4891

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by 4891 12y ago
I mean, we actually know that not only was there pitifully little scientific advancement during that period (especially as you point out in the first half), but that science and technology regressed massively and entire fields were complet
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by 4891 12y ago
The Enlightenment is a direct consequence of the Protestant Reformation that preceded it a few centuries prior. The key ideas of Protestantism was that faith should be a) based on reason and b) involve a direct communion with God, without i
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The Turk Polishes His Window(sebastianmarshall.com)
3 points by 4891 12y ago|0 comments
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by 4891 13y ago
I'm very curious to hear more. Contrary to this article, I don't see any evidence of "pro-torture propaganda", because everyone in this thread and almost every source I find is anti-torture. The only interesting source a
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by 4891 13y ago
Having spent far too much time lately reading politics discussion online, your comment made me smile. Enough pointless tribalism, back to producing...
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by 4891 13y ago
You summoned me with your comment above so I feel compelled to respond to this interesting comment. I agree that there are many interesting developments in political philosophy on the nature of democracy. The issue is that such academic deb
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by 4891 13y ago
Personal thoughts (trying to channel pg with a huge stack of applications to get through - I imagine the guy who first applied Naive Bayes to email spam being quite comfortable making snap decisions over small variables): This guy seems sma
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by 4891 13y ago
Wow, you're like the anti-me. People (with a few exceptions, usually the result of excellent breeding, education or culture) are much weaker and worse than that. It's important not to forget that all people have limited potential,
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by 4891 13y ago
Make a new account, set up a voting ring (a proper voting ring this time, where the accounts have some history - ask your HN-using friends to help out). You only need about 4 upvotes to make the front page and then momentum will help you
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by 4891 13y ago
The founders were smart guys and the Constitution is a clever piece of political engineering, but you might as well be saying that the government is doing badly because they stopped following the Bible. As a non-American, I find the idolisa
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by 4891 13y ago
Yes, you're right that they're officially a democracy. Government control of the media ensures that the same party will remain in power. I think Japan and Taiwan had the same party in power for decades, too. Maybe they only work b
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by 4891 13y ago
Yours is the standard post-cynical view of democracy. It's common among very smart people. Think Churchill's "two cheers for democracy". It's what I used to believe. I don't now. "Power tends to corrupt.&q
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by 4891 13y ago
Yes. Here's something interesting: various Chinese think tanks wonder publicly about if, and when their country will transition to democracy. (Yes, they can get away with this - the unwritten rule is that they can't say "Chin
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by 4891 13y ago
You misunderstand my argument. Obviously Jesus says that you should do good. Apparently that was a big part of his shtick. But if you want to actually do good you need to have a pretty fucking clear idea of how the world works. Because, y&#
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by 4891 13y ago
Thank you - this is the most sensible comment I've seen in this thread. Many thinkers throughout history have noted that states and criminal gangs are effectively the same. They are both inherently violent organisations. Criminal gangs
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by 4891 13y ago
Yes, I was going to say the same thing. If you found this article interesting, you'll likely find Moldbug's perspective very interesting too.
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by 4891 13y ago
It's funny, I actually agree 100% with the author on skpeticism being blind to the fact that we only understand reality via mental models (all models are wrong, but some are useful, as they say), and science being more of a social proc
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by 4891 13y ago
Post-script: Two of my favourite bloggers describe the same conflict between society's elites. Mencius Moldbug describes them as Optimates and Brahmins. Michael o'Church describes them as E1 and G1. Oddly enough, although they des
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by 4891 13y ago
Thanks for posting this. The most obvious point (to me) is that it would be very hard to install a 1984-style regime in a nation where almost every educated person has read 1984 . Anything that even has the slightest overtone of old-scho