The Accidental Heretic

Heresy Defined

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/heresy

  • opinion or doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine, especially of a church or religious system.
  • the maintaining of such an opinion or doctrine.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heresy

  • adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma
  • dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, opinion, or practice
  • an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth or to generally accepted beliefs or standards

Commentary

Omit the references to "churches or religious systems" and you have a good understanding of what it means to be a heretic today.

The best among us are heretics about the right things.

The best heretics stand contrary to orthodoxy because they have discipline in the way they look at reality and a demanding rigor in what they will accept as a personal conviction.

Arriving into heresy can be profound. Take for instance this quote from Men in Black:

"1500 years ago everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe... 500 years ago everybody knew the world was flat... 15 minutes ago you knew that people were alone on this planet."

To be willing to call beliefs into question is a form of strength. But strength without discipline will create as much harm as benefit like a fire in a dry overgrown forest.

In the realm of beliefs, we clear out the undergrowth... or else. We call this "being a clear thinker". Basically it means you have culled away the ideas that don't conform with reality in a non-contradictory way.

We often don't think too hard about the way our minds work. We don't name things. But this process has a name. The name for the process of integrating perception of a set of facts in reality (rationality) into a non-contradictory understanding (logic) is "Reason", which is much maligned in our time. But reason, the disciplined application of rationality and logic, is the difference between folly and informed heresy.

For some of us, the accidental and proud heretics, there will never be such a thing as a "post-truth" world. We know what we believe and we know why we believe it: because our beliefs have not been overthrown by new facts and we have worked hard to avoid conveniently "not seeing" things.

Peak Bullshit: Turns Out The Dalai Lama is a Hateful Figure

Apparently, even privileged fucks from China can exploit inclusivity and diversity to shut people down. You know... hateful people like the Dalai fucking Lama.

Now I don't agree with the Lama or his ethos, but come on... he mostly talks about dealing with your own garbage and tending to yourself.

If you needed any more evidence that Social Justice is morally bankrupt exploitation of feeling over fact (and feeling over the exercise of individual judgment), there you have it. Calls for diversity and inclusivity, with rare exception, imply an abandonment of reason, which is the only bullshit detector you have.

Our relationship with our own faculties of reason come down to practice. It's use it or lose it. Either we call things as we see them or we're the next mark for whomever figures out how to push our buttons.

But, if our commitment to the truth is strong enough and we form convictions based on our long-term practice of clear thinking, we can be like the immovable stone in the river... the manipulations will flow around us like so much water.

We don't need to fix the world or anyone else's flawed notions. But we do need to look upon the world call bullshit when we see a steaming pile of it.  We are at peak bullshit right now (or hopefully heading toward it).  You've never needed your reason more.

There Are Four Lights!

From "Chain of Command - Part 2", a season 6 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation

We Are Wary of Outrage... and No Mob Can Have Us

Those of us who refuse to be whipped into a mob are few but feisty.

We arm our intellects. We prepare ourselves to recognize manipulation and deception. We know our core principles and convictions.

We are wary of outrage... We know it to be seductive and a key tool to uncenter us without our notice.

We acknowledge and affirm that no one can ever take our reason from us without our acquiescense and that we can surrender it in subtle ways. We make a practice of not yielding it.

We commit ourselves on this day and each day forward that we will move only on our own best individual judgment... never in haste or anger... responding, not reacting... with resolve or defiance as the situation calls for it.

We are no mob and no mob can have us.

Sects and Violence

I want to talk today about what "Islam" means. I am not a muslim and I am a complete outsider. I see danger in some ideas associated with Islam and beauty in some of the ideas. I see people saying Islam is peace. And I see mobs and violence associated with it. And so I think it's long overdue to ask whether we are all referring to the same thing when we refer to "Islam".

From what I can see, Islam means peace to most Muslims I know. And to some Muslims, it means violence visited upon other people for various different reasons: some political, some moral, always opportunistic, and always justified by some grandiose vision (a story). And the latter part is a bit sticky since the spectacle and tragedy creates a more vivid impression in the mind than the many Muslim neighbors we know and work with.

Let's Talk About Sects, Baby

Let me tell you about a trick of the human mind. It is a tendency for non-Muslims to think about Islam as one enormous monolith with complete homogeneity of belief and action. But Muslims are 1.6 Billion+ in number. And the idea of one great Islam doesn't withstand scrutiny.

Every religious or philosophical movement has within it a manifold of sects. People just can't seem to agree on things. Take any belief system and you can break it down to subgroups based on the disagreements.

To provide specific examples, I have collected here an accounting of the major religions I could think of and their sub-sects scraped from Wikipedia:

  • Chrisitanity: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical,...
  • Judaism: Rabinnic, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Humanistic,...
  • Hinduism: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, Smartism,...
  • Buddhism: Therevada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen,...

And as for Islam? Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Salafi, Wahhabi,...

There are no incidents of complete uniform belief within any belief system. Humans are messy, sloppy creatures subject to entropy. Our brains are meat-machines driven by huge variations in chemistry. Fuzzy logic? check. Non-logical leaps? check. Context-dropping? check. Mistakes of thinking? check. Hormone-driven teenagers? check.

You know why clear thinking is beautiful when you hear it? Because it is rare. Reason is slow and requires discipline and it is always impressive to hear an idea that is simple and clear and true.

Aside: Beware of Mob Think

There is a sort of situation worth mentioning where uniformity does arise... where an idea can become so loud that it drowns out other ideas. When human beings are in a mob driven by fear and anger whipped into a frenzy, we have shown ourselves to be capable of frighteningly uniform non-thinking. The Rwandan genocide comes to mind. Nazi Germany comes to mind.

People are capable of their ugliest actions when they blindly react rather than stepping back and thinking about things rationally, and acting accordingly. And, in the case of Rwanda and Nazi Germany, both resulted in the creation of cultures that slaughtered unimaginable numbers.

Labels Fail Us

Back to the main point. The labels: Islam. Muslim.

There is a visual that Sam Harris mentioned in his chat with Neil Tyson about what a Christian imagines when they find out that a person can be painted with the term "Atheist":

they think they know a lot about you based on your admission that you are an atheist... It's almost like you're in a debate with someone and they draw the police crime scene outline of a dead body on the sidewalk and you just walk up and lie down in it... that you just conform perfectly to their expectations of how clueless you must be of their context.

Don't we do this with "Islam"... just a little? We imagine Islam as one thing. We imagine Muslims as one people who conform perfectly to some expectation.

The labels fail Muslims and the labels fail non-Muslims alike. The labels expose non-Muslims to the mistake of thinking in "Us vs. Them" terms with Muslims as the other. And the labels expose Muslims to taking a defensive posture where "We are under attack" by an unjust world who will not accept them. The labels expose Muslims to having their fear and frustrations manipulated.

But these are just stories and they are divisive ones. These are the ones that deliver us into the hands of Neo-fascists. And we don't want those hands anywhere near us so it's time to abandon these stories, which divide us.

image.jpg

Beyond Us Vs. Them

We need some new narratives to give us hope and something to strive for.

Instead of Us vs. Them... What if we just thought of this whole mess as a bunch of people with a bunch of mixed-up ideas and some of them are poison?

Rather than considering Islam as one set of ideas interpretable only one way, we can remember that ideas are subject to fashion trends. They are subject to trending upward or downward at any given point in time.

Here are ideas I would love to see trend upward:

  • Non-Muslims reflect and realize that Muslims are our neighbors and friends and co-workers. Most of them want to live their lives and raise their families. We act accordingly. We love our neighbors.
  • The world notices that Muslims have their versions of Goebbels and Hitler. And the world will need to put these tyrants down in exactly the same way: total war ending in unconditional surrender. This is the only way to defeat evil that has decided to wage war: Force met with overwhelming force.
  • Muslims embrace freedom of speech and dissent by all, especially other Muslims, and Non-Muslims unilaterally choose to stop disrespecting Muhammad because it's nearly always a gimmicky cheap shot that is not doing anybody any good.
  • Muslims come out in support of liberal values. We will support and encourage these people because they have right on their side. Further, we work to encourage the conservatives among Muslims to respect the rights of all human beings alike (male, female, gay, straight), just as we do with non-Muslim conservatives. Live and let live becomes the universal norm.
  • "Islam means peace" becomes a statement of intention... a movement and a mantra owned by Muslims: they are defiant, vocal, and visible movement of the majority.
  • Secularism: All people of all religions work to keep their religions separate from the state. There are no state religions. Just respect and protection of rights for all beliefs and creeds.

The only way we can do this is to see the bigger "Us". We, as humans, need to see Universal principles describing fundamental rights. In other words: the conditions under which we are able to live with one another.

We don't need to be innovators who must define fundamental rights for the first time. We have the shoulders of giants to stand on. But as I said, ideas are subject to fashion and we do have to keep these ideas trending upward. It's constant upkeep... yes. There is no magic bullet to make humans respect rights for all time.

But it's good work if you can get it. And as always... Discipline Equals Freedom.

Speaking Softly About Rape

A woman has been raped. Everyone knows the name of the assailant: Brock Turner. And the discussion following has been touching and shocking all at the same time.

What follows are my thoughts about what I have seen online.

In case anything I write below creates a doubt, and I wouldn't write that unless I have seen some serious grandstanding and moralizing (and un-friendings) going on, lets establish some of my positions:

  • Brock Turner is a rapist and he should be going to prison for as long as the law permits.
  • The fact that the victim got so drunk that she became unconscious doesn't justify any part of his despicable action, no matter how many minutes were involved.
  • The Victim deserves no shame at all for what happened.

Okay... let's talk about this.

A Measured Voice

One voice that is measured is the voice of the victim, who has elected not to have her name splattered all over the media. I respect that decision. I'll humanize her by calling her "Victoria".

I have read the full text of Victoria's statement to the court and to her assailant. I was moved by its graphic visuals of the scene in the hospital following her shocking awakening to discover that her head was strapped to a gurney and she had no idea where she was or why she had pine needles in her hair. What followed was the alienating indignity of having her body further probed for documentation.

And as if all of that isn't enough, she has to deal with the aftermath of all of this in her head. And she has to figure out how to continue living her life without breaking down and without flying into a rage. And she and her boyfriend have to deal with an alien new reality.

When it comes down to it, there is no price that can be paid to settle this debt by the rapist, Brock Turner. There's no way to get square again. And frankly, he owes her a serious apology and one that is not diluted by the long filibuster that is in his full statement.

What You Are Not Permitted to Mention

I read the Victoria's statement and I think I "get it". I think she used every bit of her will to summon love in her heart to have written so patiently. I am moved and inspired to the full possibilities of the best version of myself.

But then I open the BookFace and I find I am assaulted repeatedly by reposts and words from people I know which seek to impose constraints upon what we are allowed to say aloud and what certain words mean. It's feels like I am being shouted down when I haven't even said anything.

And the conclusion I am left with is that I am someone who doesn't "get it".

We are apparently not allowed to talk about how it is inadvisable to get drunk. Don't even think about it, the assailant named it as the primary contributing factor for him. The fact of a woman being drunk, even to the point of passing out, is not justification for rape, says practically everyone knowing fully that they have the truth on their side.

I don't disagree but that doesn't mean we aren't talking past one another here. If we consider the many factors that are ingredients in this terrible, horrible, unspeakable incident there are two that things that specific people could have done differently that would have changed the situation:

  • Brock Turner could have acted like a gentleman
  • Victoria could have consumed less (or no) inebriating substance

One might be tempted to make the case that I am a heartless and cruel human being who is giving moral shelter to the assailant and re-victimizing the victim if I mention the second point.

But if there are multiple factors that could have been changed to nudge the situation, why not permit ourselves to reconsider them all? After all, any incident is a function of its contributing factors.

This is an idea that is hammered in motorcycle safety class. They present to you multiple scenarios where a crash occurs, and in each one you are required to identify the reasons a crash occurred. The object lesson is that most crashes happen because of a complex of reasons and rarely because of one single cause.

I think we are doing a disservice to Victoria and to this entire discussion if we choose to ignore that "opportunity" is a contributing factor to crime. And the rapist Brock Turner would have had much less opportunity when faced with a sober woman with her full wits about her, resisting with everything she had.

I wish so much for her that she could have resisted. And for this reason, I wish that people didn't drink when they party.

I don't think it justifies Brock Turner's act of rape to say that. I don't think it has to mean that we hold him with any less blame.

AN EDUCATION CAMPAIGN!!!!!

But as you can see, I have to speak very carefully in order to say that.

There is something going on in the broader culture around rape. I would call it a campaign to educate except for the sensation of being SHOUTED DOWN BY PEOPLE YELLING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS!!!

From what I can gather, the shouting is way of reacting meaningfully in the aftermath of a senseless tragedy that we do not wish to compound by minimizing the victim's choices as well. The shouting is a ham-fisted attempt at unequivocal expression of solidarity with Victoria and vocal opposition to the tendency to blame the victim and to show them less support than they deserve.

I think the motivation is noble but the methods are off-putting.

It feels to me like we are trying so hard to control the thoughts of the people around us. We are telling the others around us what to think, and in what exact words. And more importantly, we are making decisions about what must NEVER be thought or said following a rape incident and that we will bring shame down upon anyone who dares to use the forbidden words.

Well, I have to be honest: I shut down when I read words that come on too strong with the thought policing and shaming. And I don't feel good about these interactions. I think that online discussion has the capacity to make us better when we are able to put our ideas together. But it's not the case when faced with this ugly feeling of being shouted down. It isn't the online experience I want to have and it's probably not what you're after either.

Well... Part of the beauty of our age is that we each have our own space to write what we notice. We all have the chance to write the Internet we would like to read. And, hopefully I have written this without shouting and without giving moral cover to Turner.

Speaking Softly

Please take this to heart: When we say things softly and with a heart full of love, we can trust that we will be heard.

We have a term for the experience of reading or hearing something that makes sense: it "resonates". I like to visualize the words echoing softly in the heart and mind of the reader/listener.

We can choose unilateral disarmament. We can choose to speak softly and trust the echoes to make sensible new ideas a part of the way we think and live. And maybe if we do this consistently, we will finally get to have the online experience we desire: sharing ideas, connecting people, and changing things for the better.

Think Bigger

To Victoria

I hear you. I am so sorry for what has happened to you. And, I hope you know that you have touched me with your strength and your compassion.

You are connecting people and changing things for the better. Thank you.

Neil Tyson on Not Fighting in the Trenches on Sam Harris Podcast

Theme

I try to take the high road. I'm not interested in fighting in the trenches.

My notes from a fascinating chat between Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Sam Harris. I was struck with Tyson's extreme discipline for focusing on his fundamentals of education and finding playful ways to talk about science in the context of things people already care about (pop culture).

He's a man who has decided what he wants his contribution to be and seems really skilled at avoiding the rest of the BS. Following are notes that I took from a second listen to the podcast.

Notes

  • Tyson: People care about science when it is playfully folded into things they already care about
  • Harris: The boundary between communicating science to the public and doing science in the act of thinking out loud about data is very thin, if it exists at all

Tyson

  • Scientific discoveries become public interest. Examples: "Big Bang", "Black Hole" - official terms that are strings of single syllable words to describe complex phenomena that become part of the lexicon. Fun for the public to follow. The idea is graspable because the words don't get in the way.
  • I was struck with how Tyson cuts through the bull and avoids controversy. "Call a climate expert. Don't call me.". I don't occupy any platform.
  • Skeptic vs. Denier defined: Skeptic: doubts claim and convinced by evidence. Denier: doubts claim and doubts evidence.
  • You don't see me debating people. I'd rather just educate them in the first place so that the debate isn't even necessary.

Tyson: Platforms and Training the Electorate

  • Tyson's fundamental position: There are objective truths out there that you ought to know about and I as an educator have a duty to alert you to those objective truths. What you do politically in the face of those truths is your business.
  • Defines someone with a "platform" as: trying to get people to see the world that they do. Including politically.
  • I never say anything against a politician. Why? Because they have electorates that support them.
  • My target is the population that are following statements that are objectively false. I see it as my duty to train the electorate how think about this information and once they are trained they can do what they want.
  • As an educator, it is a task to educate people so that they can judge what is true and what is not.
  • Harris: You're preserving your effectiveness as a communicator and educator. (Tyson: yes, that's an accurate statement)

Tyson on Religion/Politics

  • Your religion is a belief system and does not cue off of objective truths. Otherwise we would call it science. It's your right to hold religious beliefs.
  • However... Governmental Decision... Laws need to be secular in a country that preserves religious freedom.

Harris: Problem with Atheism

  • Atheism defines itself in opposition: We don't call ourselves "non-astrologers". And if it became ascendant, we would talk about reason, evidence, common sense, and science to neutralize those claims without ever defining ourselves in opposition to astrology
  • Atheism as a term has no philosophical content

Tyson on Label Atheist

  • I don't do anything to dodge the term
  • if you require that I give myself a label... closest is "agnostic".
  • would rather have no label at all
  • label is an intellectually lazy way to assert you know more about someone than you actually know and therefore don't have to engage them in conversation.
  • Oh you're an atheist? And bam, in comes a whole portfolio of expectations on what you will say, what your behaviors and attitudes are...
  • dictionary definition is irrelevant... dictionary does not define words, but rather describes them as they have come into meaning
  • there is conduct that [outspoken atheists] exhibit that I do not... this captures the sense of what atheist is defined by those most visible
  • interesting: "Goodbye" an historical abbreviation of "God be with you.".
  • Uses AD/BC vs. CE/BCE.

  • Until he no longer hears, "I thought you were an atheist"... no labels.

  • Harris interjects with this insightful and humorous assessment: Atheist given meaning mostly in circles of religious dogmatists... they think they know a lot about you based on your admission that you are an atheist... It's almost like you're in a debate with someone and they draw the police crime scene outline of a dead body on the sidewalk and you just walk up and lie down in it... that you just conform perfectly to their expectations of how clueless you must be of their context.

References

Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) | Twitter

What... Me? Atheist?

I am an atheist. But I didn't always refer to myself this way. And even today, in order to do it, I have to define the word differently than the way most people use it. I define it as "not being a theist".

This entire post is my tear down of belief and non belief. Primarily I look at practice. Do I live my life as if there is an all-powerful super being whose words are transmitted through revelation to certain fallable humans during the Iron Age (or even before)?

There was a solid point in my life after I graduated from college and I was becoming my own man. I took a hard look at my own practices and I had to admit that I really didn't act like I believed in any God. I didn't go to church. I didn't pray.

And I had a special challenge, much as anyone does, to figure out what I was going to say about what I believe when family members ask why I'm not going to church or why I can't be someone's godparent in any kind of traditional sense because I would find it deeply unethical to raise a child in Catholicism.

Some might say that talking about it can be avoided. Because it's best to avoid talking about religion, money, and politics altogether... these are dangerous topics that will threaten any relationship.

But I think that core human values are enjoyable to contemplate and are worthy of discussion. I love ethics. Talking about ideas and values with other people helps me to feel a student of the world... and, to feel like a steward of my own life. Like I really own it and it is mine to craft according to my own vision.

And so, we begin where I started. I reverse-engineer the question of "what do I believe" by looking at what I do and inferring. I think there are four broad places a person can land and I define that in the next section.

Stages of Religious/Secular Practice

This scale of measurement asks two questions... - Does the person claim they believe in God? - Does the person act in accordance with religious or secular principles (or both)

By secular principles, I refer to any principle not derived from religion. Secular principles are defined here specifically to exclude any knowledge from religious sources that cannot be validated by reason. If some idea is merely transmitted by religion but can be validated by reason, I consider this to be secular.

Please observe also that there are many secular notions that are fallacious ideas that seem like they are reasonable but include an inappropriate switch of context or a comparison of unlike kind which leads to a contradiction. That a notion has arrived from a non-religious source does not make it automatically more likely to be true or valid. The measure of truth as always is whether a principle is in accord with observable fact, which can only be established by a process of reason.

  1. Believer with consistent practice of religious values
  2. Believer with a mixed practice of religious and secular values
  3. Non Believer with a mixed practice of religious and secular values
  4. Non Believer with consistent practice of secular values

The top half, I label as "Theist". The bottom half I label as "Non Theist". Interestingly, Athiest should mean the same thing as "Non Theist" but because of its usage in the USA, it carries some additional meaning when you factor for how vocal they are in categorically denying the existence of any possible supernatural being or revelation.

Misunderstanding the nature of a claim of existence, they claim the non-existence... which can never be proven as proof rests upon and is implied by existence, a fundamental precondition to go from the evidence of one's senses to a syllogism.

"So hey... there's this all-powerful superbeing in another realty that wants you to obey it according to some bloke named Muhammad... are you in or out?"

This is a claim of existence. And as with any such claim, it is not incumbent on the person evaluating it to disprove it. We don't have to furnish prove that Allah doesn't exist or that the text is wrong. The burden of proof falls on the person that makes a claim of existence. Either the evidence is strong enough to support the claim, ruling out other possibilities, or it is not.

Stages of Affinity/Antagonism toward Religion/Secularism/Knowing

This scale of measurement asks more than two questions... - Does the person believe in a religion? - ...further Does the person believe that knowledge of any kind is possible? - Does the person try to argue/persuade others about to challenge their beliefs or expound the reasons for the validity of their own?

This is an interesting way to measure things because people tend to equate the degree and depth of a person's belief with whether they would get on a soap box and scream it out to the world. I don't think this is true... but it is a perception that exists in the world.

It's also a useful taxonomy particularly to new Non Theists since there is generally a problem which I call "classic over-correction". People who have switched recently from half-hearted Theist to Non Theist often act out in unexpected and repellant ways. Often this is just temporary.

I can name three flavors of non believer when measured based on whether and how they argue with others. They are:
- Those who categorically deny the existence of a god - Those who reject claims of the existence of God (and revelation) based on insufficient grounds - Those who think knowledge of any kind is impossible

Most people label the first category as Atheist, but I label it as "Caricature Atheist"; the second, Rational Atheist, and the third has no clear label so I have labeled it "cynical skeptic". The Caricature Atheist and the Cynical Skeptic tend to be the loudest and most embarrassing of the Non Theists.

I present to you this spectrum involving more than two axes:

  1. (One True Faith) Believer and Vocal... Open judgment for anyone who believes other than own religion
  2. (Many Religions, All True somehow) Believer and Vocal... Judgment only for people who have no faith... Any religion is better than no religion
  3. Believer and Vocal
  4. Believer and Non Vocal
  5. Non Believer and Non Vocal
  6. Non Believer and Vocal about skepticism
  7. (Caricature Atheist) Non Believer and Vocal... Open judgment for anyone who doesn't deny any possible existence of any supernatural being
  8. (Cynical Skeptic) Non Believer and Vocal... Open judgment for anyone who claims they can know anything about anything

These really deserve a 3D space but as I am dealing with the written page, I'll have to sketch something up in the future.

Agnosticism

Looking at the three types of Non Believer I identified above. One might argue that there is a fourth which exists somewhere between the Rational Atheist and the Cynical Skeptic.

Measured by practice, the Agnostic is very similar to the Rational Atheist. However, an agnostic attempts to side-step the question of whether they accept or reject the claims of the existence of a God and the truth of revelation.

As such, the Agnostic straddles the position between Rational Atheist and Cynical Skeptic claiming that no one can know whether God exists or not. (Incidentally, this is also true about knowledge of anything non-existent... e.g. the existence of Ducks on Mars.). When confronted with a claim that must be evaluated consciously, the Agnostic chooses non-consciousness and non-acknowedgement.

The Agnostic turns out to be a mild sort of coward that prefers to remain in the closet than to take a position that others might judge.

It takes a measure of courage to recognize that your actions say that you don't believe in the claims of the existence of God. It takes a measure of courage to break ranks with your family and friends. In some societies, apostasy may mean ostracism or physical harm.

Even though we are in a country which has a separation of church and state, the vestiges of more than 10 centuries of terror remain in the psyche a people long after the threat of terror has ceased.

It is my position that the more courageous position is that of the Rational Atheist... who has consciously weighed the evidence and finds no grounds upon which to organize her life around the existence and words of an all powerful super-being. I don't think taking an Agnostic position helps a person to feel like an owner of their selves and their lives. I think it is a way of saying that other people are more important than your beliefs or the truth.

How much better to have some integrity about what you really believe and let the chips fall where they may?

For the Future

I've talked a lot about my ideas on how I identify different substrata of religious belief in reference to practice and in reference to vocal affinity/antagonism.

I haven't talked a lot about options for ethical systems but I think I might like to do that in a future post. People often try to substitute Society in the place of God and I think that is a mistake as well. (Just imagine trying to do so in Nazy Germany or the Europe of the middle ages). Destructive ideas can go into currency.

So there is a lot to talk about in a future post.

If you found this interesting or that there's something that you disagree with and you have ideas on how you would structure and identify things, drop me a line either in the comments below or reach out to me on Twitter @francisluong.

See you next time.