Interesting. I had noticed that many of the skeptical atheist types are no longer targeting Christianity or other religions very much the way they were back around 2006. Instead, they are going after political correctness. Then I saw that Peter Boghossian is also one of these atheist thinkers, at least according to the Wikipedia entry on him. The reason for this it seems to me is that with the collapse of organized religion, religious fanaticism is no longer a threat to free thought. It can pretty much be ignored; it's like worrying about a coming ice age during a global warming crisis. However, political correctness has not collapsed, and indeed one cannot evade it no matter how secular one is. It's possible for a young person to go through life with no contact with organized religion or its rules. The same is not true of political correctness.
Another thought: toxic traditionalist subcultures are just another version of cancel culture. Therefore they are very much in harmony with the "spirit of the age". (A spirit that is profoundly depressing). It is actually difficult to imagine anything more "worldly", in spite of whatever they may claim about being different or separate. That leads one to the question of a spirituality that <i>doesn't</i> conform to worldly ways would really look like...
Lex Fridman is one of my favorite podcasters. Just watching him go through his daily routine leaves me feeling exhausted. I'm really struck Steve by your question whether the typical woke kid could cope if everything fell apart. Many young people I know seem to lack resilience, I don't get the sense they could face life in the raw. Their counterparts in Ukraine might as well be from a different planet.
The answer as to who will win is easy. The Lex Fridman’s will. All it will take is a plasma ejection from the sun to destroy our technological infrastructure and suddenly woke ideology will mean absolutely nothing, initially because the medium to communicate their nonsense will be gone and ultimately because their existence will become more important than their chosen pronoun.
Interesting. I had noticed that many of the skeptical atheist types are no longer targeting Christianity or other religions very much the way they were back around 2006. Instead, they are going after political correctness. Then I saw that Peter Boghossian is also one of these atheist thinkers, at least according to the Wikipedia entry on him. The reason for this it seems to me is that with the collapse of organized religion, religious fanaticism is no longer a threat to free thought. It can pretty much be ignored; it's like worrying about a coming ice age during a global warming crisis. However, political correctness has not collapsed, and indeed one cannot evade it no matter how secular one is. It's possible for a young person to go through life with no contact with organized religion or its rules. The same is not true of political correctness.
Another thought: toxic traditionalist subcultures are just another version of cancel culture. Therefore they are very much in harmony with the "spirit of the age". (A spirit that is profoundly depressing). It is actually difficult to imagine anything more "worldly", in spite of whatever they may claim about being different or separate. That leads one to the question of a spirituality that <i>doesn't</i> conform to worldly ways would really look like...
Lex Fridman is one of my favorite podcasters. Just watching him go through his daily routine leaves me feeling exhausted. I'm really struck Steve by your question whether the typical woke kid could cope if everything fell apart. Many young people I know seem to lack resilience, I don't get the sense they could face life in the raw. Their counterparts in Ukraine might as well be from a different planet.
Goodness gracious, I could not make my way through that video. What has possessed us?
Great post. I shared with two people.
The answer as to who will win is easy. The Lex Fridman’s will. All it will take is a plasma ejection from the sun to destroy our technological infrastructure and suddenly woke ideology will mean absolutely nothing, initially because the medium to communicate their nonsense will be gone and ultimately because their existence will become more important than their chosen pronoun.
2016 indeed. A lot has happened to me since 2016.