Profile for Student of Trinity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Student of Trinity |
| Member number | 3431 |
| Title | Electric Sheep One |
| Postcount | 3335 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
Recent posts
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| What's your religion? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, August 7 2005 12:27
Profile
As a response to Jumpin' Salmon's proposed general theory of religions: I'm afraid I'm doubtful. Only some religions care much about society, and those that do generally don't show, in their foundational teachings, any significant awareness of future social developments. So if religion has been a tool for changing society in the ways that it has actually has changed, it must have been a mainly unconscious tool. Some religions at some times have arguably played roles in fostering developments that are often labelled progressive. For instance, Christianity's peculiar (not to say, awkward to the point of being notoriously paradoxical) combination of realism and idealism probably did help form the philosophical foundation of natural science. On the other hand, religious prejudices have probably made things worse at many times and places. Although Jews, Christians, and Muslims do try to base their lives on their holy books, I don't think that either the Bible or the Qu'ran is really a book about how to live. At least, not in the sense of being a list of rules or even of principles. Both books do contain substantial tracts of moral or social law, but in practice the religious communities that are founded on both scriptures are guided more by secondary bodies of law that have built up around the fundamental books -- and that frequently seem, at least to unschooled observers, to contradict the supposedly more fundamental revelations. Both sacred books also contain huge amounts of history and preaching and prayer and poetry, which have only indirect implications for how one should live. Finally, in its initial expansion Islam was to some extent spread by force, despite Qu'ranic injunctions that there should be no compulsion in religion. Conquest and raiding, for loot and slaves, were considered pious if conducted against infidels, but were obviously grave crimes if conducted against Muslims. Although this might not exactly equate to converting people at swordpoint, it naturally had a similar effect. Of course if you want to argue about which religion was nastier in medieval times, the crusaders generally didn't offer people the choice of conversion, and weren't supposed to keep slaves, so they just slaughtered their infidels. Most of the conversion of what is now the Islamic world was post-conquest and peaceful, however. Quite consistently across many empires and over centuries, Muslim rulers have allowed religious freedom, but have made non-Muslims second-class citizens as far as taxes and legal rights were concerned. Between this, and the basic fact that Islam is a powerfully impressive religion that might well have made headway even against persecution, there was a steady drift of conversion that gradually made Islam the preponderant religion in much of the world. In effect, conquering rulers were the missionaries of Islam. [ Sunday, August 07, 2005 13:10: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| What's your religion? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, August 6 2005 04:34
Profile
Zeviz probably has a point, but I think a fair amount of my criticism will remain even after making allowance for it. Religions differ from each other more profoundly than people familiar only with one (or none) tend to imagine. They differ not just on the answers they propose, but on the questions they consider. For instance, as a Christian first studying Islam, I found myself thinking, "What! It's as though Islam isn't really a religion at all!" Obviously this was a silly reaction, but I was shocked to find that the Christian preoccupation with individual otherworldliness was barely present in Islam at all, and instead there was this immense emphasis on society and politics, which Christianity has generally dismissed as ephemeral at best. So there is an inevitable crudeness to a test like this one. I mean, come on. A test that assigns practically everyone substantial percentages in practically every faith has clearly got some major limitations in the way it distinguishes between religions. [ Saturday, August 06, 2005 04:38: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| What's your religion? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, August 5 2005 07:15
Profile
Christianity 79% Islam 42% Judaism 42% Buddhism 42% agnosticism29% Paganism 21% Satanism 17% atheism 13% Hinduism 4% I have to say that this is a somewhat odd quiz. 'Satanism' seems an unnecessarily and misleadingly provocative term for an ethos that is really just individualism. And the test seems to rely on very different kinds of questions for different religions. I gather that I test mainly as Christian from upholding some very specific doctrinal statements. But I appear to have gotten respectable components of Buddhism and Paganism merely by expressing limited support for such vague notions as life being a struggle with suffering, and nature being nice. In other words, the 'Christianity' of this test is a creed, while its 'Buddhism' is more of an attitude. Up to a point that can be legitimate, of course. Christianity is perhaps the world's most theoretical religion, in that some fairly intricate metaphysics has generally been considered essential to it. Other religions just do not emphasize specific beliefs so much. But any belief or attitude system that is really used as a basis for a person's life must end up, in practice, implying a lot of things about how they live. Islam and Judaism seem to differ from Christianity in a similar way, for instance, in having much simpler theology, but much greater emphasis on social rules. Every seriously lived faith is going to end up with a substantial collection of both specific precepts and general attitudes. This test doesn't seem to recognize this, and so I think it pretty much caricatures all the religions it purports to describe. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Human cloning in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, August 5 2005 06:51
Profile
Uh, folks, we aren't remotely close to being able to grow babies in tanks. That's way, way harder than cloning. Any cloned humans will gestate the old fashioned way. Consequently, production of cloned humans will only be more difficult than production of humans by traditional means, not less. Human cloning would not produce armies. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Human cloning in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 4 2005 19:34
Profile
Even successful reproductive cloning would not duplicate people or provide immortality; it would merely generate identical twins born at widely different times. Genetics does not determine everything about a person. For example, identical twins do not have identical fingerprints. They certainly do not have identical brains, or memories, or personalities. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| RWG FAQ in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 4 2005 19:29
Profile
1. Is this forum really about Richard White games? Yes, but mostly implicitly. 2. What's all this about a secret society or cult? In recent months several posters have professed to be members of a secret order associated in some way with Richard White. The order has a complex hierarchy, with lower ranking members knowing little of its true purposes. It has been alleged that the order controls its members with brain implants (and/or eyebrow-like outplants), has secretly taken over the US Navy, deploys hit teams of trained needle/ferrets, and generally dabbles in things better left unindabbled. 3. What is this forum about, then? We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you. 4. Do you have to be stark raving mad to post here? It seems to work for Icshi, but he's in publishing. 5. So should I just post some banal garbage and hope it fits in? Not if there's any truth to that bit about needle/ferrets. [ Tuesday, January 17, 2006 13:27: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Poor Man's Starbound? in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 4 2005 06:58
Profile
Ah, come on; was EVN really that bad? I'll grant that it's story had nothing like the moment in EVO where you first meet the Miranu, and that in general few of the plots made much sense if you thought about them. But there was a lot of good atmosphere to it, I thought. Polaris space, for instance, always felt serenely alien to me. I was actually a bit disappointed in Frozen Heart. It was better than Nova in most ways, but it was clearly trying to be even better than it was, by throwing in an amazing collection of cool ingredients, but never really doing anything to mix them together. It was a story with an ancient frozen superweapon, a newly invented superweapon, an ancient vanished empire, a contemporary decaying empire, a couple of unrequited loves, a missionary religious faith, a distant martyred father, a growing black hole that threatened the galaxy, and the title 'Frozen Heart'. And all these elements just passed each other like sprites in the night. The thing was well enough done that I was looking for a great thematic convergence, like in Mann's Doctor Faustus, and I never got it. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Poor Man's Starbound? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 4 2005 06:58
Profile
Ah, come on; was EVN really that bad? I'll grant that it's story had nothing like the moment in EVO where you first meet the Miranu, and that in general few of the plots made much sense if you thought about them. But there was a lot of good atmosphere to it, I thought. Polaris space, for instance, always felt serenely alien to me. I was actually a bit disappointed in Frozen Heart. It was better than Nova in most ways, but it was clearly trying to be even better than it was, by throwing in an amazing collection of cool ingredients, but never really doing anything to mix them together. It was a story with an ancient frozen superweapon, a newly invented superweapon, an ancient vanished empire, a contemporary decaying empire, a couple of unrequited loves, a missionary religious faith, a distant martyred father, a growing black hole that threatened the galaxy, and the title 'Frozen Heart'. And all these elements just passed each other like sprites in the night. The thing was well enough done that I was looking for a great thematic convergence, like in Mann's Doctor Faustus, and I never got it. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| What happened? in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 4 2005 06:42
Profile
It's not spam, it's witty banter. Well, some of it. The rest, we try to give it the benefit of the doubt. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Outright spam or intelligent stupid comment? in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 3 2005 14:29
Profile
You can pretty much sum up the glory and the horror that is the RWG forum by observing that Icshi is its spirit and soul. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Our President in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 3 2005 11:19
Profile
I don't see what's so sacred about national sovereignty. The international law about it is basically 19th century realpolitik, not permanent right and wrong. Invasion on the grounds that you're an abusive dictator ought to be fine, if you ask me. Invading a country and annexing it would be different, but effecting a regime change from dictatorship to democracy, and then getting the hell out, doesn't seem wrong in principle. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Outright spam or intelligent stupid comment? in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
|
written Wednesday, August 3 2005 11:05
Profile
There have been occasional discussions of RWs games. Icshi cheerleads lukewarmly for Galactic Core, though almost everyone else despises it. Several people think Lost Souls was almost good enough to register. Ocean Bound is universally dismissed. Frequently people heap abuse on Homeland: the Stone of Night, even though it is not by Richard White. But this forum, and it's earlier incarnation, have an ambivalently glorious tradition of hosting all kinds of bizarre discussions. A few are serious, and most are enjoyed by the participants. Not all are locked. Sadly, it is not uncommon for some newcomer to somehow miss the acceptable note of restrained weirdness, and launch an uninterestingly pointless thread like this one. These give RWG a bad name. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Long-distance relationships? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 3 2005 10:56
Profile
Just hope there aren't any asteroids reading this thread RIGHT NOW! -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Our President in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 3 2005 10:53
Profile
As I understand the history, demonslaeyr is basically right that an invasion of Japan would have been more gruesome for both sides than the atomic bombings. But I also think it's clear that after years of war the allied leadership had essentially lost any real concern for enemy civilian casualties. The axis powers, and especially the Japanese, were even less concerned even earlier. The atomic bombings were arguably defensible as a means to end the war quickly, and the firestorm created in Hamburg in 1943 was a surprise (though the intention to devastate the city was certainly present). But the subsequent orchestrated firestorms in Dresden, Tokyo, Kobe and Osaka were deliberate sacrifices of huge numbers of civilians in order to attain comparatively limited military ends. The real purpose seems to have been to inflict enough suffering and grief on the enemy civilian population to break all will to resist. And there is ample evidence that this worked: a London blitz may bring a nation together, but the far greater destruction of a Hamburg firestorm makes people give up. And attacking the civilian population did directly hinder the Axis war efforts, even though the axis powers were no democracies, because workers who were killed or injured or made homeless didn't show up for work. If the bombed ball bearing factories could still notoriously start up again the next day amid the ruins, they definitely could not ramp themselves up to the enormous scales of the American military industrial complex, operating safely out of Axis bomber range. The fact that the WWII bombing wasn't pointless doesn't mean it wasn't horrible. Those were barbaric times all round. The allied bombers of world war II couldn't hit anything much smaller than a city, so they hit what they could. It was the great hope of the Iraq war that modern precision munitions would allow a 'clean' war, with very few civilian casualties. And as far as I understand, there actually weren't very many Iraqi civilians directly killed by British and American munitions. Somehow an awful lot of Iraquis seem to have died afterwards, though, at least according to The Lancet. I don't understand how or why, except that Iraq's infrastructure, both physical and social, turned out to be far more fragile than anyone anticipated -- though perhaps not more fragile than they should have anticipated. I was very hopeful, initially, myself. I thought it would be a good thing if every tyrant could learn to expect a quick barrage of cruise missiles. Basic human rights should trump national sovereignty, and dictators don't listen to diplomatic protests. Peace and justice through superior firepower. Never mind if the coalition powers didn't only go into Iraq for peace and justice: if we can get this thing to work for strategically attractive countries, we can work on adapting it to poorer countries next. I still like the concept; it just doesn't seem to have worked very well in practice. At least not yet. Maybe someday. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Say your prayers... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 3 2005 10:04
Profile
I usually make a silent prayer of thanks before eating wherever I am, and when we sit down to eat as a family my wife and I take turns (meal by meal) praying briefly aloud. We often omit this if we have guests whom we think might be made uncomfortable by it, since our purpose in the practice is to cultivate our own sense of thankfulness, and this still works if we skip the odd time. I don't imagine that it will protect us from food poisoning or anything like that, and I don't believe I can tell God anything God doesn't already know. It does have some affect on our own attitudes, and for me this is the point of this kind of prayer. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The 10th planet! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 3 2005 06:48
Profile
The wormhole stuff is basically all still general relativity. General relativity was in one sense single-handedly finished by Einstein in 1916, in the sense that he wrote down the equations then and they haven't been changed since. But it has taken decades to appreciate all that they imply, and we're not done yet. Poor Einstein died before some aspects of his own greatest theory, which are now considered fundamental to it, were understood by anyone. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Outright spam or intelligent stupid comment? in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 3 2005 06:39
Profile
That's the funny thing about the internet. A sixty-year-old can post about how confused they are about life, and a nine-year old can answer confidently with world-weary cynicism. And as long as the nine-year-old can spell, and the sixty-year-old can click, people won't think about their ages. These particular forums seem to have quite a good range of ages. Good spelling, and reasonable manners in general, are the internet analog of makeup or facial hair. They make you look a lot older. Regrettably, however, there is no good e-beer. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| I am wed. in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, August 2 2005 13:54
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Congratulations! -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Do you trust people? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, August 2 2005 13:50
Profile
quote:You can't trust asteroids. The dinosaurs trusted asteroids. Asteroids are just waiting for you to trust them. As soon as you do, WHAM. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Delete this thread please. in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, August 2 2005 13:44
Profile
There was this kilt discussion over in the Avernum Trilogy, in a thread about an A4 wish list. It was pretty off topic. The hour was late. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| "I built time machines" in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, August 2 2005 08:23
Profile
I have a time machine. It works great. It travels through time at a pretty steady rate, and keeps me posted on its progress with a handy digital display. [ Tuesday, August 02, 2005 08:25: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The 10th planet! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, August 2 2005 03:59
Profile
quote:Ah, so this is where people get the idea that wormholes and black holes are related. I should have realized. It's a red herring. The Schwarzschild metric is the unique asymptotically flat, spherically symmetric vaccuum solution to Einstein's equations. What this means is that the gravitational field far away from anything round looks like a 'black hole geometry'. The gravitational field of the sun, through which the Earth moves, is in this sense a 'black hole geometry'. But the sun is not a black hole, because the 'black hole geometry' only applies outside the solar interior. Inside, the presence of the sun's matter changes the equations, and the result is perfectly ordinary gravitational fields inside the sun, nothing Newton couldn't handle, instead of the event horizon that would form if the sun's mass were all concentrated within a two mile radius. And no event horizon means no black hole, even though the distant gravitational field of the sun is exactly the same as the distant gravitational field of a black hole of the same mass. In the same way, for a wormhole, the 'throat' replaces the regions that would contain the event horizons. And it is really an event horizon that constitutes a black hole. Thus, while Nazgul's expression is accurate, or at least defensible, it is potentially misleading to lay people, because it is not at all true that wormholes involve black holes. Generally everything Nazgul has said is true, except that it is worth pointing out that the concept of a wormhole is a very general one -- it's a topology, not a geometry -- and many types of wormhole have been suggested in the literature of theoretical physics. Some would allow time travel, others wouldn't. Some would be traversable, others not. Some exist in three dimensions, others in four. (These latter would look to us like a small part of the universe suddenly pinching off and disappearing, then re-joining it at any place and time. A bold theory to explain missing socks.) The biggest hurdle for the three-dimensional ones that one would like to use for travelling is that general relativity says their throats would have to be filled with matter having negative energy density, and we don't know how that can exist. So the prospects for wormholes actually existing are a bit worse than just 'no evidence for'; currently, they look pretty doubtful. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Just say no in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, August 1 2005 17:51
Profile
Or, in the original Russian, the Moth Irfucha. [ Monday, August 01, 2005 17:51: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Delete this thread please. in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, August 1 2005 17:49
Profile
They are far worse for the goofs. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The 10th planet! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, August 1 2005 04:12
Profile
quote:Remember to half-bake it. Contra, I'm afraid you're confused about how gravity works, if you think that moving fast through a gravitational field will pull you apart. But you are basically right that there is a great problem with friction in space travel near the speed of light. Even interstellar space is not quite empty; there is something like one hydrogen atom per cubic meter out there, and molecules or even bigger particles, up to dust grains, are scattered more thinly. Utterly negligble at low speeds, these tiny particles hit much harder if you're trying to plow through them near the speed of light. I don't have much feeling for how big a problem this really is, but I'm sure it'll be a significant factor in starship engineering. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |