Comments on: Charlton is Right …

By: Lesser Bull

Lesser Bull — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 23:22:54 +0000

Viewing through a glass quite darkly.

People believe in all sorts of stupid things, most of which don’t work very well. Mormonism has more going for it than you will admit.

By: Saddam Hussein's Whirling Aluminium Tubes

Saddam Hussein's Whirling Aluminium Tubes — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 22:41:53 +0000

That’s a judgment call, but when forming your judgment, keep in mind that Mormonism started out as (among other things) a way for certain men to have many wives. 29 for Smith, 51 for Brigham Young, 43 for Church apostle Heber C. Kimball, etc.

Not decisive in and of itself perhaps, but something that tends to keep coming up.

Radical anabaptism:

“John of Leiden’s authority grew, eventually proclaiming himself to be the successor of David and adopting royal regalia, honors and absolute power in the new “Zion”. He legalized polygamy, and himself took sixteen wives.

Joseph Smith (and his successor Brigham Young) also led his followers to a new Zion, took multiple wives, established a theocracy and engaged in bloody conflict with the authorities and people of the surrounding society.

They (well most of them, we got Smith), just managed to avoid the bloody end suffered by the radical anabaptists and slowly lost some of their more cult like tendencies (plural marriage, butchering outsiders, etc). It just so happens that believing in a transparently made up but reformed cult is still better for humans than believing in nothing.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 22:41:05 +0000

Indeed, yes.

By: Contemplationist

Contemplationist — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:48:45 +0000

To be fair, the comparison should be to someone like Craig Venter not PC Myers.

By: VXXC

VXXC — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 11:53:45 +0000

I wonder if the aforementioned software if not education is then..system of government?

The “Loop” problem of democracy is in fact the loop problem of human nature. Human nature repeats with each birth, there’s no actual loop. Because we’re not mathematical.

It’s simply a question of which part of human nature will need tinkering today, this hour, this minute. It’s not a question of getting around Human Nature, or reprogramming human nature, or reprogramming government so it runs itself.

we just spent a century trying to do this and we’re not done with it yet, at known horrific costs.

What system of government you have is for governing men, so it will never quite run itself. We can’t be programmed, this we have proven. We’re pointing the monkey pack in a particular direction, that is all.

This really is Right Wing Progressivism. Complete with our very own Chomsky.

By: spandrell

spandrell — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 06:15:18 +0000

Relaxation of Malthusian pressure is not what comes to my mind when I think of the Han Dynasty.

Relaxation of military threats to the imperial government, on the other hand…

By: Alrenous

Alrenous — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 06:01:22 +0000

Which means innovation => dysgenics.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 04:14:45 +0000

Is that so hard to imagine? We should expect relaxation of Malthusian pressure to always result in a dysgenic trend.

By: spandrell

spandrell — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 03:24:22 +0000

Forgotten Chinese innovations:

http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/pictures/15-chinese-artifacts-that-will-change-how-you-look-at-china.html

Was China doing dysgenics too? 2500 years ago?

By: Lesser Bull

Lesser Bull — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 02:24:40 +0000

Mormon theology is basically the folk intuitions about religion and supernatural that most everybody religious naturally falls into when they’re not watching themselves.