all left wing people should oppose superstition and irrational beliefs, which are necessary in order to maintain class, racial and societal heirarchies and oppress mankind.
Reposted from
Asher Elbein
Speaking as someone who’s lived and moved in hippy-adjacent spaces for most of my life: the hard truth that you should not trust most new age people as far as you can throw them
Comments
"Must be the crystals and incense!"
This 'Oh, your ideal is just religion too if you squint' bit is so fucking tired. It's not even a dead horse anymore, just a horse-shaped stain.
Can't wait to read this:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/fascist-yoga-grifters-occultists-white-supremacists-and-the-new-order-in-wellness/0447a4618ebad041?ean=9780745351124&next=t
like foucault's ideas about subjugated knowledge explore how communities can be oppressed through restricting the notion of valid knowledge
There are limits of course. I don't think we can tell people their version of God doesn't exist - we don't know that! - but we sure can tell them that germs are real.
Twenty years ago me being a tranny was superstitious and irrational btw. You all leap on fascism like flies on shit if it has a resist sticker and a woman on it
You seem equally lovable and kind, plus popular
I mean it's a lot of things, now more than ever, but where do the graven images come in?
It'll be a new civic religion and work out perfectly with absolutely no downsides
Carl Sagan
not all religion (and not even all christianity) is contained within American Evangelicalism
And if they say “Well it helps me understand myself better”
My response is “there’s a whole field of science dedicated to doing that”
I’m very fun at parties!
People who would be at brunch if Trump wasn’t in office are saying things are fine under neoliberalism and nothing needs to change
If you keep your mouth shut about your beliefs, I'll never learn that you have them - nor will anyone else.
*Spreading* your beliefs, that say 'vaccines cause autism', is an action.
Like when we banned the Nazi Party in Germany after the war? Way over the line. We can't call ourselves the good guys and do stuff like that.
That's a choice *they* have to make, and if some bad stuff happens, well that's just FREEDOM.
"Telling people not to take actions that harm is a good thing"
You've directly contradicted yourself
professor explains sampling: "who gets to decide what it means to be a sample"
professor explains central limit theorem: "who gets to decide what the central limit theorem is"
over and over
It's one core principle of The Enlightenment, and they want to roll it back.
Ironically objective and subjective had almost opposite meanings but theu got reversed due to a misunderstanding of kant by the English poet coleridge.
So, yeah.
(I have yet to encounter a self-proclaimed “rationalist” who wasn’t an utter asshole, and usually some flavor of bigot)
Are you denying evolution?
There is no Eden or Fall to acknowledging I'm related to every other animal and plant and fungus on the planet
Race is a social construct it has nothing to do with evolution
That I wasn't special that my struggles are as natural as my cats struggles
I don't see any reason to get upset with the fact that Human beings are animals
Here's the difference. Humans use objects in combat and the weapon is a wildcard. Not so in animal combat. Hence animals don't escalate, their combat is not a crisis, and they need no deferral. I elaborate with pictures here: https://ericjacobus.com/roba/the-story-of-human-violence-illustrated/
She cut me off when I pointed out her logical fallacies. I didn't fight to keep her in my life. I don't keep track of her & I don't want to.
This should be self-apparently problematic.
You're the one doing the infantilizing here.
Won’t stop the astrology girls from hexing you tho.
it might end up purging the natural too, but it's all in the service of ghostbusting
(It’s because my chiropractor cracked my back too hard by listening to the ghost doctor’s advice)
"About $75,000.00/year."
Placing down items associated with broad concepts in a random order such that it stimulates the imagination to find new forms of meaning by tapping into collective unconscious = essential for expanding the mind.
There's a naive insistence that people who choose to knowingly do evil were badly indoctrinated, and just need to be taught differently.
It erases agency--cruelty is CHOSEN, not merely taught.
Goths, on the other hand, are usually lovely people pretending to be nasty.
Maybe ignoring everybody pressed left by mystic philosophy, religion, or spirituality is, like, bad.
Open Society and it's enemies has a really easy to grasp, well articulated argument about how superstition + confusion of natural law vs norms (more or less) in the masses is required in order to keep upper castes viable. Would make a great early high school
For example, people who think vaccines cause autism should be exiled from society, and every time they try to talk about it, someone should open mouth laugh in their face.
Telling people that they’re wrong & full of shit when you have evidence might make you feel good, but it isn’t going to educate them.
Lots of yelling & insults in this thread
It makes sense you wouldn't like being told you have to oppose this.
Have you considered ditching the written doctrine? It is pretty awful.
As for who gets to decide? The winner of the argument, by definition. Right now the people who think women are a lesser subspecies are winning in force of law. Their beliefs clearly dictate this. The same with people like RFK who think health is mostly fake.
Meaning op finds all societal hierarchy irrational. You said “irrational hierarchy” as if there was a choice between rational & irrational, but OP doesn’t make that distinction.
Yes, I read it. You’re an arse.
"Analysis of eight million political speeches reveals: never before have members of the US Congress based their rhetoric more strongly on personal convictions – and less on facts."
it's fine for people to explore the boundaries of truth. that's why we have a scientific method.
but just making shit up inevitably leads to misery and death.
Actions cause harm, not beliefs. Actions taken because of people’s beliefs can be harmful, but if you’re trying to control people’s beliefs, you’re a fascist.
What the fuck
https://bsky.app/profile/elisaallechant.bsky.social/post/3lmhqgayzx22x
https://bsky.app/profile/elisaallechant.bsky.social/post/3lmhpmcy6ok2x
Kidnapping college students off the street and sending them to the gulag for a mildly anti-zionist op-ed, otoh....
People can believe whatever foolishness they choose to, and someone else will always be there to remind them they're being foolish. So what?
shutting down violent, racist, and danergous cults is not fascism.
You accuse people here of seeking to "control" people's beliefs, but how are they doing that? Do you think shaming someone for their beliefs is equivalent to controlling their beliefs?
Then you suffer, Superstition ain't the way.
Or maybe it's what we come in with that makes the difference.