Chris Olah speaks at the Vatican! What a time to be alive!
Pope apologizes for Vatican's role in legitimizing slavery
- "a series of 15th-century directives from the Vatican authorized Portuguese sovereigns to conquer Africa and the Americas and enslave non-Christians"
- In 1452, for example, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which gave the Portuguese king and his successors the right “to invade, conquer, fight and subjugate” and take all possessions — including land — of “Saracens, and pagans, and other infidels, and enemies of the name of Christ” anywhere.
- The bull also gave the Portuguese permission “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”
- A Jesuit priest has written on slavery in the church in All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church
NYU prof Jeff Sebo thinks AI is conscious. Cites this paper: 2411.00986
- "Computational functionalism is the hypothesis that some class of computations suffices for consciousness"
- "It is by no means obvious that any of these theories are correct, especially in their stronger versions. Our claim is not that they are correct, but only that there is a realistic possibility that one of them is correct."
- they see consciousness as an emergent property, even from pure matter: "it may be that increased cognitive capacity tends to bring about consciousness, in both biological and digital systems."
- David Chalmers: "I think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have a credence over 50 percent that we’ll have sophisticated LLM+ systems (that is, LLM+ systems with behavior that seems comparable to that of animals that we take to be conscious) with all of these properties73 within a decade. It also wouldn’t be unreasonable to have at least a 50 percent credence that if we develop sophisticated systems with all of these properties, they will be conscious. Those figures would leave us with a credence of 25 percent or more [emphasis ours]"
- some believe the desire-satisfaction theory of welfare (preferentism) extends to non-conscious beings
- Why might these kinds of agency suffice for moral patienthood? First, intentional agents are potentially welfare subjects. 80 It seems plausible that when you have desires, your life goes better for you when your desires are satisfied and worse for you when your desires are frustrated. Moreover, the satisfaction or frustration of desires can benefit or harm you whether or not you consciously experience them.81 On some views, this is why we can be posthumously harmed, for example.82 And while some people think that desire-satisfaction and desire-frustration matter only for conscious beings, others think that they matter for non-conscious beings as well, and so animals with desires deserve moral consideration whether or not they can consciously experience pain, for instance.83
- Reflective agency, particularly in its propositional form, then adds the ability to have desires about our own desires, which is at the root of some conceptions of free will, the self, and personal identity.84 Specifically, our desires become “ours” in a new sense when we endorse them through reflection.
#newage #psychedelics
current thoughts on psychedelics (sent to a friend):
yooo lol i do remember saying that 😂 idk if they are literally demonic or not but i’ve been much more skeptical of their goodness recently. my take is this:
- psychedelics seem to have some documented miraculous healing effects on people with addiction, depression, etc. i definitely cannot say they don’t have individual benefit. they reduced my anxiety by a lot first time i did them and was probably the happiest and most awe-inspiring time of my life
- the cure, imo, can be considered “demonic” in that it can trap you in a certain psychedelic worldview, where you need to be accessing that regularly and that it is some state of enlightenment, compared to which the rest of the world seems quite mundane
- healthy cures for the same issues are usually harder but (as you prolly know) involve community support, family, adapting to work one enjoys, etc. these cures are slow burn, but long lasting, sustainable, and usually lead to a very stable and grounded happiness and fulfillment through old age
- most people i meet who were seduced by psychedelics early on either burn out and start to hate them (one guy in my church used to be an sf ayahuasca hippie then in his old age converted to catholicism and now thinks it’s demonic, i know another old guy in santa cruz who seems ultra depressed after making psychedelics his life for so many decades), or they think they’re enlightened but have bad conduct (ram dass). i think they’ve slipped into some kind of delusion
- i can’t actually say if the plant itself is demonic or not. but after much exploration of the spiritual world i’m quite confident that temporary results are often REAL but not always an indicator that the thing is good. actually, temporary results can be the worst kind of trap. it’s like being charmed by a narcissist into an abusive relationship.
- and so the way i judge things like mushrooms is to ask: what are the people that are devoted to mushrooms like at 70? what are psychedelic therapists like at 70? does it sit well with me?
- honestly bro if i met people who were really into psychedelics that i really liked i could change view, but they’re always off bro 😂 we gotta ask why that is
- some normies definitely do it once or twice and are like yeah that was awesome psychedelics are good. and they don’t think about them much. these people will say i’m being too paranoid. but i would say they just have a healthy balanced life that protects them from getting seduced into anything weird. i’m skeptical of them. did they really need to do psychedelics? so many people achieve happiness in other ways. why take the risk with that path seeing where the enthusiasts end up? i think for these people psychedelics just add a lot of entropy to their thinking so they’re able to settle into a new better state. usually they aren’t the types to say that psychedelics was the best experience in their life, which makes me think it wasn’t necessary for them. like haven’t they already found sober ways to shake things up? intense experiences? travel?
- only exception: it’s always possible tho that some people really DO need them and it’s only good for them. like for cluster headaches. if mushrooms are a cure they should definitely do them. it’s efficacy for cluster headaches and bad addictions where people do it once and don’t really make a worldview out of it is what’s preventing me from calling it wholly bad. but there are def serious risks, mainly around changing your whole orientation towards life and going full commitment-less burner hippie, that are very under discussed
jainism
Jains see nature as fundamentally violent. All life sustains itself by destroying another life. The saint rejects this violence by fasting unto death.
It is such an interesting and surprisingly attractive position. I think I grew with it running subconsciously in my mind. The Tamil epic, Cilapathikaram was written by a Jain monk, and, according to the major translator, Parashastry, Tamil epics are distinguished from those of other cultures by their nonviolence. The Jain view is mixed into the group soul.
Another interesting tidbit: Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, operated at the same time period as the Buddha. Jainism, too, was part of the axial age!
Also, Jainism is fundamentally pluralist! "Anekantavada". They believe reality is multiplexed, that multiple worldviews are possible and do not compete. This is less violent than believing in one truth.
They were also communist! Not believing in personal property! And so the progressive, environmentalist left is actually tending more and more towards Jainism!
But surely Jainism can't be accurate. Why should God create us only for us to fast unto death? Why should God create all of nature in this way only for it to be crude and barbaric and evil? Surely the principle of life nourishing itself out of life cannot be bad in itself. I must re-orient towards the idea of sacrifice. Accepting the sacrifice of other life and sacrificing myself in turn instead of rejecting it as something that should never have to happen.
In some sense, every action is killing another possibility, another potential.
Let me try to approach tasks I think are wasting my time with an attitude that cultures in the liberal arts (at least grammar, logic, and rhetoric) that I wish to culture.
There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out
-- CS Lewis
The person who loves a sport, who plays it for it's own sake, will always be more "serious" about it that the serious man who drills it for an ulterior purpose: health, fitness, coordination, athleticism.
-- CS Lewis
the most natural act is to create something in the likeness of oneself (aristotle)
this random ap physics teacher in vermont is a gem: How to Be an Evil Genius
#politics
bipartisan housing bill
- pattern books of pre-approved housing designs for quicker approvals
- some deregulation around building requirements (unrequire permanent chasis on manufactured homes and environmental reviews for "homes built in the gaps between existing buildings"
- groups owning more than 350 homes (how'd they decide 350...) can't buy more single-family homes
- weirdly, NPR says "corporate landlords have become a sort of bipartisan boogeyman", implying NPR thinks there is nothing wrong with one fund owning corporate landlords?
- looking into it, it seems the "blackstone buying homes is causing all our problems" view might be overblown. they own .06% of housing stock (60k single family homes, 210k other units). which is non-trivial, but not a root cause.
- institutional investors own 3% of single-family rentals
- certain cities have disproportionate amounts of institutional real estate: atlanta (25%) and jacksonville (21%)
- npr says estimated 4 MILLION unit gap between demand and supply. is that real? that's insane. is that just family demand or investor demand? there are only 133.6m households in the us. so that's a 3% gap.
honor, thumos: hamilton said fame is the ruling passion of noble minds. agreed with [[Xunzi]] in this sense. it is a natural passion that is good to embrace as long as you are famous FOR admirable qualities
how do christians approach this?
#newage #sadhguru #hinduism
anton wisbiski
- his experience with dr joe was largely positive. most of his experiences were positive. had the standard new age experiences of divine bliss, astral travel, psychic powers. but it prevented him from living normal life. got too sensitive. too overwhelmed.
- he even got super rich after his kundalini awakening
- you can create your life without manipulating reality.
- this isn't an argument against the new age in itself. even sadhguru says you need a guru. but, it is definitely an argument against dr. joe, and how it is presented. it is not just for everyone to do. people can go insane. it seems not right to just give people experiences via a youtube video or retreat without deep, serious, cautions. that breaks dr joe's ethos in my mind.
- he also has personal issues with the morality of his clients (i assume dispenza and tony robbins)
- he also admits that despite all the love and light talk, he and others were very selfish (checks out with my experience)
- "nagas are physical beings that visited planet earth and gave people knowledge" - look into this
- joe dispenza is inherently hindu via the kundalini yoga connection (agreed)
- the serpent in hinduism is the same as the serpent in adam and eve
- kundalini yoga is very unstable and dangerous, even according to sadhguru himself
- jesus came down to earth, as 'low frequency'. joe dispenza says to see these magical beings you must raise your frequency.
- anton says it becomes harder and harder to live a normal life if you're mystical, but joe dispenza seems to do it, but at the same time, it's easy for gurus because their whole thing is being spiritual
- he has a great example of sadhguru misquoting Mark 16:17-18. importance of checking everything. sadhguru said Mark was talking about how drinking the blood of a snake from the left side gives you healing powers. this is a gross distortion that breaks any ethos sadhguru had left in my mind. the healing powers of the apostles comes from jesus. if it were from snakes, that would be in the tradition.
- all of this is 'serpent worship' according to anton, he has a convincing case
- talks about the donny epstein healer.
- exorcists have exorcised the kundalini demon (this is a great point)
- anton says his psychic gifts went away after being christian.
- "if there was any negative energy, it would be so overwhelming to me"
- this is my inheritance as a hindu...
- great point on tony robbins: tony and his wife identify as christian and his wife wears a serpent ring on his finger
- god makes it obvious for christians who want to follow the straight and narrow
- all of this is deceptive. serpents are deceptive. this is not christian.
- strengthens the shiva-lucifer connection pointed out by steiner. but steiner is also demonic because he does not think lucifer is necessarily bad. he just thinks the light of knowledge needs to be balanced out (like dustin diperna pre-daughter). true christians reject all mystical searching for hidden knowledge. there is only serving jesus, and the knowledge that comes from that. as soon as you try to know more than you need to know, in order to transcend earthly misery (yogis, the buddha) you are succumbing to the temptation of the snake. the only true healer and consoler is jesus. otherwise, you are susceptible to create your own reality that makes you feel good. this is exactly what satan / lucifer do. constructing their own reality that they believe to be better than gods reality.
#psychotherapy
conrad baars: emotional deprivation disorder
- his antidote: affirmation therapy
- sent to concentration camp
- catholic
- affirmation is a state of being.
- we cannot discipline people for their emotions. discipline actions, not emotions.
- how to reconcile this with the words of the saints? who constantly berate themselves?
- calvin: grace covers up a dunghill. catholic understanding: grace sanctifies us from the inside out.
"I will remove their hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh. Thus they will be my people, and I will be there God." (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
The basis of the spiritual life is feeling the presence of Gods goodness, which then leads to joy.
With out the faith that things are actually good, with the faith that God is real, I cannot open myself up.
"all good" is actually epic slang. very deep
When I meditate on “love your neighbor as yourself”, it creates an inclusive feeling that I think is the true goal of Sadhgurus love meditation, also on inclusiveness
But here, the first commandment follows the second: love the lord god with all your heart, soul, and mind. The inclusive attitude comes simply from meditating on gods word.
If we love one another, Jesus will lay down his life for us.
John 15:15 validates the church and the apostolic tradition: “for all I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.” No secret knowledge.
professor jiang believes in the gospel of Thomas.
Catholic answers cites the last verse to debunk it:
https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Gospel%20of%20Thomas%20Lambdin.pdf
“Simon Peter said to them, ‘Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven’” (Thomas 114).
it seems no apostle would say this. And the early church fathers noted and spoke against false gospels.
A possible related saying, quoted by 2 Clement, is
For the Lord Himself, being asked by a certain person when his
kingdom would come, said, When the two shall be one, and the
outside as the inside, and the male with the female, neither male
or female.
But this is very, very, different than what’s in the gospel of Thomas. “Females don’t deserve life…”
also comically frustrating that new agers who have never looked at the gospel of Thomas keep referencing it as if it’s some progressive new age gospel and it ends on this verse.
Other problems
- Thomas hides knowledge from the other apostles (13) (gnostic coded, contradicts the verse in John I just read)
this 'harvard trained feminist theologian' who writes mary magdalene fanfic loves the gospel of thomas too: Instagram
she actually has a masters in theology from harvard. what is going on there. these people are frauds #marymagdalenerevealed
people eat up these chatgpt ass substacks: 🕯️ The Gospel They Couldn’t Burn
- "Before you vanish back into the illusion—smash that LIKE or SHARE button like it’s a temple gong"
Just keep moving your hands. Just keep going. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
#newage
anton wibiski: worked for joe dispenza, now thinks aliens are actually demonic beings
- how can those big blue healing beings be demons?
- fr marie verlinde says even the healing spirits that were literally healing people's burn wounds were demons. the test is if they hate christ.
#aliens
this guy sam shamoun, popular with catholics, making videos on how some hindu gods are aliens: Aliens Are NOT What You Think… You NEED To Be Ready for THIS
- psalm 96:5 - the gods of the nations are "elilim". he translates elilim as demons, based on the septuagint, which translates elilim as daimonia.
- hebrew translations like the kjv say "idols" or "nothings"
- it's hard to know if the connotation is truly negative. there is disagreement here between Augustine, who thought the inner voice of socrates was a demon, and the more cosmopolitan church fathers, who believed in the angels-of-the-nations preparing the incarnation of christ.
- apparently a man can summon orbs around his house by mental prayer, and he is being studied by the cia and nasa and the history channel is doing a documentary on him
- recently, two people have told me they've had visions of orange orbs, and that these are their guiding spirits.
- sam argues this is inherently demonic. what is the basis?
- when the person invokes the name jesus christ, the orbs disappear!
- reminds me of my ayahuasca experience, which i still don't know how to make sense of. i thought i was being too paranoid constantly invoking the name of jesus and scaring away these spirits. i believe the sjc vocational director, who told me they were demons. he probably has exorcism experience. yet other people see jesus on ayahuasca. perhaps it is neutral, but just opens one up to make contact.
- the person summoning them says they're peaceful, like all those in the new age, and in healing circles.
- most of jesse michels work too (psychedelics -> ufos pipeline, as was mine...) discusses the peaceful alien agenda of nuclear disarmament (so one can make a "know them by their fruits" argument)
- he makes ufo-india claims
- dr. michael heiser
- believed ufos were "the watchers" of enoch and daniel
- his future prediction: man kind in desperation will turn to aliens as our saviors rather than jesus
- reminds me vaguely of ganapthi swamiji's telling of the tripura rahasya
- 1 Corinthians 10:19-22
- While idols are not true gods, the sacrifices offered to them are made to demons, and Christians must not participate in such acts
- he reads this as saying zeus is not real, but satan manifests as zeus
- reminds me of dr. robert gilbert saying that visualizing a deity creates an elemental being which a larger being (allegedly the benevolent deity) can connect to
- sam would say that benevolent deity is satanic
- he says the appear how you want them to appear to deceive you.
- the aliens hate christianity and give the same ideology as the new age and hinduism
- 100% corroborates my experience with new age healers (ET book, galactic federation channelers, etc)
- 2 Corinthians 11:14 - satan will appear as an angel of light
- he is much more convincing than we give him credit for
- draws a connection between ba'al, jupiter, and zeus (and thus indra). i saw this on reddit r/occult as well.
glp1s are changing people's perspectives on hard work vs. genetics: i dont want to work hard, i just want to live a normal life with a healthy body
- i still think junk food is objectively bad. it's a kind of gluttony and betrays a coarseness. but if you have a hard and stressful life, i think it's more than justified.
- if you don't have a hard life, it's definitely a vice.
but they very much have a point. and i empathize with them because of my own sickly childhood, how hard it was for me to focus on anything or do anything compared to now.
I remember being so angry when the food noise stopped and the inflammation went away before I ever lost weight. Those were two things I didn’t even know I was dealing with until it was gone almost instantly. I had a glimpse of how the other half had been living and was PISSED that I’d been made to think I was somehow psychologically deficient and weak for being fat. The truth was I displayed more mental fortitude and “willpower” my entire life than the naturally thin people who had never counted a calorie or carb because their bodies just worked.
I'm 100% the same! All that you MUST go to the gym AT LEAST 3 x a week and you MUST walk AT LEAST an hour a day and you MUST eat AT LEAST 100 Grams of protein - and on, and on and on. Yet non of my perfectly healthy and healthy weight friends and family, including my husband, follow any of that, and never have.
#history
edmund burke's reflections on the revolution in france
- just hearing the sounds of the audiobook in the background calms me.
- burke argued against Bolingbroke's natural, rational, undogmatic deism. burke was pro-dogma. reason with revelation, not without. he believed artificial institutions like the polis were good, defending them against the first principles rationalism of the french revolution.
- Bolingbroke seems similar to Rousseau: idealizing nature, demonizing society, and disagreeing with Aristotle's view that society is natural
- he writes a satire of bolingbroke's view in a vindication of natural society. murray rothboard (mises school) takes it seriously. unironically. he thinks burke was genuine.
- began as a correspondence between burke and a young man about the political developments in france
#history, #politics
United Nations Charter (full text) \| United Nations
it was only 80 years ago that we did not believe in self-determination. now everyone takes it for granted. the west thought many countries were not yet fit for self rule. even chadhuri, the indian scholar, believed india was not fit for self rule. there's an axis of colonialism / tutelary powers and self-determination that shows up both on the individual and world stages. i wonder if the pendulum will every swing back, or this is one area of lasting and permanent moral progress.
watching the california governor debates after reading the anti-federalist argument that the middle class, not the natural aristocracy, should rule, because they are of the people they represent. even if not everyone is middle class socio-economically (eg steyer), they are all normies. and this makes sense. far ood individuals are not good representatives. they do not live the lives of the people they represent. they do not perceive as others perceive. they are good at systems design, they are good as advisors and think tankers.
gov takes:
xavier berecca seems like an absolute npc. i'm glad everyone's roasting him. perfect fit for Biden's HHS secretary. steve hilton is the most alive and human, but arrogant and lacks nuance, like most trump-aligned conservatives. steyer is the local 3rd gen WASP. he also seems genuine but i'm not sure how effective he'll be. i don't trust Mohan for some reason though the things he says seem fine. i think we should keep him in sj. bianco seems genuine too but he's very much in his law-and-order ideology. he could be a good corrective to the way things have been going but i'm concerned he'd be too harsh or calloused. he'd be good in enforcement but not as governor, i think. i'd vote for hilton over him, since hilton would just deploy him where he needs to be. idk what to make of antonio. he seems like mohan, where he belongs with the community / people he's in. he seems to understand local issues but not larger dynamics. i like katie porter more than most. she seems more thoughtful about policy and seems to know how things work. but she seems quite stressed. on one hand that's good because she cares. on the other hand that interferes with clear thought and decision making.
i like the finnish president, alexander stubb: POWERFUL SPEECH: Finland President Speaks Out on Ukraine, Gaza, & Urgent Need for UN Reform \| AQ1B - YouTube
seems like a fair and straightforward guy. northern europe needs more attention. but raises the question of what values we will have in common.
denmark mink culling absurdity
it looks like denmark, the best vibes country on earth, is shifting right over the immigration issue. i would like to resample copenhagen in five years to see if it had an energetic impact.
#progress
ok, i have the ultimate argument against doomers. who think things never get better. ok. here me out.
motors.
motors have absolutely gotten better. they've gotten smaller, lighter, more efficient, quieter.
much technology is like this.
yes we can argue if cars are good or bad overall. if computers are good or bad overall (though it seems most people who have lived before and after think good (are they too fallen to notice the harms??)) but we cannot argue that cars themselves have not improved in ALL dimensions.
athletes, i think, are similar. in some domains, you can just get better in every dimension with no trade-offs.
i'm quite confident we've made moral progress too. compare the roman colloseum to the ufc. both are barbaric but the former is much, much, more so. that is lasting moral progress.
also, the acceptance of rape. rape was just a part of life in antiquity. people cite sexual violence to say the world is so fallen. and it's true, it is. but back in the day, it wasn't even seen as that bad. we've definitely made moral progress.
#poetics
Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry - Jacques Maritain (helped draft UDHR)
Education at the Crossroads - Maritain
- similar ideologies as Waldorf: how do we cultivate an independent thinker? Aquinas said the teachers instruction is only an assist to the pupils own thinking.
#education
homeschooling history books:
Connecting with History (RC History)
Story of the World (Bauer)
Mater Amabilis™ – A Charlotte Mason Style Curriculum for Catholics - open curriculum that draws on Charlotte Mason
California mayor charged with acting as illegal agent for China - ABC News
- bribed an Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) agent in connection with a plot to target U.S.-based practitioners of Falun Gong — a spiritual practice banned in the PRC
god debunked sex magick and dionysian cults in like 1500 bc. the canaanites worshipped baal via ritual sex, and, if we believe in the book of kings, god called it an abomination
hence i do not take any kind of magdalen manuscript / "jesus did sex magick with mary" seriously
using sex as worship causes all kinds of problems. some catholic priest abusers justified their abuses with some pseudo-spiritual nonsense. everyone thinks they can handle it. everyone thinks they're the exception. osho, sogyal rinpoche, etc. i doubt it bro. you're just regressing
pope benedict xvi addresses this magnanimously in Deus Caritas Est. eros is meant to be refined. one argument for this view is the treatment of the temple prostitutes, which today is the treatment of those abused by false gurus.
"Indeed, the prostitutes in the temple, who had to bestow this divine intoxication, were not treated as human beings and persons, but simply used as a means of arousing “divine madness”: far from being goddesses, they were human persons being exploited. An intoxicated and undisciplined eros, then, is not an ascent in “ecstasy” towards the Divine, but a fall, a degradation of man."
To be yourself is a struggle.
To transcend the ego is the temptation.
Ah, why did I not bear a serpents nest entire,
Instead of bringing forth this hideous child of doom!
Oh cursed be that transient night of vein desire.
When I conceived my expiation in my womb!
- Le Fleurs Du Mal (Cyril Scott Translation), the mother of a poet
Gradient descent metaphor for life:
Do your best where you are. Trust that there are multiple solutions with low loss. Trust that life will perturb you out of suboptimal points.
You don't need to know where the minimum is. You only need to know which way is down. After enough steps, if you're lucky and the landscape isn't too cruel, you end up somewhere with low loss.
By naive intuition, gradient descent on a wildly non-convex surface in millions of dimensions should get stuck constantly in bad local minima and saddle points. It mostly doesn't. The current best understanding is something like: in very high dimensions, most critical points are saddles rather than minima, saddles are escapable with stochastic noise, and the local minima you do reach tend to be roughly equivalent in loss for reasons related to over-parameterization and the geometry of the loss surface.
#architecture
597 buena vista west
It’s not just the open windows, but the alternating square forms in that ratio. A plain floor to ceiling window would be much different. The dividers are doing something. And the blinds open down. Which makes so much more sense, because our heads can peer outside while our bodies, which may be undressed, are hidden. Some people, of course, would rather keep their heads anonymous. I would rather hide my activity.
The slight protrusion gives the impression also of extending into the sidewalk.
It’s funny because in real life it is beautiful, my photo is quite bad, but the redfin photo makes it look like a cheap ski resort motel.
