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       #Post#: 9346--------------------------------------------------
       Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: 90sRetroFan
       Date: October 12, 2021, 5:43 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Progressivism at its most dangerous:
  HTML https://roadtoomega.substack.com/p/savingtheworldwithscience
       --- Quote ---
       >
  HTML https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F015e1bd4-6171-4e94-b43b-4fc9589f21fe_640x459.jpeg
       >
       > It took some time, but we are finally approaching a tipping
       point called a phase transition, which is a spontaneous jump to
       higher order and harmony, or the opposite, a collapse into
       chaos. Obviously the former is better for life than the latter,
       and what we should strive for collectively.
       --- End Quote ---
       I disagree. A collapse would be messy, but at least it offers an
       opportunity for progress to be halted and hopefully even turned
       backwards. It is the jump that is the true danger because it
       will accelerate progress perhaps beyond our power to thereafter
       stop it, as we have long been warning about:
  HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-right/if-western-civilization-does-not-die-soon/
  HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/leftists-against-progressivism/
       Continuing:
       --- Quote ---
       > Since phase transitions are known to occur at “the edge of
       chaos,” the social and political chaos we are experiencing
       currently indicates that such a transition is on the horizon.
       Too much order means a system is rigid and therefore unable to
       adapt or evolve, so an injection of chaos actually provides the
       flexibility the system needs to change its organization. If
       steered in the right direction by a unifying worldview, the
       imminent phase transition will push the social system we call
       civilization toward a state of higher order, control, and causal
       power. This is the goal of the Road to Omega movement, and also
       the goal of the cosmic evolution process, which is
       simultaneously Darwinian (involves natural selection) and
       teleological (goal-directed). The universe moves toward an
       increasingly complex state not because it is being driven to do
       so by some mystical force, but because life learns from its
       mistakes; in other words, progressive evolution proceeds through
       experiment and error-correction.
       --- End Quote ---
       What our enemies call the "cosmic evolution process" is simply
       Yahweh (see below). This is why I call them progressive
       Yahwists. Basically, they not only recognize (as do we also)
       that natural selection is the dominant process in the universe,
       but they (unlike us) are happy that this is the case and want to
       help it along, whereas we consider natural selection to be the
       ultimate tyrant that systematically multiplies those too ignoble
       to see a problem with it (e.g. voluntary reproducers) while
       systematically exterminating those noble enough to despise it
       (e.g. voluntary non-reproducers). They also believe that
       repeatedly eliminating the noble in every generation results in
       improvement, which is only possible if they value ignobility.
       --- Quote ---
       > This theoretical framework, being a merging of prior
       frameworks, is most accurately described as the Evolutionary
       Epistemology-Universal Darwinism-Universal Bayesianism
       (EE-UD-UB) framework, or Poetic Meta-Naturalism for short (an
       adaptation of Sean Carroll’s Poetic Naturalism), and the
       spiritual worldview associated with this framework is known as
       the Cosmic Perspective. This worldview views life as cosmically
       significant. What is the purpose of life in the universe? To
       perpetuate life and mind forever through constant learning and
       adaptation.
       --- End Quote ---
       This is nothing but rebooted Yahweh-worship. As I have
       previously rigorously proven, perpetuation is by definition not
       a purpose. A purpose must have a completion point. Perpetuation
       has no completion point; no quantity of successful perpetuation
       brings the subject any nearer to a condition where further
       perpetuation ceases to be required. That our enemies
       nevertheless claim that this is the 'purpose' of life (by which
       they mean is it is what we should aim for) is testimony to their
       slavishness.
       --- Quote ---
       > As David Deutsch often reminds us, the potential for progress
       and knowledge growth is infinite.
       --- End Quote ---
       Here we see themselves explicitly admit that perpetuation has no
       completion point! Yet they not only see no problem with this,
       they consider this to be good news!
       --- Quote ---
       > However, we should keep in mind that life cannot be separated
       from the universe it inhabits—adaptive complexity spreading
       through space is the cosmos waking up through a recursive
       process of hierarchical (multi-level) emergence called cosmic
       evolution. “You are the universe” may be the title of a Deepak
       Chopra book, but that doesn’t make the statement any less true.
       In his epic book The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil mapped
       out the major stages of the cosmic process in all its glorious
       detail.
       >
       >
  HTML https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F741a0d9f-aeda-4a78-80f9-9be7f892af2f_728x546.jpeg
       --- End Quote ---
       Glorious? What is glorious about this? Only accumulationists
       would find this glorious. Anti-accumulationists (e.g. us) find
       this terrifying!
       --- Quote ---
       > While some might believe this view to be in conflict with the
       almighty second law of thermodynamics—which says an isolated
       system must (on average) grow increasingly disordered—this
       website will show why this new cosmic narrative is in fact
       emergent from the second law. In short, the second law is the
       selection pressure for self-organizing systems, because it
       filters out the unstable configurations and selects the most
       resilient and functional designs. As a result, adaptive
       complexity (aka life as a whole) grows more computationally
       powerful as evolution proceeds, and better able to predict and
       control the world around it.
       --- End Quote ---
       I do not disagree academically with this theory. I just disagree
       with letting it happen unopposed.
       --- Quote ---
       > The founder of evolutionary genetics, Theodosius Dobzhansky,
       famously said “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the
       light of evolution.” Well, the Integrated Evolutionary Synthesis
       says that nothing in biology or evolution makes any sense except
       in the light of thermodynamics and information. It is the need
       to stay out of thermodynamic equilibrium—a state of death,
       decay, and disorder—that forces adaptive complexity to search
       the “design space” for adaptive solutions to the problem of
       survival. Solutions are adaptations that help the system avoid
       threats and extract the energy the system needs to sustain its
       ordered state.
       --- End Quote ---
       We often call these 'solutions' sustainable evils. It usually
       involves anything stronger initiating violence on anything
       weaker (but not to the point of the weaker's extinction, so that
       the violence can continue without end).
       --- Quote ---
       > This search for “fit” configurations is a form of
       trial-and-error learning that occurs through the evolutionary
       algorithm known as variation-and-selection. Through adaptation,
       an evolving biosphere reduces its ignorance or uncertainty about
       all the ways the world can surprise it.
       --- End Quote ---
       Or as we put it, through adulteration, Original Nobility is
       lost. The more we become used to this world as it is, the more
       we are being cut off from the ability to feel how the world
       should be.
       --- Quote ---
       > In other words, the information embedded in biological memory
       (DNA, brains, societies) is knowledge. As life adapts to its
       surroundings, natural selection generates predictive knowledge,
       and recursive self-organization generates increasingly complex,
       resilient, and intelligent cybernetic systems.
       --- End Quote ---
       We call these prisoners increasingly incapable of resistance, or
       eventually even of feeling compulsion to resist (hence slaves).
       --- Quote ---
       >
  HTML https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbce90837-f5d3-49a4-9625-85b5e5f7010b_1774x1136.png
       --- End Quote ---
       This is evolution not towards the 'best' possible design, but
       toward the most survival-oriented possible design. For example,
       if at the "1st generation" "Design 1" for ethical reasons
       refuses to initiate violence in order to extract energy, it will
       be filtered out despite being ethically superior to "Design 4".
       Or if at the "2nd generation" "Design 4a" for ethical reasons
       refuses to initiate violence as part of competition, it will die
       out in competition despite being ethically superior. And so on.
       The notion that "most survival-oriented" = "best" is a
       value-based declaration made by Yahwists and not shared by
       anti-Yahwists.
       (By the way, another word for "energy extractor" is vampire. Are
       vampires the best?)
       --- Quote ---
       > being unapologetic cosmic optimists
       --- End Quote ---
       Here they admit it. They think whatever comes out of the design
       process will be great. We disagree. Whatever comes out will be
       at the very least less capable of Gnosis. (Which is the whole
       point behind Yahweh's process FFS!)
       --- Quote ---
       > ROAD TO OMEGA is also a story about complexity, emergence, and
       collective computation—features of nature that suggest that such
       a revolution could be a natural part of an evolutionary process
       that eventually brings about the emergence of a global brain
       through the creation of an Internet and peer-to-peer technology.
       In the words of Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly, the technological
       trajectory we are on may have been largely inevitable.
       --- End Quote ---
       No, all that would have been needed to evade it completely is if
       Western civilization had been killed several centuries ago. No
       other civilization at the time of the Renaissance was on track
       to independently develop the internet and P2P. Western
       civilization is Yahweh's vehicle.
       We can still evade the present technological trajectory by
       killing Western civilization ASAP. But time is running out.
       --- Quote ---
       > In the context of the decentralization movement, Omega refers
       to a state of hyperconnection among humans that is achievable
       through peer-to-peer technologies that are emerging today, like
       blockchains and decentralized applications (dApps).
       > ...
       > By promoting the emergence of self-organizing social,
       political, and economic networks, decentralization and
       hyperconnection may bring about new levels of order and
       knowledge.
       --- End Quote ---
       I academically agree that decentralization will optimize natural
       selection and hence Yahweh's plan. This is why I support
       autocracy, which is a form of centralization. A sufficiently
       powerful autocracy can temporarily hold off the selective
       pressure of natural selection and even temporarily implement
       alternative selective pressure, thereby temporarily enabling the
       demographic proliferation of genuinely better designs. This is
       National Socialism. These anti-Yahwist designs then have a brief
       time interval available to consciously identify and deliberately
       eliminate Yahweh's preferred progressive designs before natural
       selection reasserts itself (and hence eliminate us). This -
       ensuring evil dies before (or at the same time as) we do - is
       the true purpose of life.
       #Post#: 9358--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: 90sRetroFan
       Date: October 13, 2021, 2:40 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
  HTML https://www.edge.org/conversation/stuart_a_kauffman-beyond-reductionism-reinventing-the-sacred
       --- Quote ---
       > A great divide splits contemporary society between those who
       believe in a transcendent God, and those, including myself, who
       do not.
       --- End Quote ---
       Indeed.
       --- Quote ---
       > beyond the new science that glimmers a new world view, we have
       a new view of God, not as transcendent, not as an agent, but as
       the very creativity of the universe itself.
       --- End Quote ---
       This is what we have always understood Yahweh to be.
       --- Quote ---
       > Darwin taught us about natural selection and evolution. He did
       not know the basis for self reproduction or heritable variation.
       But given these, evolution by natural selection follows. Such
       evolving life forms would be subject to Darwin's law, which
       arises only for entities capable of self reproduction and
       heritable variation. This seems clearly to be ontological
       emergence, not reducible to physics. Like Anderson's computer
       able to run on transisitors or buckets of water, Darwin's
       natural selection can run on multiple physical platforms, where
       the entities under selection have their own causal powers, and
       natural selection cannot be reduced to any specific physical
       platform.
       >
       > Indeed, it is possible that minor changes in the constants of
       the physicists would still yield universes in which life,
       heritable variation and natural selection would obtain. Note
       that while the physicist might deduce that a specific set of
       molecules was self reproducing, and had heritable variations and
       instantiated natural selection, one cannot deduce natural
       selection from the specific physics of any specific case(s), or
       even this universe, alone. In short, Darwin's natural selection
       is a new law operating on the level of self reproducing entities
       with heritable variation, regardless of the physical
       underpinning. In contrast to Weinberg's claim, here the
       explanatory arrows point upward from molecules to the evolution
       of living systems of molecules via natural selection.
       --- End Quote ---
       Yes, this is why Yahweh can accurately claim divinity. Which is
       not to say he deserves to be worshipped.
       --- Quote ---
       > I begin with Darwinian adaptations and preadaptations. Were
       one to ask Darwin what the function of the heart is, he would
       have replied, "To pump blood". That is, the causal consequence
       of the heart for virtue of which it was selected by natural
       selection is pumping blood. But the heart makes heart sounds.
       These are not the function of the heart. Thus, the function of
       the heart is a subset of its causal consequences and must be
       analyzed in the context of the whole organism in its selective
       environment. Again this says that biology cannot be reduced to
       physics, for while the string theorist might (actually could
       not) deduce all the properties of a given heart, he/she would
       have no way to pick out as the relevant property that of pumping
       blood. But it is that property that accounts for the existence
       of hearts in the biosphere.
       --- End Quote ---
       What is the Darwinian function of muscle? Movement for escaping
       predators? Wrong! Did you know that the overwhelming majority of
       muscle fibres in the world are deliberately prevented from
       meaningful movement as an explicit condition for their carriers
       to reproduce?
  HTML https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Battery_husbandry
       The actual Darwinian function of muscle in the pictured animals
       is to supply meat for consumption by mostly Westerners. It is
       for this reason that these animals are forced to keep
       reproducing, and hence their species guaranteed perpetuation
       (the suffering of the indiviudals is not a concern to Yahweh).
  HTML https://slideplayer.com/slide/17433322/101/images/4/The+fear+and+dread+of+you+will+fall+on+all+the+beasts+of+the+earth%2C+and+on+all+the+birds+in+the+sky%2C+on+every+creature+that+moves+along+the+ground%2C+and+on+all+the+fish+in+the+sea%3B+they+are+given+into+your+hands..jpg
       --- Quote ---
       > It is critical that virtually any extant feature of an
       organism can become the subject of natural selection in the
       appropriate environment, and typically, if selected, a novel
       functionality arises in the biosphere and universe. Now the
       critical question: Do you think you could say ahead of time, or
       finitely prestate, all possible Darwinian preadaptations of, say
       species alive now, or even humans? I have not found anyone who
       thought the answer was yes. I do not know how to prove my claim
       that the answer is "No", but part of the problem is that we
       cannot finitely prestate the relevant features of all possible
       selective environments for all organisms with respect to all
       their features.
       >
       > But the failure to prestate the possible preadaptations is not
       slowing down the evolution of the biosphere where preadaptations
       are widely known. Thus, ever novel functionalities come to exist
       and proliferate in the biosphere. The fact that we cannot
       prestate them is essential, and an essential limitation to the
       way Newton taught us to do science: Prestate the relevant
       variables, forces acting among them, initial and boundary
       conditions, and calculate the future evolution of the system…say
       projectile. But we cannot prestate the relevant causal features
       of organisms in the biosphere. We do not know now the relevant
       variables! Thus we cannot write down a set of equations for the
       temporal evolution of these variables. We are profoundly
       precluded from the Newtonian move. In short, the evolution of
       the biosphere is radically unknowable, not due to quantum throws
       of the dice, or deterministic chaos, but because we cannot
       prestate the macroscopic relevant features of organisms and
       environments that will lead to the emergence of novel functions
       in the biosphere with their own causal properties that in turn
       alter the future evolution of the biosphere. Thus, the evolution
       of the biosphere is radically creative, ceaselessly creative, in
       way that cannot be foretold.
       --- End Quote ---
       Tell me about it:
  HTML https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photos_of_egg_industry_by_Roee_Shpernik
  HTML https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Foie_gras_production
       And the next thing you know:
  HTML http://www.naturalheightgrowth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Biodegradable-Porous-Scaffolds.jpg
       Or even more recently:
  HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-right/if-western-civilization-does-not-die-soon/msg8553/#msg8553
       --- Quote ---
       > I find this wonderful.
       --- End Quote ---
       Because you are a Yahwist. I, an anti-Yahwist, find this
       horrific.
       However, while I agree that I cannot list all possible Darwinian
       preadaptations, I can list the one trait that will never be a
       preadaptation: anti-Yahwism. It doesn't matter which or how many
       other Darwinian preadaptations someone carries; this one trait
       is potentially enough to singlehandedly end them all. I find
       this wonderful.
       --- Quote ---
       > this means that the technological evolution of the econosphere
       is also not finitely prestatable, nor presumably algorithmic. It
       too is ceaselessly creative, expanding from some 1000 goods and
       services say 50,000 years ago to perhaps 10 billion today.
       --- End Quote ---
       I find this horrific too.
       --- Quote ---
       > And human culture, in general, is ceaselessly creative as the
       biosphere and culture expand into what I call the Adjacent
       Possible.
       --- End Quote ---
       I find this horrific too. (But no, it is not "human culture, in
       general". It is primarily Western civilization which behaves
       like this.)
       --- Quote ---
       > In short, in wondrous ways, these our universe, biosphere,
       econosphere, and culture are ceaselessly creative and emergent.
       --- End Quote ---
       Only Yahwists could describe ceaseless creativity as "wondrous".
       --- Quote ---
       > God is the most powerful symbol we have created. The Spaniards
       in the New World built their churches on the holy sites of those
       they vanquished. Notre Dame sits on a Druid holy site. Shall we
       use the God word? It is our choice. Mine is a tentative "yes". I
       want God to mean the vast ceaseless creativity of the only
       universe we know of, ours. What do we gain by using the God
       word? I suspect a great deal, for the word carries with it awe
       and reverence.
       --- End Quote ---
       Please call him Yahweh. The true God is the one trying to save
       us from Yahweh (ie. the Devil).
       --- Quote ---
       > If we can transfer that awe and reverence, not to the
       transcendental Abrahamic God of my Israelite tribe long ago, but
       to the stunning reality that confronts us, we will grant
       permission for a renewed spirituality, and awe, reverence and
       responsibility for all that lives, for the planet.
       --- End Quote ---
       I guessed you were a Jew from the very first paragraph you
       wrote. In actuality, you are merely putting a Western scientific
       dressing over the exact same Yahweh-worship practiced by your
       ancient ancestors, which is based on enjoying and being grateful
       for material existence.
       --- Quote ---
       > I believe, I hope correctly, that what I have sketched above
       is true, points to a new vision of our co-creating reality, that
       it invites precisely an enhancement of our sense of
       spirituality, reverence, wonder, and responsibility, and can
       form the basis of a trans-national mythic structure for an
       emerging global civilization.
       --- End Quote ---
       I am here to stop you.
       --- Quote ---
       > To ever succeed, this new view needs to be soft spoken. You
       see, we can say, here is reality, is it not worthy of stunned
       wonder? What more could we want of a God?
       --- End Quote ---
       No, it is not. God should be that which is outside of reality.
       That which we (not you!), despite being stuck in reality, can
       sometimes perceive in our idealistic imagination. And having
       once glimpsed God, the entire material world thereafter becomes
       worthy of nothing but contempt.
       You of course disagree, because:
  HTML https://wp-media.patheos.com/blogs/sites/348/2015/08/You-are-of-your-father.jpg
       --- Quote ---
       > Yes, we give up a God who intervenes on our behalf. We give up
       heaven and hell. But we gain ourselves, responsibility, and
       maturity of spirit.
       --- End Quote ---
       I will not give up these. And the last thing I would ever want
       is to gain is "maturity of spirit"!
  HTML http://www.quotehd.com/imagequotes/authors7/jesus-christ-jesus-christ-little-children-you-are-from-god-and-have.jpg
       #Post#: 9381--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: guest55
       Date: October 14, 2021, 9:41 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       I believe the film Alien: Covenant is all about progressive
       Yahwism. In this film we learn that David the AI is responsible
       for creating the Aliens in the first place. David claims that
       his sole purpose is "creation". David represents Yahweh....
  HTML https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c4/d7/1c/c4d71c20b7dd14ad1cb21e09dc4e61b3.jpg
       #Post#: 9632--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: 90sRetroFan
       Date: October 31, 2021, 1:35 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
  HTML https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/mar/19/yuval-harari-sapiens-readers-questions-lucy-prebble-arianna-huffington-future-of-humanity
       --- Quote ---
       > ‘Homo sapiens as we know them will disappear in a century or
       so’
       >
       > Chris Evans read out the first page of Sapiens, the book by
       the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari.
       > ...
       > Last year, Harari’s follow-up, Homo Deus: A Brief History of
       Tomorrow, was published in the UK, becoming another bestseller.
       It develops many of the themes explored in Sapiens, and in
       particular examines the possible impact of biotechnological and
       artificial intelligence innovation on Homo sapiens, heralding
       perhaps the beginning of a new bionic or semi-computerised form
       of human.
       --- End Quote ---
       This is what our enemies want to become.
       --- Quote ---
       > I’m not sure if it will be deliberate but I do think we’ll
       probably have just one system, and in this sense we’ll have just
       one civilisation. In a way this is already the case. All over
       the world the political system of the state is roughly
       identical. All over the world capitalism is the dominant
       economic system, and all over the world the scientific method or
       worldview is the basic worldview through which people understand
       nature, disease, biology, physics and so forth. There are no
       longer any fundamental civilisational differences.
       --- End Quote ---
       All we need to do is kill Western civilization, and the door to
       other possibilities reopens.
       --- Quote ---
       > as the ecological crisis intensifies, the pressure for
       technological development will increase, not decrease. I think
       that the ecological crisis in the 21st century will be analogous
       to the two world wars in the 20th century in serving to
       accelerate technological progress.
       >
       > As long as things are OK, people would be very careful in
       developing or experimenting in genetic engineering on humans or
       giving artificial intelligence control of weapon systems. But if
       you have a serious crisis, caused for example by ecological
       degradation, then people will be tempted to try all kinds of
       high-risk, high-gain technologies in the hope of solving the
       problem, and you’ll have something like the Manhattan Project in
       the second world war.
       --- End Quote ---
       Harari is describing a solely Western mentality. To
       non-Westerners, having realized that environmental damage has
       occurred as a consequence of machine proliferation, the obvious
       solution is to stop machine proliferation ASAP. But Westerners
       think the 'solution' is to invent even newer machines to
       counter the effects of existing machines:
  HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
       So if we continue to allow Westerners to keep deciding on behalf
       of everyone else what the future is to be like, then it will
       probably really go like Harari predicts. But this need not be
       the case. All we need to do is insist that Western civilization
       has already done far too much harm to continue deserving our
       trust.
       --- Quote ---
       > You can’t just stop technological progress. Even if one
       country stops researching artificial intelligence, some other
       countries will continue to do it.
       --- End Quote ---
       War should be declared by all anti-AI countries on all pro-AI
       countries. And as long as AI is stopped before it can innovate
       independently, the only other fix we need to halt further
       innovation is to eliminate machinist genes from the human gene
       pool.
       --- Quote ---
       > The real question is what to do with the technology. You can
       use exactly the same technology for very different social and
       political purposes. If you look at the 20th century, we see that
       with the same technology of electricity and trains, you could
       create a communist dictatorship or a liberal democracy. And it’s
       the same with artificial intelligence and bioengineering. So I
       think people shouldn’t be focused on the question of how to stop
       technological progress because this is impossible. Instead the
       question should be what kind of usage to make of the new
       technology.
       --- End Quote ---
       We should use whatever technology is already around to prevent
       the introduction of anything even newer, preferably by
       exterminating those who want the progress (starting with Harari
       himself).
       --- Quote ---
       > Now the main economic asset is knowledge, and it’s very
       difficult to conquer knowledge through violence.
       --- End Quote ---
       State control over reproduction can be used to eventually breed
       new generations uninterested in perpetuating superfluous
       knowledge (especially stuff from the Renaissance onwards):
  HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/truth-knowledge/
       --- Quote ---
       > If you want a steak, you just grow a steak from cells – you
       don’t need to raise a cow and then slaughter the cow for the
       steak. This may sound like science fiction but it’s already a
       reality. Three years ago they created the first hamburger they
       made from cells. It’s true that it cost $300,000 but it’s always
       like that with a new technology. By now, 2017, the price, as far
       as I know, is down to $11 per hamburger.
       --- End Quote ---
       While of course this is preferable to slaughtering cows for
       steaks, it is still a Western approach to the problem. It is not
       a solution. After you get your steak and eat it, you will soon
       want another one. Eventually you may even want more than one. Or
       you may want different varieties of steak. And so on. Nothing
       has been solved. The desire for steaks has not been decreased.
       If anything, it has been increased.
       Here is the alternative: if you want a steak, realize that the
       problem is with you for wanting the steak in the first place,
       not with how to get the steak you want. You want a steak because
       of your non-Aryan blood. So don't reproduce, and after you
       die there will be one fewer person wanting a steak. Repeat until
       there are zero people in the world who want steaks. This is the
       true solution to the problem of wanting steaks.
       Western approach: increase supply.
       Correct approach: reduce demand.
       --- Quote ---
       > It will also have a lot of ecological benefits because it will
       reduce the enormous amount of pollution which is caused by high
       animal farming today.
       --- End Quote ---
       Reducing the population of meat-eaters will have even more
       ecological benefits. But you refuse to even consider this
       because you are a progressive Yahwist.
       --- Quote ---
       > AA: You live in a part of the world that has been shaped by
       religious fictions. Which do you think will happen first – that
       Homo sapiens leave behind religious fiction or the
       Israel-Palestine conflict will be resolved?
       >
       > As things look at present, it seems that Homo sapiens will
       disappear before the Israeli political conflict will be
       resolved. I think that Homo sapiens as we know them will
       probably disappear within a century or so, not destroyed by
       killer robots or things like that, but changed and upgraded with
       biotechnology and artificial intelligence into something else,
       into something different. The timescale for that kind of change
       is maybe a century. And it’s quite likely that the
       Palestinian-Israeli conflict will not be resolved by that time.
       But it will definitely be influenced by it.
       --- End Quote ---
       I hope otherwise.
       --- Quote ---
       > AA: Are you confident that radical Islam is nothing more than
       the death rattle of the pre-modern era?
       >
       > In the 21st century, humanity is facing some very difficult
       problems, whether it’s global warming or global inequality or
       the rise of disruptive technology, such as bioengineering and
       artificial intelligence. And wWe need answers to these
       challenges, and – at least as of March 2017 – I haven’t heard
       anything relevant being offered by radical Islam. So this is why
       I don’t think that radical Islam will shape the society of the
       21st century. It could still be there, it could still cause a
       lot of trouble and violence and so forth, but I don’t see it
       creating or shaping the road ahead of humankind.
       --- End Quote ---
       I hope otherwise.
       --- Quote ---
       > AA: If we can indefinitely prevent death, would it still be
       possible to create meaning without what Saul Bellow called “the
       dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything”?
       >
       > I think so, yes. You have other problems with what happens
       when you overcome old age, but I don’t think lack of meaning
       will be a serious problem. Over the past three centuries, almost
       all the new ideologies of the modern world don’t care about
       death, or at least they don’t see death as a source of meaning.
       Previous cultures, especially traditional religions, usually
       needed death in order to explain the meaning of life. Like in
       Christianity – without death, life has no meaning. The whole
       meaning of life comes from what happens to you after you die.
       There is no death, no heaven, no hell… there is no meaning to
       Christianity. But over the past three centuries we have seen the
       emergence of a lot of modern ideologies such as socialism,
       liberalism, feminism, communism that don’t need death at all in
       order to provide life with meaning.
       --- End Quote ---
       If our enemies succeed in becoming literal vampires, we will
       have to respond by becoming literal vampire slayers.
       This is only type of stake we should give our enemies:
       [img]
  HTML https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/10/09/1412870394513_Image_galleryImage_No_Merchandising_Editoria.JPG[/img]
       #Post#: 9703--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: Zea_mays
       Date: November 8, 2021, 3:04 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       The UN just released this Yahwist propaganda:
  HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DOcQRl9ASc
       It goes without saying that if humans were extinct, we wouldn't
       be in this mess in the first place (a basic fact which
       environmentalist-minded groups like the human extinction
       movement recognize.)
       It goes without saying that if all species went extinct, it
       would be impossible for any individual to ever be harmed by
       global warming or other environmental effects in the first place
       (a basic fact which human-centric environmentalist organizations
       almost always ignore).
       #Post#: 9709--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: Zea_mays
       Date: November 8, 2021, 3:36 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Also, I recently stumbled across this crap:
       --- Quote ---
       > The Fourth International Posadist is a Trotskyist
       international. It was founded in 1962 by J. Posadas,
       > [...]
       > Posadism attempts to introduce elements of Ufology into
       Marxist thought.[1][2] Arguing that only communism can allow the
       development of interplanetary travel, they concluded that
       visiting aliens from other planets must live in highly advanced
       communist societies and are bound to help Earth-based communists
       with bringing about the world revolution.[3][4]
       > [...]
       > In recent years, interests in the Posadists, particularly in
       regard to their views in ufology, has increased. Several
       satirical and non-satirical "neo-Posadist" groups emerged on
       social media, making Posadas "one of the most recognizable names
       in the history of Trotskyism".[11][14]
       > [...]
       > His most prominent thesis from this perspective was the 1968
       pamphlet Flying saucers, the process of matter and energy,
       science, the revolutionary and working-class struggle and the
       socialist future of mankind which exposed many of the ideas
       associated today with Posadism. Here, Posadas claims that while
       there is no proof of intelligent life in the universe, the
       science of the time makes their existence likely. Furthermore,
       he claims that any extraterrestrials visiting earth in flying
       saucers must come from a socially and scientifically advanced
       civilisation to master inter-planetary travel, and that such a
       civilisation could have only come about in a post-capitalist
       world.[3]
       >
       > Believing visiting aliens to be naturally non-violent, who are
       only here to observe, Posadas argues that humans must call on
       them to intervene in solving the Earth's problems
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_International_Posadist
       --- Quote ---
       > At their founding conference the movement proclaimed that
       “Atomic war is inevitable. It will destroy half of humanity: it
       is going to destroy immense human riches. It is very possible.
       The atomic war is going to provoke a true inferno on Earth. But
       it will not impede Communism.”
       > [...]
       > Posadas wrote that “Nuclear war [equals] revolutionary war. It
       will damage humanity but it will not – it cannot – destroy the
       level of consciousness reached by it… Humanity will pass quickly
       through a nuclear war into a new human society – Socialism.”
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Posadas#Nuclear_war
       If you look up "Posadism" in an image search, there's a bunch of
       memes portraying it in a positive light. People thought
       over-the-top semi-satirical Alt-Right memes were just harmless
       nonsense, but rightists ended up genuinely believing all of the
       most extreme aspects of the memes, and got Trump elected, so we
       shouldn't overlook the danger Posadism poses just because it is
       now limited to memes.
  HTML https://i.imgur.com/2LlriEP.jpeg
  HTML https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Posadist-Meme1.jpg
       #Post#: 9778--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: 90sRetroFan
       Date: November 14, 2021, 8:26 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       More broadly, there certainly seems to be motivation to replace
       capitalism, which is basically machine innovation driven by
       desire for profit, with an economic system of machine innovation
       for its own sake. False Left anticapitalists seem to be
       supporting this, as their anticapitalism was always about
       disliking capitalism for producing rich people rather than
       disliking capitalism for producing machines.
  HTML https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-approaching-china-apos-advances-114938084.html
       --- Quote ---
       > Currently, he said, the U.S. employs finance-based planning,
       which he said boils down to, "We are going to spend more money
       than they are."
       > ...
       > Instead, Sekora has been pushing for technology-based planning
       > ...
       > Sekora explained that technological advances occur when two
       existing technologies combine, and Socrates was to be used to
       create what he called "automated innovation."
       --- End Quote ---
       It goes without saying that the new stuff once introduced can be
       further combined with the old stuff and with each other, so
       innovation will just keep branching out and never end.
       --- Quote ---
       > According to Sekora, the U.S. has been at a self-imposed
       disadvantage due to a finance-based planning economic strategy
       that focuses on maximizing profits in the short-term rather than
       producing the best products to establish long-term market
       dominance. Instead of focusing on developing and acquiring the
       best technologies, the government focuses on dollars and cents.
       > ...
       > "Technology-driven decision-making is an essential part of our
       defense modernization. Current incentives in the Pentagon lead
       to less innovation and more bureaucracy," Rogers said in a
       statement to Fox News. "Even a single failed test of a new
       technology can have serious consequences on officers’ careers.
       This attitude smothers innovation and reinforces using the same
       old ‘proven’ technologies that don’t meet modern threats."
       --- End Quote ---
       Note also that the above line of argument against capitalism is
       not even that it makes some people too rich, but that it leads
       to sub-maximal innovation. In other words, if they continued to
       believe that capitalism was the best system for maximizing
       innovation, they would happily continue to be capitalists. It is
       only because they now suspect that a system other than
       capitalism is a better system for maximizing innovation that
       they want to dump capitalism. Basically, they want everything
       else to be secondary to maximizing innovation. In short,
       innovation is their new god. (See also the title of this topic.)
       #Post#: 9787--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: guest55
       Date: November 15, 2021, 11:40 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Every time I visit this thread in particular I'm reminded of one
       of the old Superman movies I watched in my childhood, the
       Superman film where one of the villains gets turned into a
       cyborg at the end. That scene absolutely traumatized me in my
       youth:
  HTML https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a7b0d3680bd5e90fee815f5/1525095213110-U1CSXY52T27ZKSJ3OIB8/superman3.jpg
  HTML https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BWdr-IYWaeA/WFxNxIwPs-I/AAAAAAAAMjo/B-r77alLDn8Ce55DI6XPEfWYTIVrRhKogCLcB/s1600/4092593512_bf92412f53_o.jpg
       Few scenes in any film have ever scared me as much as the one
       above did.
       --- Quote ---
       > False Left anticapitalists seem to be supporting this, as
       their anticapitalism was always about disliking capitalism for
       producing rich people rather than disliking capitalism for
       producing machines.
       --- End Quote ---
       Such a great point! Lest we also forget the primary motivation
       behind capitalist thinking has always been to have a fully
       automated work force so capitalists don't have to work, nor will
       they have to pay labor costs! The WALL-E film in a nutshell is
       literally where these capitalists want to go! They actually
       believe that this is a good idea!
       --- Quote ---
       > It goes without saying that the new stuff once introduced can
       be further combined with the old stuff and with each other, so
       innovation will just keep branching out and never end.
       --- End Quote ---
       Reminded of the Martin Heidegger quote again in regards to
       technology in it's essence being something man does not control.
       --- Quote ---
       > Basically, they want everything else to be secondary to
       maximizing innovation. In short, innovation is their new god.
       (See also the title of this topic.)
       --- End Quote ---
       Indeed! Take a good look at the above images because your new
       god probably looks something like that!
       #Post#: 9792--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: Solar Guy
       Date: November 16, 2021, 11:07 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Progressive Yahwism as you call it is called Extropianism:
  HTML https://www.mrob.com/pub/religion/extro_prin.html
       Meanwhile you probably want to choose Universal Freedom
       Gnosticism:
  HTML https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/471fe95ed7b16
       #Post#: 9798--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Progressive Yahwism
   DIR By: 90sRetroFan
       Date: November 16, 2021, 11:19 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Responding to your first link:
       --- Quote ---
       > EXTROPY — the extent of a system’s intelligence, information,
       order, vitality, and capacity for improvement.
       >
       > EXTROPIANS — those who seek to increase extropy.
       --- End Quote ---
       So extropians want to "increase capacity for improvement". Yet
       for improvement to be meaningful, the more you improve, it
       should follow that the less capacity remains for you to further
       improve. If you start off with 10 flaws, you have the capacity
       to eliminate 10 flaws. If have already eliminated 9 flaws, you
       now only have the capacity to eliminate 1 more flaw. This is
       genuine improvement, and hence reduction in the capacity for
       improvement. On the other hand, so-called "improvement" that
       increases the capacity for "improvement" logically cannot be
       improvement at all. It is progress. The difference is that
       improvement is measured relative to an endpoint, whereas
       progress is measured relative to a starting point.
       --- Quote ---
       > Extropianism is a transhumanist philosophy. The Extropian
       Principles define a specific version or "brand" of transhumanist
       thinking. Like humanists, transhumanists favor reason, progress,
       and values centered on our well being rather than on an external
       religious authority. Transhumanists take humanism further by
       challenging human limits by means of science and technology
       combined with critical and creative thinking. We challenge the
       inevitability of aging and death, and we seek continuing
       enhancements to our intellectual abilities, our physical
       capacities, and our emotional development.
       --- End Quote ---
       You want to challenge aging and death because you are following
       your natural survivalist impulse. How then can you claim to want
       emotional development, which should really be about questioning
       whether a mere natural impulse ought to be followed in the first
       place? How can you claim to use critical thinking without first
       critiquing survivalism itself?
       Transhumanists are just Yahweh-worshippers who use machines to
       do their worship. "Values centered on our well being" is the
       giveaway:
  HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_that_I_Am
       --- Quote ---
       > I am that I am is a common English translation of the Hebrew
       phrase אֶהְיֶה
       אֲשֶׁר
       אֶהְיֶה‎, ’ehye
       ’ăšer ’ehye ([ʔehˈje ʔaˈʃer
       ʔehˈje])– also "I am who I am," "I will become what I
       choose to become", "I am what I am," "I will be what I will be,"
       "I create what(ever) I create," or "I am the Existing One."[1]
       The traditional English translation within Judaism favors "I
       will be what I will be" because there is no present tense of the
       verb "to be" in the Hebrew language.
       --- End Quote ---
       Their disdain for "external religious authority" is in reality
       disdain for the possibility for authentic emotional development
       (beyond what is natural).
       --- Quote ---
       > We see humanity as a transitory stage in the evolutionary
       development of intelligence. We advocate using science to
       accelerate our move from human to a transhuman or posthuman
       condition.
       --- End Quote ---
       And what will you do once you get there? Will you then see
       transhumanity as another transitory stage, and then advocate
       using whatever machine is available then to accelerate the move
       from transhuman to transtranshuman? And after that, then what?
       Transtranstranshuman? And then transtranstranstranshuman?
       Without a fixed endpoint, progress is all you will ever have,
       never true improvement.
       (One thing is for sure, though: transhumanists, just like
       humanists, are anthropocentrists by assigning special status to
       humans in their worldview:
  HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/ancient-world/antropocentricism-the-most-dangerous-ideology-in-the-world/<br
       />)
       --- Quote ---
       > The Extropian philosophy embodies an inspiring and uplifting
       view of life while remaining open to revision according to
       science, reason, and the boundless search for improvement.
       --- End Quote ---
       What is inspiring or uplifting about boundlessness? Whatever is
       boundless is necessarily meaningless. Extropianism is no less
       shallow than investing money to make more money, and then
       investing that larger sum of money to make even more money, and
       so on. But at least investors do not act like there is something
       deep about what they do. This makes them less annoying than
       Extropians.
       --- Quote ---
       > 1. Perpetual Progress — Seeking more intelligence, wisdom, and
       effectiveness, an indefinite lifespan, and the removal of
       political, cultural, biological, and psychological limits to
       self-actualization and self-realization. Perpetually overcoming
       constraints on our progress and possibilities. Expanding into
       the universe and advancing without end.
       --- End Quote ---
       Wisdom? There is no wisdom in doing anything that has no ending.
       --- Quote ---
       > 2. Self-Transformation — Affirming continual moral,
       intellectual, and physical self-improvement, through critical
       and creative thinking, personal responsibility, and
       experimentation. Seeking biological and neurological
       augmentation along with emotional and psychological refinement.
       --- End Quote ---
       "Moral" and "experimentation" in the same sentence..... Only a
       Westerner can write this ****.
       --- Quote ---
       > 3. Practical Optimism — Fueling action with positive
       expectations. Adopting a rational, action-based optimism, in
       place of both blind faith and stagnant pessimism.
       --- End Quote ---
       Translation: victims of our initiated violence now do not
       matter, so long as there may be a payoff for ourselves later
       (and if there isn't, we will just initiate violence against more
       victims while we wait - there has to be a payoff eventually,
       right?).
       --- Quote ---
       > 4. Intelligent Technology — Applying science and technology
       creatively to transcend "natural" limits imposed by our
       biological heritage, culture, and environment. Seeing technology
       not as an end in itself but as an effective means towards the
       improvement of life.
       --- End Quote ---
       If you have actually transcended nature, you would not want the
       stuff you just said (in 1.) that you want. Your so-called
       "transcendence" is therefore not transcendence, but mere
       overcoming of inability to get what you want (which is still
       what nature tells you to want).
       --- Quote ---
       > 5. Open Society — Supporting social orders that foster freedom
       of speech, freedom of action, and experimentation. Opposing
       authoritarian social control and favoring the rule of law and
       decentralization of power. Preferring bargaining over battling,
       and exchange over compulsion. Openness to improvement rather
       than a static utopia.
       --- End Quote ---
       In such a society, the winners will be the ones supplying the
       (constantly updating) newest machines that others want to use.
       This is why we support statism: it takes state intervention to
       realistically stop the machine ratrace.
       --- Quote ---
       > 6. Self-Direction — Seeking independent thinking, individual
       freedom, personal responsibility, self-direction, self-esteem,
       and respect for others.
       --- End Quote ---
       Those with machines obviously do not mind coexisting with those
       without machines, because the latter will be less powerful. In
       contrast, those without machines are totally justified in
       opposing (including via retaliatory violence) coexistence with
       those who are constantly making themselves more powerful via
       machines.
       --- Quote ---
       > 7. Rational Thinking — Favoring reason over blind faith and
       questioning over dogma. Remaining open to challenges to our
       beliefs and practices in pursuit of perpetual improvement.
       Welcoming criticism of our existing beliefs while being open to
       new ideas.
       --- End Quote ---
       Then answer my challenge as outlined above.
       *****************************************************
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