And they’re quite manipulative about it because they have more intellectual tools at their disposal to make it seem like they’re engaged in important work.

I didn’t expect them to retreat from the hard conversations of justification. This took me entirely by surprise. And they don’t only retreat, but they gaslight on their way out the door.

One must either be rich, or internally titanic in this day and age. One, more likely, is required to be partially mad. Indeed, one has to be a little mad to continue living in a mad house.

The first man who realized he was a primate, also realized that there was no God or Devil to comfort him, and neither could he find communion with those who believed themselves to be something other than primate.

A competent Reasoner can refute any error, but why would he do it when most of it is simply an act of human vanity? The effort is life wasted, merely to deliver a sound conclusion that human psychology will be motivated to deny.

Ah, Becker told us that we were all subconsciously fleeing from the terror of our own deaths. In so many ways he was right. The ego, above all, demands the right of its own absolute denial.

To be an adult means to pretend with other adults. But I didn’t expect this from intellectuals. I expected them to face the primate and stare death in the face. Above all, I expected them to be capable of asking the hard questions. But what kind of madness is it that the hard questions have been pursued by the egoists and nihilists? Indeed, I would that they smashed with hammers, but they have not yet learned how, because they’re merely infatuated with themselves. They’re just happy to be free from the dogmatism of their parents.

I didn’t expect philosophers to be authoritarian dogmatists in the name of being rationalists.

It the fault in myself? Why did I think so highly of other humans? It’s not words that matter, it’s the right words!

The validation of logic does not depend on human consensus, linguistic conventions, or biological survival mechanisms. It depends entirely on the fact that the universe is a universe of identity; to exist is to possess a specific, determinate identity. A thing cannot act, interact, or be studied, or even referenced as subject, unless it is something in particular. Therefore, the laws of logic are not arbitrary rules invented by conscious minds; they are the absolute, inescapable structural conditions of the universe itself. The universe is absolutely itself (A=A). Reality is absolutely itself (A=A).

Logic is grounded in the nature of reality because reality consists of determinate identities, and the fundamental laws of logic express the conditions imposed by those identities on what can be true and how truths can follow from one another.

If my thought were accepted by other humans as entirely true, what would that belief produce in their thinking and behavior?

The imperative places a responsibility upon the speaker: one must consider how their thought would impact the world if it was taken as entirely true.

Thou shalt not poison mankind.

But it’s not only the Christian, it’s also the Muslim, and other religious sects.

They have an advantage, not because they have truth, but because it’s easier for them to form communities.

They also have the advantage of the psychological appeal of their concepts— and faith. Regardless of how we view faith, in its functional aspect, it tends to assist human psychology in the process of coping with reality, even if that coping amounts to belief in delusion.

Either intelligence unites against superstition in the form of Humanism, or it remains fractured and suffers increased persecution by the authoritarianism that fears it.

As intellectual and environmental conditions continue to deteriorate, the narrative of religion may once again emerge as appealing. Indeed, in contrast to the chaos, it might even shine as a light in the darkness.

On the other hand, there’s a chance that human imagination cannot return to the dominant forms of religion, because it’s not convinced by them, because its consciousness has moved on. However, given the vast prevalence and predictability of human stupidity and motivated psychology, it’s entirely possible that humanity returns to religion.

A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG), or radioisotope power system (RPS), is a type of nuclear battery that uses an array of thermocouples to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material into electricity by the Seebeck effect. This type of generator has no moving parts and is ideal for deployment in remote and harsh environments for extended periods with no risk of parts wearing out or malfunctioning.

RTGs are usually the most desirable power source for unmaintained situations that need a few hundred watts (or less) of power for durations too long for fuel cells, batteries, or generators to provide economically, and in places where solar cells are not practical. RTGs have been used as power sources in satellites, space probes, and uncrewed remote facilities such as a series of lighthouses built by the Soviet Union inside the Arctic Circle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

If the answer is yes, then when one states what has been discovered, those premises should not amount to delusion or error. If they do, then one is still superstitious, one is a romantic, one likes the ideals they mistake for reality.

Beware of provincialism— for this does not constitute reality (although it might constitute a person’s reality).

There is a real sense in which an egoist and a nihilist are free. They are not free from society, but they are free to prey on society while completely shunning its norms.

And as long as society refuses to prejudice egoism and nihilism (which I have argued it must) then perhaps it deserves to be exploited by them?

Here I am not referring to breaking the law— for God sakes, this is entirety unnecessary— man has made exploitation legal!

The nihilist says, “f;ck you, I’ll do what I want because I recognize no laws or social norms beyond my own ego.” He is a practical anarchist.

What’s more interesting is that society must justify its own laws and norms beyond might makes right, or else the egoist and nihilist are equally justified in their egoism-makes-right.

A particular consciousness emerges from this equalized, relativistic epistemology: the negation is equal to the affirmation, because both are simply human preferences.

Of course, one has to be willing to accept that there are consequences for their actions within the context of the society in which they must exist. One risks varied forms of social contempt and retaliation.

Egoists and Nihilists that are conscious at this level, and not advantageous practitioners of religion, are still lacking, not only in their existential awareness, but in their social boldness and strategy.

Religion is the perfect social tool, and the perfect grift for exploitation. Many pastors and preachers, many religious teachers in general, already know this. They are not good people.

I am too honest of a man, and care too much about truth and people to walk this path.

Just like you can’t go around murdering people or physically harming them.

(Now, it may be true that we all engage in exploitation and harm inadvertently, but this is not the same as explicitly exploiting and harming people).

Why this distinction? (Likely not for the reason you think): because the true conclusion of the prevalence of human stupidity would seem to warrant the conscious exploitation of humans.

The logic would seem to be: one can either be victimized by it, or one can exploit it unto their own advantage and gain.

I do not have the moral disposition to engage in the latter.

If the vast majority of humans are not only stupid, but content and zealous towards their own stupidity, then it would seem hard to make a case for not exploiting them?

It would be one thing if humans were just ignorant without the means to remedy their ignorance, but humans revel in and celebrate their ignorance, and will not lift a finger to amend its defect. (It’s often the same when it comes to health through diet and exercise).

I do not like this conclusion, and hope someone will refute it.

This begins with eradicating it from the self. To which the intelligent response is:

How can I proceed in this direction?

The answer, in general, is education. But what is the answer specifically?

Can one eradicate, or greatly reduce their own stupidity, without the ability to think rationally?

Isn’t the answer obvious?!

Then what does the human that wants to eradicate their stupidity have need of?

Critical Thinking!

And if Critical Thinking has entered the world, how could any intelligent mind bear not to become a master of it?!

We don’t push this problem enough. The problem begins with humans denying reality. Simply sticking to this aspect of the problem is enough to manifest it.

What do most people believe about themselves and existence?

Even those who confess to believe they’re primates don’t actually believe they’re primates— they believe they used to be primates, but that now they have evolved vastly beyond their primate stupidity.

And what do people believe about existence? Likely a good majority assume they have some kind of eternal life.

And they believe what exactly about the universe? That it functions only to support the life of humans?

And where the problem is most blatant: the stupidity of the economic and legal systems that humans build against themselves to sabotage their development. One says, “I want a better quality of existence, but the first obstacle to it is the stupidity of man!”

He wants the freedom to make claims without having to defend them, to contradict himself without being called contradictory, and to dismiss inconvenient evidence while insisting that everyone else submit to evidence.

If someone else makes an unsupported assertion, he demands proof. If someone else contradicts themselves, he says they have refuted themselves. But when his own beliefs collide with logic or evidence, suddenly “logic” is oppressive, “truth” is subjective, and consistency is an unreasonable demand.

The irony is that he still depends upon the very rules he rejects. He expects others to understand his arguments, recognize his contradictions, accept his definitions, and take his objections seriously. In other words, he wants the benefits of reason without being held accountable to reason.

In contrast, a Reasoner doesn’t ask to be exempt from logic. He asks whether his own claims can withstand the same standards he applies to others. One is reasoning to discover what is true, the other is using reason fallaciously to prop up the beliefs he wants to be true.

It would seem that all knowledge can’t be equal because there are standards or principles required for knowledge to exist in the first place. It would seem that the knowledge of these principles must stand at the hierarchy of knowledge, because knowledge itself would be impossible without them.

The more interesting question that resides behind this question of hierarchy is the question of the accuracy of one’s knowledge of the world. For example, whose view is more accurate, the Christian who sees man as a living soul, or the biologist who sees man as a compilation of cells?

What’s interesting is the fact that it’s possible to have a higher accuracy of reality in one’s view of reality.

If there was a God, for example, his view of the world would be the most accurate view. This means that some humans can obtain to higher degrees of knowledge than other humans. (How utterly interesting), what’s the limit? How high can a man’s accuracy go, and what does it mean about a human the higher the accuracy of his knowledge goes?

And yet, philosophy manages to hold onto its status as the king of knowledge.

This reminds me of my conversations with dialecticians. If their claims are true then they should have a mechanism wherein they can definitively prove them. But all one is met with is authoritarian assertion after authoritarian assertion. But if dialectic is true we should be able to, beyond a reasonable doubt, establish that it is true.

This isn’t what happens. Instead, valid objections are dismissed or thrown out, or the objector is personally attacked. The dialectician demands assent to obscurity.

In contrast, science constantly tries to destroy its knowledge to make it more accurate. Which is precisely what a substantive rational method must try to do.

Objection to a philosophical claim, without the philosopher being able to definitively clarify his claim or resolve the objection, is itself proof against the truth of philosophy. Instead of answering and resolving, it spins off into obscurity and imprecision.

A philosophy paper might have a few authors, but it is common for science papers to have many authors.

Scientists collaborate on projects with tremendous success. This is because science is determinate, it is focused on reality, not abstract, shifting concepts. Philosophers can’t even agree on what reason is.

The beauty of this is that it’s a power to free us from our own self-deception.

When a sentence sounds persuasive, evokes the right tribal sympathies, is anchored by psychological desire, or is backed by cultural prestige, the uncritical mind automatically assumes its truth without ever examining its soundness or validity.

Because authoritarian claims cannot survive a rigorous rational audit, those who use them must outlaw the question itself, treating inquiry as an act of defiance, or moral failure, rather than a step toward truth. (They nearly always attack the questioner).

An authoritarian sentence is psychologically designed to deflect counter-evidence. Instead of offering a premise that can be tested against reality, it presents a conclusion disguised as an axiom, demanding submission rather than assent.

These assertions draw their power from who or what utters them (whether a cultural consensus, a credentialed institution, a dogmatic tradition, or a celebrated philosophy or philosopher) rather than the structural validity and soundness of the claim itself.

Rational power is entirely orthogonal to consensus, unaffected by how many millions or billions of minds subscribe to a proposition. A million people affirming a contradiction cannot alter the structure of reality by even a fraction of a millimeter.

The true measure of a proposition's power lies in its structural integrity— in its capacity to withstand rigorous cross-examination without collapsing into contradiction.

A single individual armed with a sound premise holds more rational force than an entire culture bent on waging a war for delusion.