Notes to "Wrestling with Scriptural Violence: A Primer for Peaceful Followers of Jesus Christ"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

Notes to the agora talk Wrestling with Scriptural Violence: A Primer for Peaceful Followers of Jesus Christ, by David Pulsipher, who was teaching "American Foundations" and "History of Peace" this past semester. Given January 21st, 2015.

Study Notes: Mar 8-14, 2015: "How long until North Korea collapses?" &c

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "A Non-Biblical Dating for the Jaredite Migration" by Daymon Smith
• Paper, "Prophets, Kings, and Swords: The Sword of Laban and Its Possible Pre-Laban Origin" by Daniel N. Rolph
• Article, "Here's One Genre That Could Replace Post-Apocalyptic Stories" by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "Noah's Ark is a Sustainable Floating City for a Post-Apocalyptic World" by Bridget Meinhold
• Article, "How long until North Korea collapses? Eleven defector perspectives" by Chad O'Carroll
• Post, "You Don't Have to Read That Text Tonight" by Sam Keeper
• Post, "The Girls Who Walk Away From Kyubee" by Sam Keeper

Homework for the future:

• Go through at least five entries in in my "P Articles" bookmark folder. Let's go with: (1) "The Culture of Violence in Joseph Smith's Mormonism"; (2) "Study Theology, Even If You Don't Believe in God"; (3) "The 'Best Arguments for God's Existence' Are Actually Terrible"; (4) "How To Turn Real Science Into Great Science Fiction"; (5) "Why Did The Doctor Start Eating Meat Again On Doctor Who?"
• Read the posts linked to by "Responses to the Anti-Reactionary FAQ.". Eventually. 
• Still on the to-do list: studying the Austrian School of Economics.
• Also need to do some reading on polyamory. 
• Also on the to-do list: All of those themes that I decide I want to play with, and cool bits that attract me, and things like that? Let's get systematic about that, put them into a single document (might be public, might not) and work with at least one of them every week. Systematic. Systematic. I do it best when I do it systematically. 

Study notes: Jan 25-31, 2015: "Technical debt," &C

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "Technical debt and the making of payments on it" by Denise Paolucci
• Article, "Friedrich Nietzsche on Why a Fulfilling Life Requires Embracing Rather than Running from Difficulty" by Maria Popova
• Article, "Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman: A Reply to Stefan Sorgner" by Michael Hauskeller
• Post, "Liberal from a Distance: DC's ARROW and Faux Leftism (Part One)" and "(Part Two)" by Sam Keeper
• Post, "Fluttershyness is Nice" by Sam Keeper
• Paper, "The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution" by Michael R. Ash

Study Notes: Dec 28, 2014-Jan 3, 2015: "Anarchism and the Constitution"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "Anarchism and the Constitution" by Jeremy Weiland
• Essay, "Anarcho-Theocracy: The Only Biblical Form of Government" 
• Page, "Historical Examples of Anarchy without Chaos" compiled by Roy Halliday
• Post, "Is Medieval Iceland an example of "anarcho"-capitalism working in practice?" by afaq
• Post, "Cha-Change! Formal Experimentation in Adventure Time" by Sam Keeper
• Post, "Hyperflexible Mythology: Classpects, Fandom, and Fanfiction" by Sam Keeper
• Thread, "Obscure Mythology"
• Article, "4 Famous Movies with Deceptively Complex Symbolism" by Gladstone
• Post, "How to write like... Philip K Dick" by Phil South
• Post, "How to write like... David Lynch" by Phil South
• Post, "How to write like... Douglas Adams" by Phil South
• Post, "How to write like... Neil Gaiman" by Phil South
• Post, "How to write like... "Ian Fleming" by Phil South

LDS History in Context of the Strauss-Howe Generational Cycle

In 1991, William Strauss and Neil Howe proposed a system of generational cycles, each cycle having four distinct stages that lasted twenty years give-or-take. Each generational stage took its nature by reacting to the generations that preceded it, most especially by reacting to faults in the generation that directly raised it (these reactions, of course, produce other faults that cause a similar reaction in the generation to follow). All countries go through this cycle, but Strauss and Howe were specifically interested in America's.

A little off-center

Coming home after serving a full-time mission for two years, life is a little bit different from what I was used to. But I'm adapting pretty well. Most of the time I don't actually notice much of a shift. As I mentioned in an earlier post it's almost like experiencing a peculiar transfer. I was doing one thing before, and now I'm doing another. End of story. Here's your popcorn. Let's go do The Stuff That Needs Doing.

That last sentence may be another contributing factor. There is a season for everything under the sun, but it all boils down, for me, to things that need doing. Before it was one thing, and now it's another. But it all needs doing.

I feel so much better today after I started using my modified missionary daily planner. Having times and tasks set aside feels so nice.

Where the shift to civilian life is jarring it is so not because of the differences but because of the similarities. Watching a movie does nothing to me. It is far enough removed, I think, that I do not compare it to missionary life. When I went to Church today, however, it was one long train ride of feeling really weird. A few weeks ago I was one of those missionaries standing at the door. A few weeks ago I only ever went to the first hour of the church block because there were always other wards to attend. Second and third hours barely existed as a concept for me, only had a presence as That Thing Other People Do. Now I'm attending Sunday School and Elders Quorum.

It's not the big differences that get me. It's the little things, the tiny differences just similar enough that I can't help but hold these two periods of my life beside each other and compare them.

Partnership with God

Follow-up to: Absent: One Lion

Brother Yudkowsky has discussed at length a number of rules for designing good utopian fiction (and, indeed, good fiction at all). One of the points that he made was that people need to be capable of being protagonists in their own life stories rather. If, if your own life, you have been reduced to the role of supporting cast because you can exert no appreciable influence on the outcome of events, well, then, something is wrong. To put it in Mormon terms, we are supposed to be agents that act out our wills, rather than objects to be acted upon.

To illustrate this idea he brought up several stories, among which was The Chronicles of Narnia. He felt that Aslan made the Pevensies superfluous and that, because Narnia would have been saved with or without them (indeed, with or without anyone but Aslan), they were made supporting cast and had suffered, so to speak, an "amputation of destiny."

While I do support his general idea, I don't agree that the Pevensies got nothing out of the deal. The key is in looking at the Chronicles as a bildungsroman (indeed, in looking at our own lives as each a bildungsroman). The conflicts are not important. What is important is how each child reacts to the conflicts that they encounter: Edmund, for example, turns traitor then repents himself, and seems to keep this episode in mind from then on and give second chances to others. Perhaps Susan's desire to grow up so quickly stemmed from those years in Narnia when she was no slip of a girl but a royal queen.

The point is that the story isn't what Aslan could or couldn't do without the Pevensies- or what God can or can't do without us. The entire history of the world is full of God working with men and women to accomplish His purposes, not so much because He cannot do it alone but because, by becoming co-creators and participants in the drama, we are afforded an opportunity for growth that we would otherwise not receive.

Absent: One Lion quite clearly states that Narnia was saved without the intervention of the Pevensies. Narnia did not need them. But the Pevensies needed Narnia, and we need God, to develop fully.

The Brand Name

Follow-up to: The Seller of Stars

"In the beginning was the brand name, and the brand name was with God, and the brand name was God." John 1:1 (PKD).

In Philip K. Dick's essay How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, he relates a tale about the translation of his book Ubik into the German language. The translator looked at the declaration "I am the word," in the context of the speaker making several statements to the effect that it was God, and concluded that what PKD was having the speaker say was "I am the brand name." PKD goes on to briefly speculate what The Gospel According to St. John would have looked like had the same man been responsible for translating that, too.

A silly anecdote but one that reminded me of the main theme that I present in The Seller of Stars: Satan's best trick is in convincing us to look no further than the Almighty Dollar and that there is nothing in this world that cannot be bought, and no man in it who will not sell his soul so long as the price is right.

These two sides of the coin are where he suckers us in. We want to believe that whatever we want is there for the taking, requiring only a fee for purchase. We also want to believe that everyone else is all-too-willing to sell their souls for a dollar, because it's easier to do it ourselves so long as we can say that we're no worse than the rest of the crowd.

The man in The Seller of Stars sold his soul for his fondest desire, whatever it may have been. He doesn't even need to be told that everyone else is doing it. He just needs the opportunity to make the purchase, and is willing to believe that his eyes- his spiritual sensitivity- is a commodity to be traded like everything else.

Edit 14-08-2013 It has been mentioned that some people have mistaken or may mistake my reference to PKD's essay as an endorsement of it as scripture, as inspired, or anything else along these lines. To reemphasize what I hope is clear to most already, I bring it up because it helped to cement in my mind the imagery of Satan wanting to convince us that, in effect, God is not God, but money is.