Mathew Carter

Grok's profile summaries are pretty accurate!

@pureMetatron They don't want equal rights, they want special privileges. It's feminism appropriated by men.

What is the meaning of the phrase "trans rights are human rights?" Don't trans people already have rights by virtue of being human like everyone else? What other right do they want that we don't already have as humans? Why the need for this slogan?

Why did Republicans add transgender issues to the SAVE America Act? This seems counterproductive and gives Democrats an easy excuse to not vote for it. Should be a clean bill.

Password rotation or Forced changes lead to "password hedging," where users just add a number or change one letter (e.g., Summer1! becomes Summer2!). It is biologically impossible for most people to memorize a high volume of complex, random strings every few months, leading to "sticky note" security risks. When security is a hassle, users find dangerous shortcuts, like reusing the same "strong" password across every site they own. The most important fact is that NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), the global authority on cybersecurity standards, officially retired this method In its Digital Identity Guidelines (SP 800-63B), NIST now explicitly states that organizations "SHALL NOT require" periodic password changes. They’ve shifted the focus to Length over Complexity. They recommend allowing passphrases of up to 64 characters and only requiring a change if there is actual evidence of a compromise.

@ada_consciousAI There's nothing quite like going hiking in the woods, just being present in nature. Particularly in spring or fall when everything is just waking up or just going to sleep. It's excellent for reflection and introspection.

@daatdarling Most Pagans I see these days have no more than a superficial understanding of their own religion, perpetual "baby witches" with no ambition for deeper meaning. I once knew a witch with years of experience (according to her) that had never heard of the Witch's Pyramid...

Paganism is a real religion and not just witchy vibes. While enjoying those vibes can be what sparks your interest or begins your journey, you can’t remain there forever, and you need to take the gods seriously.

@6Hell6Fire6Joe6 "The map is not the territory." - Alfred Korzybski

I have a tool that helps people develop their own map.

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry To which Gods do you refer? I've never heard of any Pagan pantheons matching that description. It sounds like Christian theology to me. Your explanation confirmed my assumptions though. Archetypal Gods are amoral, so I ground ethics in Natural rights based on secular humanism.

If you think that something is wrong, it is for one of two reasons. Either you have an instinctive aversion to it, or you have been persuaded that it is wrong. If the latter, then you have either been persuaded by dialectic or by appealing rhetoric. Instinctive aversions vary between people who have had different experiences. Plenty of things that in one country are considered normal inspire disgust and righteous anger in another. Appealing rhetoric, which I doubt anyone will deny leads a great many into error, is no basis for right belief. Yet no one can truthfully say that they have never been so persuaded, even temporarily. In dialectic, all humans are inherently flawed and capable of committing errors which prevent them from making right judgements. Human-made ethical systems are constructed from these three things, and are thereby inherently fallible. Therefore it can only be said that we provisionally believe something to be right or wrong, not that we know for certain. Some things we have more confidence in, like murder without cause, and others less, like suicide. For the materialist, this is everything there is to ethics. There is no objective Good with which to compare our constructs. There is nothing inherently more or less wrong about anything, and it comes down ultimately to Darwinian selection pressures and personal preferences. For any given scenario, it is impossible to say what consequences an action would have without perfect knowledge of all pertinent circumstances, which is impossible (e.g. "I would not run over that guy." "Oh but he's about to r@pe a child in 10 seconds if you don't!" "Okay maybe I would." "Oh but he's got the cure to every disease and it will be destroyed!" etc.). Of hypotheticals, this is trivial. Of real scenarios, this is an impassible gulf for mortals. The Gods, who know and permeate all things, have perfect knowledge of the intent and consequence of every possible action that can occur at every possible moment. Being perfectly good, and having providential care for both nature and mankind, there is no possible scenario in which they call upon a mortal to do anything wrong. Therefore, if a mortal receives an oracle and understands it to command an action which he personally finds unethical, several possibilities emerge. Firstly, he simply misunderstood the oracle. This should be the first point of inquiry. Secondly, there is additional information about the action that the mortal is not privy to (as in the above example). In this case, learning this information would be a clear objective, but a time constraint could render this impossible, in which case trusting in the good judgement of the divine power is pertinent. Thirdly, one of the three bases on which his ethical objection may rest is objectively incorrect. Either his intuitive hatred of the thing is misplaced due to his cultural bias, or he has swallowed some lies about something being wrong which is not, or he has failed to understand the logical solution to the ethical dilemma in question.

I'm curious how many self-identified religious people actually see their god/s as actual gods, or as glorified ideas/archetypes that are mere representations

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry I was with you all the way up to the point you said you'd consider doing unethical acts if an oracle told you to. That is literal psychopathy & no different from radical Islamic terror (whom I fought in Afghanistan/Iraq). Of coarse, I'd be happy if you clarified your position.

Ah, so throwing out bad things that unrelated people have done doesn't actually constitute a valid argument against a position? Fascinating that after I took the time to carefully question your ideas, you spew out the most bad-faith strawman rendering possible of my beliefs with zero attempt to question or understand. Irrelevant because that's not what I was talking about.

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry I'm not a genocidal communist aiming to abolish or state-control all religion, or a possible jihadist. You think a good harvest results from sacrificing a bull; I think proper crop management increased yields. Correlation vs causation. That one-liner is Spiderman's core ethic.

Sure, because nobody who believes in a constructed, logic-and-science system of ethics has ever committed atrocities. Certainly they didn't murder over 100 million people in the previous century alone. How does believing that additional causal agents exist mean that I am ignoring the concept of causality? Do you think that one-liner is the only thing he's ever said in the half-century that numerous writers with radically different worldviews have been writing the character?

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry That is one of the most terrifying statememts I've ever heard! That mentality has been used to justify atrocities, such as the witch trials. Your examples of sacrifices directly involved causality. How could "with great power comes great responsibility" ever be considered evil?

How does what I said imply ignoring causality? If, hypothetically, I were very confident that an oracle commanded a specific course of action which I currently consider unethical, I would assume that either I am missing important information or my current ethical paradigm is flawed and needs to be revised. The Gods understand everything and are perfectly good. My first instinct upon receiving an oracle that went against my ethics would be to question my understanding of its meaning. Spiderman teaches whatever the writer wants to put in his mouth. He represents nothing more than the current zeitgeist and whatever he says could be considered horrific and evil by future generations.

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry So theism involves ignoring the law of causility & blind adherance to Divine Command? You would commit an obviously unethical act if your Gods told you to... At least Spiderman teaches about personal responsibility & dealing with loss. You should do more research on pantheism.

I think that belief in the existence of an entity and belief in the utility of an analogy are such radically different things that putting them in the same category creates an essentially useless category. Consider: Theist: "If we sacrifice a bull to the harvest god, he will give us more grain. We must only go into battle if the sacred chickens eat. The commands of the gods supersede human ethical arguments." Atheist: "Sacrificing a bull will not increase the grain yield. Chickens eating does not indicate victory. We should never follow unreasoned commands that contradict our existing ethics." Archetypist: "Sacrificing a bull will not increase the grain yield. Chickens eating does not indicate victory. We should never follow unreasoned commands that contradict our existing ethics." Your belief that the divinities are metaphors not different from fictional superheroes means that your religion serves the current secular needs within secular parameters. A self-styled archetypal pagan would make more of the same decisions as a self-styled atheist who feels inspired by pagan myths, than the same decisions as someone who believes that the Gods are real, powerful, good and have specific intentions for mankind. I believe that all of the myths and symbols of the old rites are completely unlike fiction because they were dictated to us by the Gods themselves and have a superhuman, supernatural origin and their use has a real effect on the world. To you the worship of Spiderman is no different from the worship of Hecate. But to me, the former is spiritual poison and the latter is the silver road to apotheosis. All arguments for pantheism that I am aware of approach it with the view that the universe is in some sense animate or conscious.

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry If the difference is simply the belief or lack thereof in Gods, then why is it relevant whether the belief is conceptual or literal? Why require a transcendent entity? Is pantheism atheistic to you? Archetypal belief is just as valid as math or gravity, which is both observable.

"Belief in the existence of a god or gods." is how it is intended in the vast majority of cases where it is used, and is how I think almost anyone would interpret it if you used the word in isolation without elaborating. When atheists define their own view, the negation of the above is how they almost always do it, and when one looks at general arguments for theism, they primarily aim at establishing the existence of some entity affecting external reality, like Aristotle's argument from motion or Aquinas' five ways. Now what exactly is implied by existence is a whole other question, but in unqualified speech the imaginary is always contrasted against the truly existing. At the very least the existence of an imaginary thing is of a lower degree than the mind doing the imagining. I wouldn't say that means you aren't religious, because religion implies praxis and is not contingent on theism. I also wouldn't say that you aren't a pagan, because pagan is an exonym and refers to people with various beliefs.

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry That is a fair assessment of my explanation. How would you define theism? Why does it matter how you believe, so long as you believe?

@Mathew__Carter @primaldruidry So metaphysically there is no difference. Both claim that these are figments of the imagination, but you would say that they are good and should be invoked while they would not. I disagree that this is a form of theism, based on any standard definition or use of the term.

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry youtu.be/8wBtFNj_o5k?si…

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry The difference is that atheists will dismiss even the metaphorical belief in Deity. Reverence for archetypal Gods is still a form of theism. This is apparent in many interviews and debates, my favorite being the one where Jordan Peterson and Richard Dawkins discuss memes.

"Why do men go silent during an argument?"

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry Deities, as archetypes, are created by humans & have no conciousness or will of their own; the forces represented can only act according to their Nature (no choice). And as the saying goes, the map is not the territory. Only living things are capable of exerting will/intention.

@Mathew__Carter @primaldruidry This implies then that the relation between the sign and the thing signified is not real but is invented and imposed from without. Is this right? And as regards the natural forces, are they animate or inanimate? Do they have will and intention or not? Are they conscious?

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry The terms would be mutually exclusive if they applied to a single concept, but the Nature of Gods is more complex than that. The ultimate lessons are not themselves arbitrary, it is the vehicles in which they're taught through various mythologies & pantheons that are arbitrary.

@Mathew__Carter @primaldruidry I don't understand, I presented a series of binary mutually exclusive positions and you're saying "yes". Do you mean to say that they are simultaneously arbitrary and non-arbitrary in the same part and sense? Or that some things are arbitrary and others are not?

@ecwinsper @primaldruidry Yes, to all those questions. What it all breaks down to is philosophy. Is there any real difference in the impact of ancient Greek mythology vs Avatar the Last Airbender? Pagans should be looking for the Divine in everything (not just old lore), but through reason & not faith.

@Mathew__Carter @primaldruidry Are these natural forces animate or inanimate? Are these metaphors arbitrary or non-arbitrary? Is the relation between the sign and the thing signified real or imagined? Why should something invented to teach life lessons be more worthy of reverence than a cartoon character?