BF2S Forums Religions of the world Thread

it's almost as if we have had 2000 years of republican or democratic experiment in which to mediate the wills (as well as whims) of the people through steady and prudent governance. quorums and referenda on matters of steering the ship of state ... yeah, not so smart.

darwinian selection doesn't apply to civilisations. more cod science from our resident MSc.

civilisations don't fail because of 'natural selection', dilbert. you completely misunderstand darwin's thought.

not surprising as for you the whole interest isn't one of biology, but rather all the victorian-vintage ideology that stemmed from early misreadings and polemics surrounding the new darwinism: eugenics, unscientific race science, malthusianism, etc.

you cannot make any scientifically verifiable claims about 'the darwinian process of civilisation'. political unions don't come into and cease being because of 'natural selection', dilbert. joining and leaving the EU, or the act of union of 1707 between the kingdoms of the UK, aren't 'determined' or 'selected for' by essentially blind, selection-optimization processes of adaptation. they're acts of human will and agency. there is zero will or agency in darwinism – not unless you introduce spurious metaphysics or religion by the back door about 'vital life forces' or 'intelligent design' or somesuch (ironic for such a cantankerous atheist).

read a history book.

related, but here is an excellent précis by the director of the max planck institute for the history of science - just about one of the most prestigious chairs anywhere in the world on this very intersection between science and history - of the ongoing misunderstandings and misapplications of mendelianism, with an emphasis on race science and genetic determinism.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n21 … inkledness

maybe take your own advice and, i dunno, read something once in a while instead of just your usual angsty teenage attitudinising about 'the end of western civilisation'.

Last edited by uziq (2024-12-23 05:51:21)

why would you change your life to become a lame alt-right meme personality anyway.

you were never varsity catholic material.

Real trad caths go to 6am mass every day

I actually preferred the 6am mass bc it was only like 40 minutes. The priest would give an abridged homily

So I'm taking the Italian girl I'm seeing to church on Sunday. She is spending the night Saturday and we are going to church together Sunday.

This was my idea. I haven't been to a church in maybe 20 years. I don't know how to church at all. So I need someone to teach me how to do it.

She goes to church every Sunday. I want to experience what church is like. So I asked her out to church as a date.

i assume she won't be the type of catholic most taken up with the torments of conscience, given the whole staying-over-the-night thing. a spot of the old premarital before mass?

we are not married yet. but, eventually.

we’ve given it a few years for me to get up to speed on language and for things like careers to settle between the two possible locations. it’s cheaper to live in tokyo when young, which is leading that way.

she paid to have a bunch of eggs frozen in her 20s so we don’t particularly feel rushed or pressured about it. it will happen when we both actually want it.

she’s not religious but there’s a certain weight of tradition with the shintoism stuff that definitely bears some thinking about. all the usual clichés of trying to communicate with and get along with asian in-laws.

tbh much like the catholic church has relaxed and de facto liberalised a bit, i think most japanese and korean families are just happy to see their daughters get married and start a family at all thesedays. the traditional patterns of life haven’t applied for several generations. she’s one of three sisters and one brother; none of the women have settled down. east asia is speedrunning the whole  ‘women should have careers’ thing, with all of its attendant conflicts and compromises. trad-minded guys are being left in the dust of fast-shifting mores, a bit. a lot of them are still hoping to find a 22yo trophy housewife when they’re 40yo and have had a stagnant salary since 2007. not much bread being won by the average salaryman, and so on.

Last edited by uziq (2025-02-19 07:11:17)

i don't need any anti-natalist screed. i do not have strong opinions for or against continuing the human race or preserving civilisation or whatever.

a few of my friends have had kids at this point. maybe 30-40%. not the majority, but it won't be long at this rate. i've got a fair idea of what parenthood involves.

the first few years look like hell. and frankly i am not as set-up or accomplished as i want to be yet. there's a few more things i, selfishly or not, want to do for myself. i don't fancy trying to do a PhD while raising a toddler. i may be a genius but the human mainframe has its limits. von neumann didn't change nappies.

i always said i'd properly assess these things by 40. that's a bit of a cut-off point for me when it comes to putting all the follies of youth and bucket-list type living behind me. i do think you can find other, if not necessarily deeper, satisfactions in serving other people and settling down beyond a certain age. you can learn a lot about yourself by taking on those serious responsibilities. i've got friends with kids who seemed to have tied down their lives and extinguished their hopes far too young; but on the other hand, i've at this point seen a lot of the 'eternal traveller' type, too. continually chasing your own bliss, the next horizon, finding enlightenment, etc. can be a very lonely and unproductive affair if you don't know when to wrap it all up.

everything in moderation. i generally trust my gut on these things. my life has seemed to transition from one phase to the next without any great deal of anxiety, agonising, deliberation, effort, yada yada. i left behind a long-term relationship and went to asia in the great decompressing after covid. after a few years of living with myself and at my own amorous leisure, i met my other half just by existing in tokyo. she slid into my instagram DMs based on a music event we both shared. it was that easy. didn't even have to use a dating app, etc. and now here we are. 'slow and smooth', as our long-departed marine friends would have said when breaching a room to shoot a bunch of afghan 14 year olds in the face.

I have no idea if the bar has always been that low.

tbh dating apps have just made it that little bit easier to connect with desperate and lonely people. that's it. you always could have found some 'left behind' girl in her township or picked up some harlot on the bar scene, prior to dating apps, who would just have quickly rushed through the steps with you. i would say that is very unwise. things have proceeded pretty quickly in this relationship, now, but it's not as if i didn't just spend the last 3 years dating lots of women who were very keen to settle down with me in seoul and knowing when and how to respectfully decline.

we are also just at 'that age'. dating same-aged women in their 30s invariably means meeting people in a rush. you generally don't need to take 2 years of being 'in a relationship' before getting serious. those kinds of proving periods are like for people in their early 20s who have lots of time and still have the training wheels on. there's healthy and unhealthy ways to have a whirlwind romance. i think you know better than anyone else the sort you're having.

Last edited by uziq (2025-02-19 09:16:36)

lol. well, yes, that's one way of looking at it. another way of looking at it is that comfort breeds complacency (if not progeny). but, yes, noted obviously that there's other and perhaps more well-advised ways to challenge yourself than to bring another human being into the world.

honestly, i think i'll go for kids when i start looking around at the other toddlers and feeling like i want one for myself. and probably not much before. i don't have some narcissistic desire to replicate myself or extend the reach of my ambitions through a kid or anything.

maybe we'll get a dog first. that seems to be a typical millennial compromise.

What if he poisons the dog