Nathan Cook

Garrett and I probably have compatible ontologies (or so it seems to me), but he and I are using different definitions of "free will" and related subjects. For instance, take the sentence "If a person acts with a reason, they were not in control of their actions, which would have been different in different circumstances." My definition of "free will" does not require that an agent's actions be *random*, or that they be *uncaused*. I have no problem whatsoever with attributing free will to agents living in a completely deterministic universe, like the one in Greg Egan's "Permutation City" (a work which I heartily recommend).

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Free will, for me, is necessarily something compatible with the common understanding of free will – while at the same time not necessarily compatible with "folk theories" of what the existence of free will entails (like the ability to act independently of any external causative factors). Any definition I adopt, whatever its degree of logical formality, should be a *refinement* of that common understanding.

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So how do I define free will? Roughly speaking: an intelligent being, getting information from external and internal sources, processing it, and taking actions based on that processing. Moreover, the greater the degree of self-reflection – that is, the greater the extent to which that being thinks about its own thought processes, and how they relate to its environment and its actions – the more likely an outside observer would be to attribute "free will" to that being.

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Yes, I picked that up a week ago and was favourably impressed. Who would have thought all that punning could be used for world-building?

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Sticking with Kabbalah for a moment, Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco comes to mind. RIP. Also Neon Genesis Evangelion – which, by the way, uses Jewish esotericism as a bit more than just window dressing. Two of Ted Chiang's short stories, Seventy-Two Letters and Tower of Babel, use Kabbalah and the Biblical mythos*; the former may well have influenced Scott Alexander. There's a poem, Eden Bower, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that I rather like: http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/1-1881.1stedn.rad.html#20-1869.f30 (his illustration is below). 19th century degeneracy is best degeneracy.

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* Not "Hell is the Absence of God", though, that's more of an anti-Christian fantasy.

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The main cause of Galileo's legal troubles was his applying philosophical rigour to the favoured arguments of Pope Urban. Urban instructed the Inquisition to examine G for heresy *very carefully*. Personal offence was revenged by legal means.

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What does this say about the role of "Trad Christianity" in the nurturing of science? Doesn't reflect on it too well imo. G got in trouble by doing natural philosophy and the prevailing spiritual-temporal system enabled it. On the other hand Galileo is an exception! After him one can say that the development of science was not noticeably impeded by the Church, at least.

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But this is precisely why the defence of the traditional order when it comes to Galileo irks me. Fact: Galileo was questioned under threat -- a real threat -- of torture. He was sentenced to life imprisonment (commuted the next day). These are facts in the same way that "Soros is a huge factor in immigration" is a fact. Defending the Church when it comes to Galileo is casuistry.

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("Casuistry" is what normies say instead of "Talmudic reasoning" btw. My, don't we love our outgroup terms!)

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Factors like early socialism, a high tax burden, the cost of integrating huge numbers of extremely poor immigrants from Arab countries etc. must have had an effect, but at this point Israel is ahead of the European average and growing at a similar rate to other Western countries. We appear to be lagging countries like Spain and New Zealand by two or three years at most: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=k3s92bru78li6_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ppppc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=world&idim=world:Earth&idim=country:IL:GB:US:PL:NZ:IT:ES:DE&ifdim=world&tstart=316735200000&tend=1421272800000&ind=false
Remove the purchasing power parity adjustment and Israel is actually ahead of Spain and Italy: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=k3s92bru78li6_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ngdpdpc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=world&idim=world:Earth&idim=country:IL:GB:US:PL:NZ:IT:ES:DE&ifdim=world&tstart=316735200000&tend=1421272800000&ind=false

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This is set to happen in the 60s or 70s. On that time scale, my predictions are dominated by global trends in automation, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Such trends could easily drive Haredim apart from other Jews; my hope, indeed one of my long-term goals, is that Judaism and Jewishness are binding enough both to support a confederal arrangement with a common defence policy and cooperation in the face of all the weirdness that will be going on in ROW (and Israel too, of course).

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I can give a less "zomg singularity" response too. Condition on such technologies having less effect than I anticipate. Then some time before the Haredim attain numerical majority, they could become a very serious drain on public finances. This is because they 1) tend to be significantly less economically productive and 2) exploit what is already a powerful swing vote in the Knesset to obtain gibsmedats.

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We will see a situation where either the productive sector of the Israeli economy demands economic disconnection, or where pressure is applied to the Haredim to make themselves less dependent on state largesse. They're quite capable of doing so; a couple of years in the army seems to go a long way in integrating the average Haredi boy (Haredi girls almost never serve; on the other hand, they get a better secular education). Bear in mind that the Haredim cannot *force* anything, even as a majority, without themselves becoming as capable as the seculars.

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The deciding factor between these two options is probably regional politics. The Islamic threat pushes us together, making us less willing to contemplate confederation (which would be my preferred outcome). Thus, we'll see the continued growth of Religious Zionism; settlements will grow, more and more Haredim will serve in the IDF, Arab residents – and citizens – of Israel will be pushed to make formal declarations of allegiance to the state (with predictable consequences), and the liberal internationalist Left will be further marginalised. Palestinians will get roughly the package Bibi is currently offering them, possibly with a couple of land swaps (e.g. the Triangle). The anti-Zionist Haredim will be excluded from political life* even more than they are now. By the time Haredim have a majority, secular and 'traditional' Israelis will be much better disposed towards them.

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* How this will be effected, I can't say. The largest anti-Zionist Haredi sect in Israel is Edah HaChareidis. This is part of their "anthem":

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To the rule of the heretics we are not believers,
We are not believers!
And their laws we do not honour,
we do not honour!

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(From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edah_HaChareidis#Anthem)

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In practice, their bark is worse than their bite. Nevertheless, this sort of thing is blatantly inimical to any sovereign entity, whether democratic, despotic, monarchical, neocameral...

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Oh ho ho. Some of it is amusing, but I don't laugh it off. It depends what counts as anti-Semitic. I hear guys saying "Jews should move to Israel" and I think, well, duh. Or there are the ones that say "Jews are smart, but they should stop being so goddamn progressive" and I think, yeah, they should. It's the ones that say "we need to get rid of the Jews. Also, fuck Israel" that have me reaching for my Micro-Tavor. "A man shall be commended according to his wisdom: but he that is of a perverse heart shall be despised."

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The idea that it is dangerous or wrong for any Gentile to comment on Jews as a whole should be left in the 20th century with the horrors that birthed it. We a posse now.

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Above applies to the smart alt-right (which is some of them) and NRx (most of them). The lumpenfascisten can go hang, for all I care. (Alternatively, a national homeland could be found for them, perhaps in Idaho. Principal exports: potatoes, dank memes.)

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I had not heard the theory that progs are modelling the behaviour of stereotypical Jewish mothers! Obviously you're talking about the White ones. My answer is: no, practically the opposite. You're familiar with the Hajnal Line? Prog altruism is a very West-of-the-Hajnal-Line thing. It's not particularly warm, as anyone who has been on the receiving end of it will be aware – I would term it "fervent". European Jews are historically East-of-the-Line. The whole idea of the overbearing Jewish mother is that she wants to protect her children *from the outside world*. That can't be misdirected outwards, the concept is incoherent. As for Jewish progs, they're best viewed as having converted culturally to Western European behaviour, only to take it to ridiculous extremes.

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