I am (X), & it does not matter at all.

I see it happen all the time. A person is called something "bad" and this shuts down the conversation, it makes them an "other" it marks them, stains them. Yet I wonder, why does anyone care about words? What happened to seeing that an ad hominem is illogical?

So, screw it. I'll be all the things. I'll simply declare I am (X), then I shall ask, "What is your argument?"

I'm a racist. I'm a homophobe. I'm a islamphobe, I'm a misogynist. I'm a misandrist. I'm a troll. I'm a neckbeard. I'm a MGOTOW. I'm a incel. I'm a simp. I'm a slob. I'm retarded. I'm an idiot. I'm evil. I'm sick. I'm dumb. I'm stupid. I'm far right. I'm far left. I'm a Nazi. I'm a terrorist. I'm religious. I'm spiritual. I'm a new ager. I'm an atheist. I'm a skeptic. I'm agnostic. I'm anti semitic. I'm in. I'm out. I'm up. I'm down. I'm left, right, forwards, backwards. I'm a sloth. I'm lazy. I'm a workaholic. I'm neurotic. I'm a pencil pusher. I'm a drug dealer. I'm a drug addict. I am everything that is good, bad, & other in the whole God Damned universe.

....

So,

WHAT IS YOUR ARGUMENT?

Everything can be known via science. Everything.

A common complaint about "scientism"/"naturalism"/"materialism" is that these things assume the natural, that the first is to narrow, that only using science can not derive truths, the statement, "Everything that is known is known via science" someone might say, is itself a non-scientific statement.

However, I think this is a narrow view of what science is. Its a broad system, that includes maths, logic, testing, verification, and many processes made to try to eliminate personal bias. Its a way to dig at the world, to be critical of it, to find what it really is, not what we wish it to be.

History, some say is not science, but I beg to differ. We have forensic science, a study of the past. We have archaeology, a study of the past. Both require data collection, testing, verification and so on.
In fact, when doing history we must apply the ideas of science to it, if we read in some writing that something beyond what we know can be done now was done, we categorize that as myth, a person flying around like Superman is myth, because we have no reason to think that is even possible, then or now. Some object that this is an assumption, well - how could someone do something in the past that is not possible now? They then must assume that magic or something else allowed that person to fly, the assumption that no, its not possible is what can be observed to be, whereas the other one can not. Simply put, those who want to believe that there myth is true, will make all sorts of excuses to justify it. The one who does science only needs to show the data, the tests, the process, the results. Reality does not require back flips to prove, it does not require dodging, nor does it require excuses, its there, it can be known, though science.

Logic as well, is I think, a sub-set of science, it has a robust yet changing system, its a structured format. It can be used as a short cut, however its limited, one must still check with reality to see if the premises are true, thus one must consult science to discover if it is in fact true.

So it is my contention that everything is known or can be known via science.

Update, my views on this have been challenged, and I think that, yes this is incorrect on technical linguistic norms. I do think that we could view the above things in the category of science, although it currently is not. But, things change. Would it be useful to change to my idea? Hmm, I do not know.

Madness

The year was 1992, the place was Las Angles, city of angels. The people were unhappy, and they had been at a number of things, for quite some time.

African-American and Korean-American communities came in conflict. The former feeling insulted, and perhaps, displaced or pushed back by the latte, after all, this had been "their" community, who were these new comers? Was this about jobs, or lack of jobs, maybe, Korean would hire Korean, but not the other way around, because of language mostly, but also maybe because of lack of trust, these people simply did not know each other, and no one seemed willing, or able to bring them together. Where was the effort of someone to step forth to unite these people? Should the mayor do something, shouldn't someone? No one did, thus the tension built. This reached a point where a Korean was killed by the African-American. Black on yellow violence, if you will.

Alongside of this, the LAPD had been reported numinous times by many prominent blacks and others as being to brutal in their ways, using excessive force, at this time, no mention of the color of the officers was mentioned, perhaps latter people did, but them being white was not the issue, it was that they, collectively had been abusing their power, stepping over the line, and not being punished for it, those that were enforcing the law were also breaking the law. When one Rodney King got beaten by several officers, the tension in the community bubbled and boiled up, the blood was boiling hot. Then, a trial was held. Finally, justice would be done... but the officers were found not guilty.

Then hell broke out. Riots happened over the next several days. Destruction of personal and private property, people beating up other people, and there were hero's risking their well-being to save others from attacks, harm, and assault.

Yet, too few heros to stop the madness, the anger was there, mob mentality and group think had taken over many, "oh look, they are doing bad, I guess I can do bad as well" a single person might be sensible, but a group of people can be insane, and if so — become a mob.

I was thirteen at the time. We wrote about the event in school. I do not remember what I wrote, or what we were told about this event, it was far away, and I saw it as something wrong, something unjust yet it was not something I understood.

Today I am forty-one, and we see, again that a number of things have been building. People HATE the President, and the media is helping them to hate him. The left vs right has become a cold war of sorts, or so some would lead us to believe that is the case, mutters of civil war, negation of free speech, a rise of cultural Marxism, all sorts of things happening all around the same time that are making people upset. The men are the problem feminists say, the whites are the problem some say, white males who are heterosexual are the problem, someone other than the one complaining is at fault for how things are. Yet things are pretty good, all things considered.

Then C19 hit. A virus that spread quickly and killed old and young, and those whose health is bad. It was global, and the government's had no idea what to do. Lock down was called. People had been, mostly, keeping at home, loss of jobs was stress, lack of freedom was stress. It had only been a few months, but people were TIRED of being stuck inside, they demanded freedom, protesting in numbers. Not a wise idea. A giant bee that kills other bees was around, and oh right, a black person had been killed by the police.

Uh oh.

So we see again, riots. I'm not sure where the hero's are out there, the protests grow, people have forgotten or perhaps do not care about C19 now, they are ANGRY they are MAD, justice was not done, again! How many blacks have been killed by whites anyway? If it was the other way around and a black man had killed a white man, there would be lynching right? Justice — what a joke.

Or so some believed. Why? Oh, many reasons, BLM did not help anything. Spouting a false narrative that blacks are dispositional harmed to whites, that everything is about race. (studies contradict such narrative but who cares about data), and lo — its history repeating. On a new cycle. Yet, people will pack up at some point, as they always do, something else will distract them and bother them. C19 might take a few of them out. No one can know what will happen next for sure, yet I do think that its madness.

I reflect on how wrong the Rodney King beating was, and yet, how it was not about race, and it was not. It was an abuse of power, but the narrative has changed, every time anyone that is black is harmed, it is because of race. No idea when that happened, but that seems to be what we are being told, or telling our own self's. I do not believe it, because the data says otherwise.

It should not be about the color of our skin. It should always be about doing the right thing. About being the hero, not the villain. If you want to protest, do it like Marten Luther King Jr. there was a man that knew how to lead, how to speak, and how to protest properly to make a lasting change. His dream came true, well... sort of. Segregation ended, but then became self-imposed. Opportunities  opened, but people took the wrong paths. I do not know why, I can not pretend to have the answers to what was, or to say what will be or even what should be.

I can just look at it, as all of you can and sigh and ponder when the madness will end, oh also its getting hotter all over the world and that is changing weather like crazy, so there is that as well.
Bleep me. We really need some hero's. Some brave people to step forward from the dark, to speak just and right into this void. To say kindly, yet firmly (X) is wrong, yet we will not do wrong, we will do right. To bravely face hate with love. To fight war with peace. Oh for those brave hero's, wherever they might be, I long for them.

Yet, here I am, wondering who will save us all, could I be that person? Could I get up and speak?

Could you?

Well, last time no one did anything to change things it went badly... so maybe, just maybe we will learn from the madness of the past.

Yet, here we are, repeating it all the same.

Madness.

Reconstruction Man:

When I had faith in Christ, and the whole Christian ideas, mindset, bible, God & so on, my life was largely shaped by those ideas. I would ask God for direction, although none really came, it was always me directing myself, but at the time, I didn't know or believed that. I tried to think the right thoughts, impure thoughts were bad, looking at porn was bad, desiring sex was bad. The things that a typical teen & young adult want, perhaps need to do are "bad", because this is how the meme (and the belief of God is a meme) takes hold of our brain, and keeps hold of it. The meme only exists as long as we believe the meme is real, it stops once you no longer believe in it.

Yet this writing is not about my deconversion per say, but my reconstruction after it took hold. For a year or so, I was an angry atheist. I was bitter, depressed, and low. Nothing mattered. I simply existed, barely from day to day. Yet, I was still learning, still reading. I realized, I had to say something about this nonsense. I had to go back to making videos again. I loved to do it, I wanted to. This was my thing, as Deconverted Man. This music video (click this) shows this transformation well I think.

Learning informal logic, helped me to place myself properly. Having a label "skeptic" helped me focus. Looking at arguments and analyzing them gave me purpose. So, yes when or if you deconvert, it might be hard, it might be easy, for me it was rough on the emotions, but I am glad to be a skeptic now, because, for the first time in my life, I can honestly LEARN anything - ANYTHING and never worry that it will hurt my beliefs, because I hold none to be hurt, or any that I do, I have become willing to challenge, willing to question, eager to learn something new, something amazing. Wow, I didn't know that was how that worked! Cool! I no longer have to worry about "bad" thoughts, I am not slowed down by looking to the sky for answers, they come from me, and when I do not know, I can ask others.

Rebuilding is something I did on my own, but I hope that I can somehow help if you need it and are reconstructing after deconversion, if you want said help, let me know via twitter @deconvertedman or via email.

Best to you, and yours, always.

The Good Place

The Good Place (NBC, September 19, 2016, to January 30, 2020) was a great, and fun ride.
Very funny, and also, deep, but not super deep.

The question of afterlife, what would it be like to get everything you wanted, forever? You would get tired, you would get board, and this happens. The answer: actual death. A way to leave when you are done.
There is a hint that the particles that made up "you" go on to effect others in some small way. The wave returns to the ocean. 

Its a nice way to think about it. Also there is that, you don't really know, and no one knows what it is to die. Not even the all knowing Janet knows. That seems very, human.

Unanswered, and perhaps for the best is why the system exists at all - why was the universe made, why is there any afterlife at all? Who made all of this? No real answers are given. This is just the way it is.

No clear devil or god, just demons and angel like beings who are not perfect. (They run away leaving Michel in charge of the Good Place)

The other idea of the Good Place being the Bad Place at first - and them all working though this together, improving along the way, its a nice idea.

What is the point, if any, of life? How to be ethical? Is it all just a test? The Good Place says it is a test, sort of, but then you get tested over and over until you pass, or I suppose if someone never passes then they do, in fact, go to the Bad Place. But, its never made clear.

As a skeptic, I do not believe in an afterlife, but I do ponder what would it be, or how could it be, what would make sense, or how one should be judged, if one is to be judged, fairly. I think that the Good Place has a nice system, but not a perfect one in mind. Perhaps, in the end, that is also the way it is, even an afterlife is not perfect. 

I enjoyed the show, and it was a nice send off, may we all find a Good Place here, and now. Perhaps we must make it. No idea how, but its worth trying.

x

My reflections on: Being Functional by Atticus Blake

Life is wondrous, hard, unfair and strange. There is a beauty in the symmetry that Atticus has woven into his life, whether by his masterful writing or because I'm a pattern seeking human and find patterns, regardless this is beauty & art, honest & true.

There is a moment in the book, where he writes about this pastor who has been counseling him, he writes "what comes next..." and I think to myself, "oh no! he is going to be molested!" although, in that moment, I had forgotten that Atticus had said in the opening of his book that he had not suffered that, yet then the pastor does something that is far worse in a way then molestation - he does an exorcism. By "driving out" the demons, this otherwise well meaning man has instead infused my online friend with demons that will haunt him for years to come. He had spiritually molested him.

There is this chapter that begins the year with a maglite smashing a window, and a man yelling. The year ends with his ""friends"" (not enough quotes in the universe to indicate how much of "friends" they were to him) who broke into a house and used a maglite- I forget now as I write this review if they used it to bash in the window, but that would be fitting. That is how he frames this year, a black maglite. Yet, I saw a second frame that could be there, as he is yelling now at the boy who he loves (& who uses him) giving him what for. Here is a man out of control yelling at the start, here is a man yelling in control at the end. Insanity vs righteous anger. What a wondrous tapestry.

I get excited when I find people's names from youtube I know. "Hey I know that persons work! Oh yay!" I get even more excited far latter as he mentions the "deconverted" & mentions as well as explains logical fallacies and talks about being a skeptic. I think to myself, "Yay! I know what those things are!" I feel like he is talking to me though this book.

I feel for him, as he painfully struggles with OCD, something I've had for a very long time. The god believe interacts with this, and makes it worse then otherwise. What would Atticus be like had he never been made aware of this God concept? Who can say, or know. We know he will deconvert, yet this isn't about that, not really. I was surprised at how little of this book is his deconversion, as if that was taken care of on youtube, its all the life leading up to that moment that needs to be told.

He tells it. I want him to succeed, I worry what will happen to him next, and want things to go his way, yet I know as I read that this is life, and there is random chaos here, who knows what will happen next?

Yet he makes it, by the skin of his teeth so to speak. He worries about being an adult - "Am I an adult now?" he ponders, I smile, grateful that someone besides myself has worried about such things.

I wanted to ask Atticus what he would write about me, if there was a part two, but his next book will not be about real life things. Alas, I wanted to know how he would frame me in his writings, what would he say about "Deconverted Man" what were his thoughts on me? Could my ego handle it? Would it be good, bad or bland? Who knows. Perhaps its best I not know in a way. Yet, because I'm highly narcissistic I find myself wondering about "me" - as I read his life story, I wonder about my life story, I think about how I would write my story. I wonder how Atticus can remember whole conversations. I reflect upon what his life was vs what my life was. Perhaps this is what it is to read anyone's biography, although he calls it his memoir.

Regardless, I've had the pleasure to interact with this man online from time to time, and in my brain I think of him as an "online friend" whatever that means, these labels are not always helpful. I guess what I mean is that I would want him to be a friend in "real life" as if the internet is not real life as well, in a way it is not, in a way it is. The people I've connected with online, are they friends or just online friends? Is there a difference? Should there be? Ah low, Atti, you've gotten me thinking deeply. Was that what you intended?

Anyway, I like him in my own way. I beat him in a debate once. So badly that he exploded the video in fact. I'm not going to let him forget that Lobsters won. I'm sure he will say that Turtles won. Since the video is gone I could explain this, but I'll let it be an inside joke for those who were around to have seen that video, and for him and I to share publicly this silly thing we did online together once. Something I hope to redo one day, if I can get him to do it of course.

The book is well written. I want more. I want to read everything and anything he writes. He is really, really good. I like the short chapters. I like how he can make you want more - he will write things like "the next thing was even worse" Yet, this is not over done, nor is it in every chapter, yet it was enough that I didn't want to stop reading.

His final statement in the book is profound, I think Atticus wanted to say something epic to conclude this bit of his life story, and I think he did. Is it odd to enjoy someone's life story? I do not know, but I did, I saw much of myself here as I did of Atticus. Again, maybe that is the point.

Life is a tangled tapestry of travesty and turtles, lo lob the lobsters towards logic: May it save us all.

Social Justice & its warriors.

Social justice, broadly speaking is the idea that a group of people (society itself) can & will be the judge of any given event.

The SJW, social justice warrior is the one who engages in this sort of activity, promotes it, or thinks that it is a good idea.

On twitter, youtube, facebook this sort of thing can be seen. Groups of people will rally around someone who has been declared the "victim" &, anyone who denies that they are a victim, is automatically the enemy & a proper target of the mob. The mob mentality here is clear, the in group is protected at all costs, conform or die.

You might have read or heard about "virtue signaling" this is when someone says they support a "marginalized group" to display there "virtue", its unclear if this is a tip off if that person is a SJW type or not in my view, but certainty its not a good sign, do we really have to go out of our way to say we support any given group? Also, are not most of these groups well supported by now? Just how long is a group "marginalized" typically this is said to be LGBT(+) but, is that group REALLY oppressed? Sometimes its "colored" people that are marginalized, sometimes its women. Its never men, never white people, never its heterosexuals.

So you are either in the protected group, or you are not, if you are not - then you are a target of the sjw type, and even if you are part of the protected group, you still might be a target should you say something "out of line". Casting doubt on someone claiming abuse, rape, discrimination are all sins that the sjw's will get you for.

You are simply not allowed to say things that might offend people. What might that be? Anything of course. "Hate speech" is a commonly dropped idea - that simply doesn't exist as any sort of coherent speech, hate speech is simply speech that people dislike. Saying anything racist, anti-LGBT, anti (X) whatever (X) might be if (X) is a "marginalized" group - is a sin & is punishable by the mob.

People who are offended by anything will tweet out that they have been emotionally traumatized by the words, and the group of sjw types will then attack that person that did this. With, or without any evidence. Saying sorry is only proof you are guilty, so never, EVER apologize.

Its very much cult or religious in nature, this ideology - its focused on protection of feelings, it props up the "week" as it tries to smash down the "strong" - who is the strong? Whoever is not one of the protected groups of course.

Is it a bad thing? Is it harmful? Oh yes, people have lost there jobs over people complaining online. What madness. Speech online is hampered by the busy-bodies who feel that they must and should report all the "bad speech" to everyone. That others must join in to stamp out this horrible thing that someone said on facebook.

Sadly - companies are spineless and are not standing up for there workers as they should be. Saying that no, we will not fire (X) person as they did not say (Z) during company time. But so afraid of a bad image. Frankly, I'd see any company standing up for its employees as noble.

SJW's also think they are RIGHT and feel justified about doing these things. They are self-righteous people. They think they have a better ethical & moral code then you do.

You might have heard that people get "red pilled" - this happens when they are attacked by the mob, only then do they see, that this idea is a bad one. They must be eaten by the intolerant mob to see just how evil the ideology is.

What can one do? I said before to simply not play the SJW game, but also, be better then them, do not use those hate tactics, do not moral police people. You be a good person. Love, not hate will win out in the end, it has in the past.

Will they eat each other? One can hope. Until then, the war marches on, but only if we let it. Only if we do not stand tall, and be better then they.