some decent things in it. But when people interpret these things literally 100%, and you have creationists beleiving that the Earth is 10 000 years old, then there is a problem. However, people stop taking religiously that seriously, is a long proscess and there can be no shortcuts. Stalin forbid it and it did not do him much good. It actually backfired.

Also religious fundamentalism goes hand in hand with the current social structures. Observing Islam through history is the best example. You can see that through the dark ages, Muslims with the first Arab Spring were much more advanced that Christians, and had made great advances in mathematics, medicine etc. Islam was literally the "progressive" religion back then, so go figure. If you fast forward to the 20th century, you can see that back in the 50s, the 60s and the early 70s, women could walk in Iral of all places with mini skirts. There is a speech from a muslim priest back in the 50s(i think) where he preaches about how women must wear hoods, and the audience is literally LAUGHING.

After the West's intervantion there, with all the wars, you can see what happened. I do not beleive that religion is what drives society backwards. I beleive that backwards societies are drawn to religion, and usually there are other social and political reasons for this to happen. As society moves forward and social structures become better, religion takes a backseat, but it is a slow proscess that you cannot rush. Soviets saw that with Afghanistan if anything (back then the US supported religious nuts in the area).

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

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DalaiLama wrote:

You choose to disbelieve and live your life as you see fit. I choose to believe and live my life as I see fit.

do you believe in this?

"

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them

Dancing was prohibited at one time. Eye makeup was prohibited. Eating pork was prohibited. Eating meat on a Friday was prohibited. The understanding of the faith has changed over time.

As a Christian, there are two commandments above any others in the Old Testament:

Matthew: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

As a Catholic, I am also guided by the wisdom of a church that while it does occasionally err, has a longstanding tradition of theological introspection and of trying to reconcile faith and mercy with the world around us. At times, the Church has been far too locked in dogmatism, and as a very large body with a long history, it is exceedingly slow to make formal changes. That doesn't mean that many of the changes the faithful are calling for aren't already implemented or in progress at the level of the diocese.

In this case, we have Pope Francis' words to guide us:

"If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person?"

And how does one go about seeking the Lord? It isn't by public praise, indeed we are repeatedly told that words without deeds are worthless. The answer is very simple and easy to follow:

'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'

Matthew 7 is a good brief overview. For Christians, the New Testament is the Constitution, and the Old Testament is the case law that evolved before the Constitution was made clear.

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Poutsos wrote:

Thing is, science backs the shit up with evidence, even on the minisecule level that spieces so unimportant like humans can interpret the "world". That's how it works though. You have a hypothesis, you are doing research, and then you are backing or dismissing said hypothesis. However Every scientist, and and everbody who dismisses religion and beleives in science, is ready to reject everything that we have "found" so far, if new evidence appears.

Ideally, that's close to the way it is supposed to work. The problem is that it has become so politicized (it was so internally, before any left/right politics came into play) by the powerful personalities, that this is only partially true.

Witness the "Consensus" mantra.

Consensus doesn't mean squat compared to a single repeatable experiment that falsifies the hypothesis. Consensus should never be rolled out as proof, but rather as this is our best understanding of the subject version 4.7 It may have some bugs in the code, but overall, it appears to be functioning well.

Now witness what most people have been taught about the scientific method- the heart of science.

It does NOT start with a hypothesis. It starts with observations. You can certainly use the observations of others. A minor nit, but nonetheless it represents the basic sloppiness of education - where it's ok if the details are fuzzy.

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Poutsos wrote:

There is not that "all or nothing" mentality of religious texts.

While many religions are fairly strict in their interpretations, not all of them are. That was their gift to science. I'd explain further, but doing so once before made one of the GGG mods very angry.

<snipped parts which I mostly agreed with>

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Poutsos wrote:

As society moves forward and social structures become better, religion takes a backseat

Aside from the aspect of what someone's faith means to them personally, the beneficial function of religion is to guide its followers to more cooperative behaviors. When a society is doing much of that already, the push from the religion doesn't need to be as great.

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Poutsos wrote:

, but it is a slow proscess that you cannot rush. Soviets saw that with Afghanistan if anything (back then the US supported religious nuts in the area).

The US wasn't concerned about their religion, they just didn't want the USSR to own Afghanistan and then own Iran (Both for the oil and the access to the gulf).