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Messages - Conditioned

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1
The No-God / Re: Any news from Bakker?
« on: May 25, 2022, 04:44:44 am »
Checking in again... any news/updates at all that I have missed over the last few years?

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The No-God / Any news from Bakker?
« on: August 26, 2019, 01:13:32 am »
Haven't really been keeping up since TUC was released... was just wondering if I missed anything interesting that's come out. Any info at all on the progress of TNG or anything?

3
General Misc. / Re: Quotes
« on: August 24, 2019, 04:49:23 pm »
That Lynne Kelly episode last week was imo probably the most interesting podcast Sean Carroll has had on Mindscape... the idea that essentially all ancient man-made monuments were specifically built and maintained to be used as memory palaces was super interesting and I was surprised that I hadn't given much thought to the methods employed by ancient people to memorize everything important they needed to know. One of those podcasts that had left me with a hell of a lot to think about.

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General Earwa / It has begun
« on: August 24, 2019, 02:53:11 pm »
The skinnies are coming!

https://youtu.be/LarJtrHNJME

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Philosophy & Science / Re: Bakker and Harris
« on: May 30, 2018, 12:44:33 am »
Lol Beard, I won't lie... I saw the potential for the conversation veering this way before I posted it. But all it took for me was to listen to his podcast with Murray and i was able to make a decision based on the things that were said. I don't think that it was some great idea on Harris' part to decide to trod this path, then again, I pretty much felt exactly the same when Bakker did something similar all those years ago. Sometimes picking a fight to prove a point ends up making even your best friend's look at you a little different, let alone people who are willing to make an 'informed decision' without ever being willing to look at either your body of work as with the accusations of sexism with Bakker or listen to the evidence from the podcasts in question with Harris.

I am an atheist that lives in the deep south, so I tend to find myself on the left side of virtually any real life conversation. Like Harris, I have found many of the same extremes of the left hard to defend. In the south, it is actually hard to find a household that doesn't have a firearm inside. I am a huge advocate for more responsible gun owners and even tighter restrictions on the acquisition process and mental health checks and whatnot, yet I find myself debating even more liberal people than me on whether we should totally ban guns in the US... which simply seems like the most unlikely thing to happen to me. Or some other stuff that I am not sure I would've ever been aware of if not for Harris like the Evergreen University stuff, which is also about people declaring other people racist due to their unwillingness to let the extreme left dictate the terms of what an actual racist is. And whether or not people with opposing views can speak/debate at universities without fear or threats of violence. I mean, this is the very fucking idea of free speech.

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Philosophy & Science / Re: Bakker and Harris
« on: May 29, 2018, 11:24:40 pm »
Thanks Beard, just trying to have a talk that is more about what was actually said and less about how people think their motivations, intent, and political philosophies played into it all. I don't feel like the Murray stuff plays into 99% of the stuff Harris gets into anyway, so I think it shouldn't really color everyone's opinion of him so much. He  really has a lot of interesting opinions on a lot of different subjects.

Oh and I also totally agree that Harris is by no means an expert in every field he discusses. Though he does have a BA in philosophy and a PhD in neuroscience from what I just gathered from wiki... so I believe he at least is more qualified than most laypeople to discuss this stuff.

I probably should've been writing down Harris and Bakkers similar ideas before I started this thread, huh? Give me a few days (pretty busy most of the time between my full time job and my demonically possessed toddler) and I will try to put together something more substantial.

I guess I should start with both of their apprehension in regards to the approaching technological shitstorm and the implications of meddling too early with the human brain without enough thought to unintentional consequences, or even intentional consequences. They cite a lot of the same work when talking about their ideas. Cases of face blindness, being blind to being blind and all that kind of stuff lol

Also Bakker and Harris both seem to have a certain proficiency for infuriating the extreme left and extreme right of the US political spectrum and I think they both consider themselves to liberal leaning.

This is a start at least. Just caught my toddler sranc growling and trying to bite my Siberian husky, so I better start paying attention to him before one of them gets hurt.

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Philosophy & Science / Re: Bakker and Harris
« on: May 28, 2018, 06:17:28 pm »
Yeah, I can't help but think he wouldn't jump at the chance either. But after watching the few videos on youtube that I have found with him, I am starting to think that his social uh 'awkwardness' is all in his head. I do think that podcasting is a better vehicle for his ideas though, for the most part. Podcasting is one of the best long-form discussion tools we currently have... at least for debate-type discussion and introducing new ideas and whatnot.

Yeah, in the last year or so, I have listened and read pretty much everything Sam Harris has had his name on and I have found there to be no real claim to the racism bs that certain people are spouting. Inviting people with different things to say about science is what Harris does. He realized he had put Murray in the "that guy's a racist" category a long time ago and ignored any work that he had produced. He had him on his podcast to admit that it was unfair and had Murray present his findings. There is nothing inherently racist about this, regardless of the findings or opinions of Murray.

Not that I think that it is impossible for anybody to be a racist or anything. I only require more evidence than someone's namecalling.

Corrected Murray's name... that's what I get for not double checking before posting lol.

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Philosophy & Science / Bakker and Harris
« on: May 28, 2018, 01:38:58 pm »
So I have read Bakker since his debut way back when, though I can't really say I had more than a superficial understanding of his writing until I reread the first trilogy after TTT was released... Anyway, I had no prior experience with philosophy or neuroscience, so Bakker really fucked with my head (in a good way, or at least I occasionally like to believe). I none the less find myself in way over my head time and time again.

So I have recently been on a Sam Harris kick and have been finding more and more of his ideas covering the same ground as Bakker. I can't seem to figure out the search function for these forums but I was trying to see if this was already something discussed around here? I find it interesting because Sam Harris is somebody who is thoughtlessly articulate and relatively recently made the decision to turn to podcasting as his media outlet but only makes money from donations by subscribers. While I think Bakker is probably better with evoking vivid illustrations and horribly frightening ideas I think Harris is someone that the mainstream crowds could almost tolerate in the US (if only he would quit fucking around with Jesus lol). Now there are probably people here that are way deeper into these fields than I am that might have a multitude of reasons to disagree with Harris on different subjects... but for some reason I can't help but feel like Harris and Bakker have similar concerns about our immediate future.

I started thinking about whether it might be more beneficial for Bakker to maybe start a podcast to go along with TPB... I personally would love to have his ideas explored with other voices familiar with the subjects he covers.

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The Unholy Consult / Re: TUC Official Buys
« on: July 08, 2017, 02:41:55 am »
So, I made an amazon.co.uk account to get the kindle version... then I remembered I don't know wtf I am doing. To add a credit card to pay you have to use your legit address otherwise it won't work right? So how do you add an UK address on the account so you can download the ebook?  Right now it says this service is unavailable to US customers.

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The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC Spoilers] Ch. 1 & 2 Excerpts
« on: June 23, 2017, 11:58:54 pm »
I remember that when TGO was released, someone found it at Barnes and Noble like 2 or 3 weeks early which made me check my local store and get it way earlier than I anticipated. I don't suppose anyone has had any luck finding an early copy of The Unholy Consult anywhere?

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The Great Ordeal / Re: TGO Official Buys
« on: July 04, 2016, 06:42:06 pm »
Went to Barnes and Noble today because of this post. They had four copies in-stock and on the shelf. I am in Orlando, Florida. Paid the ridiculous in-store price ($32.00 after tax) for it so I could get my grubby fingers on it NOW.  ;D

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Question: Wtf exactly is the Nail of Heaven?

Question: Is big daddy Moe playing Kellhus like Kellhus plays the world?

Question: Will Mimara's pregnancy end in a stillbirth as Achamian suggested/what impact will the birth have on TAE?

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News/Announcements / Re: The Second Apocalypse v3
« on: March 08, 2014, 07:53:01 am »
Hey guys, got the e-mail and decided to see what's up... Sorry for reverting back to lurker mode, but with the weather my job has been an absolute cluster-fuck since the beginning of winter (I work in the airport luggage delivery business, so snow-storms tend to directly correlate with higher volumes in business). Anyway, as long as the domain stays the same, I am all for a format change... I have finally figured out how to navigate this one properly but something still seems sort of, I dunno, illogical to me about it's layout or something. Anyway, I had never heard of discourse so I looked it up and it looks pretty sweet so it gets my vote :)

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General Misc. / Re: Manga/Anime
« on: October 04, 2013, 03:18:19 pm »
There are 26 episodes in total, but #13 or 14 was a recap of what happened in the season before it. I think they called it 13b or 14b. http://www.otakusekai.tv/ seems to be pretty good for most anime, you just have the one ad for like 8 secs before you can skip it and watch the show in hd. in case you have trouble finding the show on google, keep in mind it is called 'Shingeki no Kyojin' in Japanese.

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General Misc. / Re: Manga/Anime
« on: October 02, 2013, 08:52:58 am »
Hehe, I almost brought up both Avatar and Afro Samurai in my last post. Personally, although I consider them both pretty good shows, I think of them more like American portraits of anime. The biggest problem I had with Avatar was that it was more targeted toward kids than most the stuff I usually watch, but it was made for Nickelodeon and was done pretty well regardless. The only thing I remember not liking about Afro Samurai was that it felt sort of like a more immature, race-oriented ripoff of Samurai Champloo (and that is one of my favorite shows of all time). Both shows had A LOT of Japanese people in their production crew though, so I think that helped with their anime-ish feel.

Anyway, some of you need to go check out the first episode of 'Attack on titan' (like right now!) and let me know what you think. Just google it, a million websites stream it. I hadn't read the manga yet when I started watching it and it creeped me the fuck out! The music is so epic that I had chills throughout the whole goddamn show.

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