/pt/ – Petrarchan

Yawn.

Yarvin gives a better and more fleshed out version of this argument. It's specifically Calvinist, and it's not "wokeism" but liberal humanism in general

>>9417

Yarvin gives a better and more fleshed out version of this argument. It's specifically Calvinist, and it's not "wokeism" but liberal humanism in general

where

I think it's obvious that a critical mass of Xers and millennials observed the War on Terror in the 2000s and arrived at the conclusion "religion must be the root problem." George Dubya was religious AND al Quaeda was religious, so obviously the problem is that there is a toxic meme that promotes superstition. And once people get very comfortable with a simple explanation about the root of all evil, then everything new must be forced into that Procrustean Bed. So we arrive at Thiel's Deep Thoughts, above.

I don't want to lord over the edgy internet atheists too hard. I think that a reasonable person can and should have a lot of suspicion of lots of metaphysical claims. And furthermore, New Atheism met its moment in the Bush era. There was a lot of dumb evangelical horseshit that was getting propped up by right wingers in that moment, and the New Atheists were an excellent counter to it. That said, I don't think that the New Atheists ever faced up to the smarter people on the side of religion. They attacked very simplified, strawman versions of religious life more because of what worked in their immediate social situations and less because that was a representative and adequate target. It doesn't really matter, but I don't think the New Atheists were as successful on the merits as they would have liked to have been. I think that 80% of the New Atheist types basically disappeared into the background of the culture. A lot of the angry young men matured a bit, the world got more online and more outrage-driven, and basically the world and the neckbeards met in the middle. All the movies are superhero movies and everything is an app now. It must also be noted that many who identified with New Atheism had the necessary social privilege to pull away from religious families, and a lot of them were alienated enough to be willing to do it. Privilege and alienation are a perfect growth medium for various forms of antisocial ideology. And that brings us to the GamerGate, RedPill faction. Now we have an atheist GamerGate president who is posting through it. I think that Thiel is basically just a really privileged and really alienated guy. (I could also say the same about Yarvin.) I think it's obvious that Thiel got lucky with Facebook because he had to read Girard to understand some of the fundamentals about how humans behave in societies, and as a consequence he pattern-matched Girard and Zuckerberg. I think the fact that he selectively engages with religion through a Girardian frame is, honestly, not very intellectually sound on his part. But it doesn't really matter because he's an isolated guy with an bone to pick. They're all just isolated guys with a bone to pick.

it's a deeply disingenuous statement. for him everything seems to be about what and who he can buy and what he can get away with. i seriously don't think he really believes in anything outside of what was necessary for him to get the bag

According to the Epstein files he did have a working relationship of some kind with weev so I would say that he knows exactly what "wokeness" is. He is instead recycling the normie conservative halfwit definition of it in order to gain the favor of that group.

>>9424

I think it's obvious that a critical mass of Xers and millennials observed the War on Terror in the 2000s and arrived at the conclusion "religion must be the root problem." George Dubya was religious AND al Quaeda was religious, so obviously the problem is that there is a toxic meme that promotes superstition. And once people get very comfortable with a simple explanation about the root of all evil, then everything new must be forced into that Procrustean Bed. So we arrive at Thiel's Deep Thoughts, above.

>>9425

I don't want to lord over the edgy internet atheists too hard. I think that a reasonable person can and should have a lot of suspicion of lots of metaphysical claims. And furthermore, New Atheism met its moment in the Bush era. There was a lot of dumb evangelical horseshit that was getting propped up by right wingers in that moment, and the New Atheists were an excellent counter to it. That said, I don't think that the New Atheists ever faced up to the smarter people on the side of religion. They attacked very simplified, strawman versions of religious life more because of what worked in their immediate social situations and less because that was a representative and adequate target. It doesn't really matter, but I don't think the New Atheists were as successful on the merits as they would have liked to have been. I think that 80% of the New Atheist types basically disappeared into the background of the culture. A lot of the angry young men matured a bit, the world got more online and more outrage-driven, and basically the world and the neckbeards met in the middle. All the movies are superhero movies and everything is an app now. It must also be noted that many who identified with New Atheism had the necessary social privilege to pull away from religious families, and a lot of them were alienated enough to be willing to do it. Privilege and alienation are a perfect growth medium for various forms of antisocial ideology. And that brings us to the GamerGate, RedPill faction. Now we have an atheist GamerGate president who is posting through it. I think that Thiel is basically just a really privileged and really alienated guy. (I could also say the same about Yarvin.) I think it's obvious that Thiel got lucky with Facebook because he had to read Girard to understand some of the fundamentals about how humans behave in societies, and as a consequence he pattern-matched Girard and Zuckerberg. I think the fact that he selectively engages with religion through a Girardian frame is, honestly, not very intellectually sound on his part. But it doesn't really matter because he's an isolated guy with an bone to pick. They're all just isolated guys with a bone to pick.

>>9426

it's a deeply disingenuous statement. for him everything seems to be about what and who he can buy and what he can get away with. i seriously don't think he really believes in anything outside of what was necessary for him to get the bag

You completely misunderstand his logic

I'm the original poster. my interpretation of what he said was that even though we are now living in a post religious world (millennials and gen z at least) theres way a lot of these post religious people police each other is very Christian. in a super orthodox world, you must align with every belief no exception. on the internet especially, the left is constantly policing everyone about their beliefs. you do one thing they don't agree with and you're condemned and not shown mercy. (side note, the new conservatives are willing to accept even gay people though they're ideologically or should I say theologically opposed to them so in that way theyre more liberal ironically. must state that I am not a conservative.) but the way this generation is not christian is the extreme sex positivity and "let people do whatever they want as long as they're not hurting someone" which is acceptable to them in context of LGBTQ stuff and the way people dress and do their makeup and not otherwise. as for the original sin he mentioned, I think he's referring to someone being white, or say being born in a first world country. I don't disagree with him here given the fact that one of the insults the left uses on the interest is "straight white man" as if it's a terrible thing to be that a straight white man should repent for but I get the feeling that his view of this involves straight white men being oppressed or being victims (which is not true) so these post christians are just like older conservatives just with a different set of beliefs. we did not get to have a generation of the "rational" atheists. just annoying ones a lot of whom didn't vote because "kamala doesnt support palestine enough"

^ forgive the typos I'm sleep deprived

Basically: religions are more than just metaphysics. We focus in on the metaphysics today because it's the core tension between religion and atheism, but metaphysics is just one part of the 'worldview' that religions all advocate. What worldview do atheist/agnostic westerners hold? There's no one correct answer, but roughly it corresponds to a secular Calvinism (providential historicism, election/reprobation, and missionary universalism)

>>9429

>>9424 >>9425 >>9426 You completely misunderstand his logic

I don't care about what Thiel as a logician. His thought process is not worth respecting. He is not speaking from any special access to evidence and he is not conducting statistical or mathematical inference. I care about Thiel as a representative tech billionaire who's willing to air out his thoughts.

>>9432

Basically: religions are more than just metaphysics. We focus in on the metaphysics today because it's the core tension between religion and atheism, but metaphysics is just one part of the 'worldview' that religions all advocate. What worldview do atheist/agnostic westerners hold? There's no one correct answer, but roughly it corresponds to a secular Calvinism (providential historicism, election/reprobation, and missionary universalism)

What is the higher purpose of distilling a worldview for a population and making a historical comparison? Why bother? It seems obviously a fool's errand to try to reduce the entire intellectual lives of so many people to a few inclinations, and it seems like an absolute joke to try to sort it according to the categories of previous ideologies. Why should any credence be given to this entire exercise? The simple answer is clear: "religion" is a sneer word, "woke" is a sneer word, and this kind of Jordan Peterson-level "the normie conservative halfwit" stuff (credit >>9427

According to the Epstein files he did have a working relationship of some kind with weev so I would say that he knows exactly what "wokeness" is. He is instead recycling the normie conservative halfwit definition of it in order to gain the favor of that group.

) is just a trivial exercise to find a passingly credible association between two things for the sake of consolidated sneering.

>>9451

>>9432 What is the higher purpose of distilling a worldview for a population and making a historical comparison? Why bother? It seems obviously a fool's errand to try to reduce the entire intellectual lives of so many people to a few inclinations, and it seems like an absolute joke to try to sort it according to the categories of previous ideologies. Why should any credence be given to this entire exercise? The simple answer is clear: "religion" is a sneer word, "woke" is a sneer word, and this kind of Jordan Peterson-level "the normie conservative halfwit" stuff (credit >>9427 ) is just a trivial exercise to find a passingly credible association between two things for the sake of consolidated sneering.

You seem to believe that none of these people actually believe what they're saying and are just trying to make rhetorical blows at (I assume) your side. Okay, I disagree. These are useful abstractions for understanding why people believe the things that they believe. >What is the higher purpose of distilling a worldview for a population and making a historical comparison? Why bother? Good question. Why study history at all? We should all just minmax into rhetorical studies

>>9453

>>9451 You seem to believe that none of these people actually believe what they're saying and are just trying to make rhetorical blows at (I assume) your side. Okay, I disagree. These are useful abstractions for understanding why people believe the things that they believe. >What is the higher purpose of distilling a worldview for a population and making a historical comparison? Why bother? Good question. Why study history at all? We should all just minmax into rhetorical studies

You misunderstand me. I don't think that Thiel doesn't believe in what he's saying. I'm perfectly fine admitting he might be sincere. I just don't think it matters. And no, I don't think that you need to give any credence to what he says to understand Thiel's actions, or the actions of other billionaires. Regular old class-based analysis does just fine as an explanatory lens. >Why study history at all? We should all just minmax into rhetorical studies Yeah, that honestly might be worthwhile. For your sake I truly hope you don't think that history is a bunch of loose analogical thinking about broad categories. Real historians make narratives on the basis of evidence, not generalizations. A historian who writes sloppy thinking like that is not doing anybody a service. You probably thought that you were making quite the riposte by referencing rhetoric, but if you want to see how history and rhetoric are connected you really need to understand Giambattista Vico.

>>9545

>>9453 You misunderstand me. I don't think that Thiel doesn't believe in what he's saying. I'm perfectly fine admitting he might be sincere. I just don't think it matters. And no, I don't think that you need to give any credence to what he says to understand Thiel's actions, or the actions of other billionaires. Regular old class-based analysis does just fine as an explanatory lens. >Why study history at all? We should all just minmax into rhetorical studies Yeah, that honestly might be worthwhile. For your sake I truly hope you don't think that history is a bunch of loose analogical thinking about broad categories. Real historians make narratives on the basis of evidence, not generalizations. A historian who writes sloppy thinking like that is not doing anybody a service. You probably thought that you were making quite the riposte by referencing rhetoric, but if you want to see how history and rhetoric are connected you really need to understand Giambattista Vico.

Read Strauss

>>9545

>>9453 You misunderstand me. I don't think that Thiel doesn't believe in what he's saying. I'm perfectly fine admitting he might be sincere. I just don't think it matters. And no, I don't think that you need to give any credence to what he says to understand Thiel's actions, or the actions of other billionaires. Regular old class-based analysis does just fine as an explanatory lens. >Why study history at all? We should all just minmax into rhetorical studies Yeah, that honestly might be worthwhile. For your sake I truly hope you don't think that history is a bunch of loose analogical thinking about broad categories. Real historians make narratives on the basis of evidence, not generalizations. A historian who writes sloppy thinking like that is not doing anybody a service. You probably thought that you were making quite the riposte by referencing rhetoric, but if you want to see how history and rhetoric are connected you really need to understand Giambattista Vico.

What's your favorite MGMT album