Communities That Can't Grow Through Biological Reproduction

There's a membership problem. Haqr society is like the Shakers--the community can't grow by the usual primate strategy--biological reproduction is right out--so its continuation depends on the faithful going out and bringing in new recruits from the general population. Yes, we're saying it out loud: Haqrs recruit. Haqrs are intrinsically subversive to the young. Haqrs are conscious role models for haqr glory. If that weren't enough, haqrs actively seek to conver the imaginative and the credul...

 What is Prosochē?

The brief definition offered above provides some insight into the Stoic concept of prosochē; however, I do not think it draws out its full meaning and richness. My own understanding of the concept was furthered by the following descriptions of prosochē from various authors: A “fundamental attitude” of “continuous attention, which means constant tension and consciousness, as well as vigilance exercised at every moment.” Being “perfectly aware not only of what [one] is doing, but ...

 Prohairesis

Prohairesis or proairesis (Ancient Greek: προαίρεσις; variously translated as "moral character", "will", "volition", "choice", "intention", or "moral choice"[1]) is a fundamental concept in the Stoic philosophy of Epictetus. It represents the choice involved in giving or withholding assent to impressions (phantasiai). The use of this Greek word was first introduced into philosophy by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics.[2] To Epictetus, it is the faculty that distinguish...

 Being "Good" At a Game Means Internalizing It's Algorithms

The gamer is not really interested in faith, although a heightened rhetoric of faith may fill the void carved out of the soul by the insinuations of gamespace. The gamer’s God is a game designer. He implants in everything a hidden algorithm. Faith is a matter of the intelligence to intuit the parameters of this geek design and score accordingly. All that is righteous wins; all that wins is righteous. To be a loser or a lamer is the mark of damnation. When you are a gamer, you are left with ...

 Enjoyment, Satisfaction, and Purpose

Arthur C. Brooks: There are three macronutrients to happiness. They are enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose. People who are truly happy about their lives, they have all three. And they have them in abundance, and they have them in balance. And people who are out of balance [with] enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose tend to define themselves as unhappy. They know that something is wrong with their happiness. So that’s where I want to start. And I want to start with the first of those, whi...

 The Vertigo of a World Without Flaws

The exaltation of the crowds was not a response to the event of landing on the moon or of sending a man into space (this would be, rather, the fulfillment of an earlier dream), rather, we are dumbfounded by the perfection of the programming and the technical manipulation, by the immanent wonder of the programmed unfolding of events. Fascination with the maximal norm and the mastery of probability. Vertigo of the model, which unites with the model of death, but without fear or drive. Because i...

 How the Human's Short Lifespan Influences Their Behavior

Humans are the most adaptable and ambitious people among the common races. They have widely varying tastes, morals, and customs in the many different lands where they have settled. When they settle, though, they stay: they build cities to last for the ages, and great kingdoms that can persist for long centuries. An individual human might have a relatively short life span, but a human nation or culture preserves traditions with origins far beyond the reach o f any single human’s memory....

 The Absurdity of Religious Prohibitions

I find these singular precepts opposed to nature and contrary to reason: they needs must multiply the number of crimes and continually annoy the old workman, who has made everything without the help of head, hands, or tools, who exists everywhere and is to be seen nowhere; who endures to-day and to-morrow and is never a day the older; who commands and is never obeyed; who can prevent and does not do so. These precepts are contrary to nature because they presuppose that a thinking, feeling, fr...

 Know Then Thyself

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much...

 Belief Discovers No New Qualities

SINCE therefore belief implies a conception, and yet is something more; and since it adds no new idea to the conception; it follows, that it is a different MANNER of conceiving an object; something that is distinguishable to the feeling, and depends not upon our will, as all our ideas do. My mind runs by habit from the visible object of one ball moving towards another, to the usual effect of motion in the second ball. It not only conceives that motion, but feels something different in the con...