Multiheaded comments on Rationality Quotes November 2012 - Less Wrong

6 [deleted] 06 November 2012 10:38PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 14 November 2012 06:18:34PM *  3 points [-]

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."

--Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Rationality challenge: Understand why I posted it here.

Bonsu Rationality Challenge: Reinvent the meaning of "God" I used to ironman the position. Start by ironmaning it yourself.

Comment author: Multiheaded 17 November 2012 02:12:19PM *  5 points [-]

Bonus challenge accepted, blind mode - no peeking at comments, take my word.

"God" = the objectively present, difficult-to-disentangle historical trends of the West, and the memetic strains that caused those trends, chiefly Universalism and its Christianity section. So here, a Universalist culture has violated Universalism's own naturally-evolved barriers and safety measures, and suffered for it by landing in a shallow circle of Hell. But Solzhenitsyn wasn't very Universalist, I'd say - not like Zizek and Moldbug and yours truly take it - so he couldn't see that Universalism can only stay alive while moving ever onwards and unfolding itself.

Also: this quote should be way way up there! And the Obamas of today shouldn't be quoted so much - all is dust, and all will be dust. But history will sort its Right and Left... in due course.

(help help will newsome is taking me over with his computational theology konkvistador you know you saw it help)