nifty

nifty , 1 month ago

There’s no good faith discussion to be had with people who want to dominate

nifty , 1 month ago

Everyone wants to know where big chungus, but not how big chungus

nifty , 1 month ago

I have a bent fork fetish so it’s useful to me 🤷

nifty , 1 month ago

I think I like Bowie, but admittedly I am not familiar with all aspects of his life or personality

https://philosophynow.org/issues/118/Will_the_real_Mr_Bowie_please_stand_up

nifty , 1 month ago

Can this literally be a thing? We need more people spreading the word of no god.

nifty , 1 month ago

I couldn’t read the whole thing because I lost interest around the part where he starts describing Grays and their shirts—it’s all very dull because there is a complete lack of understanding on how different cultures established and evolved mechanisms for self-expression and self-determination. People wanted such mechanisms, which is why democracies formed in the first place, and why medieval societies became a relic of the past.

Even medieval kings needed ideals of honor, chivalry etc. to motivate others to knighthood. I think maybe this person is too convinced of his capacity to charm and believes that he’s capable of starting and leading a cult (which is what he’s describing, essentially). But if he was charming someone who’s never heard of him before would be inclined to find some kind of redeeming quality in his ideas instead of being repulsed by his lack of insight and knowledge. I mean, charming people (cult leaders, for example) have a quality where they just make you stupid by their presence. This person lacks the grace, charisma and any requisite presence for such an effect.

Also, what the fuck he is on about w.r.t MSFT? Look at Coinbase and MSFT, a dumb child can tell you which company is more innovative and valuable. This isn’t even a joke, it’s just sad that people are enabling his narcissism and delusions by letting him believe he’s smart or has good ideas. He’s definitely someone’s useful idiot.

nifty , 1 month ago

First of all, High and Late Middle Ages is when “self-expression and self-determination” really became a thing.

There were medieval scholars in early ("Dark") middle ages who wrote about self-determination in the context of a greater community as part of the development of Christian intellectualism. I would read this part here, but the whole article is quite interesting (https://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2019/02/08/moral-self-determination-and-the-byzantine-christian-tradition/):

The most well-known literary source providing an exposition of obedience is The Ladder of Divine Ascent, authored by John of Sinai (c.579–659 AD).[3] In the fourth chapter or “step,” John addresses the practice, defining it thusly: “Obedience is absolute renunciation of our own life, clearly expressed in our bodily actions…Obedience is the tomb of the will and the resurrection of humility.”[4] His endorsement of the renunciation of “will” may sound odd to many readers, especially given the Christian emphasis upon moral self-governance. **Nevertheless, John is not denying the concept of free will as such, nor is he suggesting that the volitional faculty must atrophy into non-existence. **Scholarly evidence suggests that the term John uses here for “will,” thelēma or thelēsis, comes to be associated with the volitional faculty in a philosophical sense in the writings of Maximus the Confessor, whose engagement with the Christological controversies of the seventh century provided the impetus for the standardization of the expression.[5] Thus, when John speaks of “will” and its denial, he is arguably referring to what Maximus the Confessor and his theological progeny would call gnomē, which in the idiom of the time refers to a private or particular disposition of will, or even to a personal opinion.[6] John’s monk is not so much denying his own intrinsic freedom of will as he is seeking the co-governance and insight of those who are more advanced in virtue, and, through them, struggling to direct his volitional disposition such that it harmonizes with the other members of the community.

The idea being that one should self-determine, but also then be humble enough to know one's limitations and understand how to harmonize your will with that of the community. The preceding paragraph really brings this idea home:

Maximus discloses a similar approach to moral self-determination by establishing his ethical teaching on “love” or agapē, which figures prominently in his philosophical and dogmatic treatises as well as his ascetic writings.[7] Agapē is no mere private sentiment but constitutes the impetus and ground for moral practice as a whole, thereby suggesting that moral judgment and orientation presuppose an awareness of one’s community and the persistent presence of a real, tangible “other.” In this way, Maximus retools an older Aristotelian paradigm, exchanging justice for love as the central and all-defining virtue.[8] Insofar as agapē is the chief virtue, narcissistic self-love, or filautia, is its inverse and the progenitor of all vice. As he demonstrates in one of his earliest works, The Ascetic Life, ascetic discipline should not be considered a private enterprise intended primarily for the sake of internal moral perfection.[9] Rather, its purpose is the effacement of filautia and the diachronic restoration of temporal and eternal relationships with the creator and one’s fellow creatures. To quote the Confessor directly: “He who is unable to separate himself from the passionate yearning for material things shall neither love God nor his neighbor authentically.”[10]

I am not a proponent of using religious influence to guide one's morality or decision making, but I am just using the above paragraphs to discuss your first point.

Second, oldest democracies formed before those ended by any criterion.

You're right that the history of democracy and democratic societies predates Medieval history, but historical examples of Western governing systems in which middle classes could participate are more well-known in the middle ages

The first parliamentary bodies involving representatives of the urban middle class were summoned in 12th century Spain. In 1187, the Leonese King Alfonso IX summoned representatives of the nobility, the church, and representatives of the 50 most important cities, to a council in San Esteban de Gormaz, Soria. There was another meeting with representatives of the cities in Carrión de los Condes, Palencia, the next year, which institutionalized the Curiae.[23] There had been other meetings previously, such as the Concilium of 1135, but they were exceptional and not leading to a regular attendance of town representatives. According to the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, this is the earliest documented manifestation of the European parliamentary system with some temporal continuity.[2][24]

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_parliamentarism#Early_parliaments_in_the_Middle_Ages

Essentially, people sought a centralization of power so they'd have an easier time dealing with the governing bodies--"one king and his court" vs. many nobles. Here's a nice summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system

Third, a typical modern centralist democracy making citizens equal is hostile to self-expression and self-determination, for the same reason any centralist state is.

By definition, there is no self-determination under the rule of a cult leader or authoritarian as you're subject to define yourself by their will. The democratic tradition, in its various flavors, tends to lend some leeway in enabling anyone to exert their opinion and shape the way the community thinks. In fact, this tech dude wouldn't be able to spout off his nonsense without a democracy of some sort, which is why we're unfortunately exposed to his gibberish and now having this discussion.

Fourth, medieval societies became a relic of the past because they couldn’t scale as easily as modern ones in terms of state bureaucracy, and thus manpower and firepower.

Because the rise of parliamentarism (a type of democracy) helped form more efficient governing bodies.

[...] what they called honor and chivalry were pretty specific things, and not “everything good, kind, holy and manly merged”.

I know :) The point I was making, however, is that people seek some greater purpose or meaning to align their will with that of others.

nifty , 1 month ago

There’s nothing wrong with this picture except that this food is not in my mouth

nifty , 1 month ago

Just go ribbit ribbit, what’s hard about that

nifty , 1 month ago

Last night I read this as “don’t live in tranny”, so I had a confusing few hours about the cultural shift at c/196

nifty , 1 month ago

Can she ddos 👀

nifty , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Yes please fit into a nice cultural box so you’re easy to profile, entice and hunt

Edit to say you don’t need an age to be an activist. Does hacktivism have an age? Idk I guess younger folks are more likely to do it right now. Maybe hacktivism just needs a democratizing platform. Like enable grandma to ddos

nifty , 1 month ago

Eh, their ruling class creates divisions to distract them from their constant exploitation.

nifty , 1 month ago

Fair point

nifty , 1 month ago

This implies they can’t skate together after she becomes his queen

nifty , 1 month ago

I am so jelly

nifty , 1 month ago

Of what?

Edit nvm, probably mole rats

nifty , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Shots of what?

Edit nvm probably cough syrup

nifty , 1 month ago

From a U.S. perspective, if voting was useless then the GOP wouldn’t have to rely on gerrymandering and removing voters from rolls for arbitrary reasons to get its ghouls elected. Harm reduction via voting is possible! For everything else, there’s Mastercard protesting. But also maybe “Mastercard” in the form of bribes lobbying

nifty , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

What would make things fine for you? Or at least, one thing that would make one not-fine thing fine?

Edit to clarify it’s something you should think about, you don’t have to share it

nifty , 1 month ago

Yes it does, not for the dead but the living.

I mean, sad scuttling noises

nifty , 1 month ago

They’re thinking about the house they can’t afford.

nifty , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

I am middle age! I get stares from college kids haha, I look younger than I am. I don’t care who looks, and I am too autistic to stare at others 🤷‍♀️

nifty , 1 month ago

Silly evil dog, doesn’t know it’s always ebeel foxday

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/88feaa29-3471-495b-ba2c-adace2fe543c.jpeg

nifty , 1 month ago

I always reasoned that it’s the same reason people do IVF research. But I guess it’s important to know if you can create girls using a risky formula because female eggs are limited resource, so require special attention for engineering? Idk, maybe I am just rationalizing sexism

nifty , 1 month ago

Eh, I feel everyone has a main distro, and experimental side distros. Am I wrong?

nifty , 1 month ago

Hey OP, you have cutest pet and animal pics ^^ Thanks for being you

nifty , 1 month ago

What if OP has a version translated into a right-to-left languages?

nifty , 1 month ago

I don’t know, I was reading right to left

nifty , 1 month ago

How do I permanently ingrain this image in mind?

nifty , 2 months ago

You do, and you should!

nifty , 2 months ago

Make IRC great again

nifty , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

This seems like one of these “truths” that sound right, but the neuroscience is lacking or unconfirmed. For example, people who do poorly in school don’t necessarily have impulse control issues, and people who do better in school don’t necessarily have high impulse control.

In fact, lots of CEO and VC types seems to have poor impulse control, but other factors of their life, luck and personality seem to favor them. There’s also the cultural phenomenon of the asshole 10X engineer who people put up with because they’re so smart etc. I could be wrong as I haven’t looked into this extensively. Here’s a study though: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16255386/

To me it seems that for most people being intelligent or not is unrelated to success, academic or otherwise, and impulsivity is besides the point—what seems to matter most is the ability of someone to play well with others (EQ rather than IQ) if they’re anywhere left on the IQ bell curve. You can be impulsive, but play it off as charming or troubled if you have high EQ. High IQ people can afford being assholes (which sucks).

nifty , 2 months ago

This bench needs just one accessory

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/96289743-8f8b-433b-8311-f8d9821b93c7.jpeg

nifty , 2 months ago

Help has arrived

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/98a68913-c1d1-4ad6-9bee-5f54b57eabaa.jpeg

nifty , 2 months ago

They lost him in the popcorn maze?

nifty , 2 months ago

It’s like a vampire shrinking away from holy water lmao

nifty , 2 months ago

Sorry people are piling on you! Tbh, I think your comment is more or less innocuous. I think it never helps to dig into it when people downvote lol

I really don’t think you deserved a lot of the harsher type comments, just my two cents

nifty OP , 2 months ago

I think decompressing over a chair after work, but ironically in a way that’s bad for the back

nifty , 2 months ago

#not all progressives

I like to think I am a progressive, but I am sure someone left of me thinks I am downright hitlerally literal

nifty , 2 months ago

Coffee by itself is nectar for the gods

nifty , 2 months ago

Okay great, but what are you if you like your women with penises??

nifty , 2 months ago

The horseshoe theory of sexuality

nifty OP , 2 months ago

I would treasure it forever

nifty OP , 2 months ago

But both are cute, what are you on about?

nifty OP , 2 months ago

Thanks for the info!