kronisk

Lots of greenwashing going on here too. The nordic countries are just as capitalist as anywhere else, we just had a strong labour movement in the 19th and 20th century. And sadly, a lot of what was won has been slowly whittling away in the last decades due to the complacency and inaction of the generations after.

Well, but what does “caring” mean? It means that their well-being affects your emotions.

That would be an extremely reductive definition that doesn’t really tell us much about how caring for others is actually experienced and how it manifests in the world. How would this for example explain sacrificing yourself to save another person, if the very core of caring is to create positive emotions in yourself? Dying is a pretty negative thing to experience and there will be no more positive emotions for you after that. I guess this idea that caring is in its essence transactional feels profound to people because we’re so ingrained with capitalist ideology… but it’s a lot more complex and multifaceted than that.

Of course, you only ever do things because there’s something in it for you,

No, sometimes you do things because you care about other people and want to help them. That you also probably feel better about yourself than you would if you did shitty things all day doesn’t mean that feeling is the only and single motivation.

We hear that argument a lot, and though some people’s charity may be motivated purely by egoism I don’t think it applies to the majority at all. The argument assumes that if doing something makes you feel good, then that feeling must be the sole motivation for that action, which is dubious. And if we follow this logic to its natural conclusion, every action that does not make you feel bad is egoistic, and the concept becomes completely meaningless. Saving a child from falling down a cliff? Egoistic! Intervening when someone is treated unfairly? Egoistic! Giving up your chair for an elderly person on a crowded bus? Egoistic!

Let’s take this last (admittedly small, everyday, non-dramatic) example. Sure, you could give up your seat purely because you want to look like a good person to others (although it’s doubtful anyone would even notice). It’s also possible to experience this feeling called empathy, to see an elderly person struggling to keep their balance while standing up and to want to alleviate that particular suffering. Everyone else is sitting down looking at their phones, so there’s no community pressure to speak of. No one would call you out if you just pretended not to notice. And the discomfort from standing up on a really crowded bus on a bumpy road could easily outweigh that little buzz you get from doing good.

I’ll go even further; it’s even possible, in a scenario like this, to not even think about how it’s going to make you feel or your self-image or whatever. You just want to help someone else because it’s in your power to do so. If this isn’t an example of not being egoistic, what would be? What would be the opposite of egoism? To act completely dispassionately?

And what about someone sacrificing their own life to save another? Striving to do good in the world does feel better, yes, but empathy is also a burden. Still, there are genuinely good people out there, that do good deeds and do not take any credit for it, even do it anonymously. And I can tell you from experience, not all of them walk around on clouds feeling like saints. Some of them even experience crippling guilt because they feel they do not do enough. How is that egoism?

But the reality I see is that they are very easily manipulated by unregulated media like TikTok

As opposed to adults?

Well, It also works as a nice allegory for climate catastrophe.

Us guitarists call them blues lawyers.

I wish I could give this comment more than a simple upvote. I want to mail you a freshly baked cinnamon bun.

Sure, nothing is more masculine than having a preference for men.

As they say, horniness is the stepmother of invention.

It’s really not, but please do explain your line of reasoning.

There are no pagans alive today?
Wew lad. Ignorant AF.

There are more or less well informed re-enactments perhaps, but the connection to the pagan traditions relevant here (no, not only roman, but western european polytheistic traditions) were essentially completely severed by christianisation, industrialisation and modernity. There are small pockets in eastern europe and northern scandinavia where some traditions survived, barely. (A convincing argument could be made that modernity and industrialisation actually was a harder blow to lingering remnants of folk beliefs than the conversion to christianity, but that’s a discussion for another day.) I am very familiar with the historical sources, european folk beliefs and various neo-pagan movements, so I’m not making this argument out of ignorance. You may still think I’m wrong of course.

Also why are you specifying only roman pagan? That’s completely non sensical.

I’m not actually, but look at the meme again. The context of this discussion is imagery of roman deities from the european renaissance.

It is blatantly obvious that a vast majority of the miracles and practices of Jesus was directly stolen from various pagan religions. Christmas trees, stockings, winter solstice celebrations…hel even the days of the week are stolen from various pagan religions.

Yes, and so what? The argument made about the Olympic ceremony in the meme is still confused and inaccurate.

Edit: and you seem to believe I’m a Christian; I’m not.

It’s not like the Christian appropriation of non-christian things just ended sometime before the high renaissance.

By that time, there were next to zero pagans left in western europe to appropriate from. The appropriation of pagan holidays and themes was mostly motivated by easing the conversion to christianity, so yes, it wasn’t really a thing after the conversion was complete. Local traditions and syncretism (saint worship etc) living on was mostly discouraged by the church so there is no appropriation argument to be made there either really.(The rest of the world is another issue; we’re talking pagan here, which specifically refers to european polytheistic traditions.)

I’d argue it’s ongoing.

Well, go ahead and argue. Isn’t the tendency of modern evangelicals rather to be scared out of their minds by any suggestion of heathendom, basically equating it to satanism? Jehovahs Witnesses for instance does not celebrate christmas for this very reason?

And even if Leonardo did not appropriate, the Christians now reacting with fury to the depiction of “their” last supper are appropriating.

Jan van Bijlert who painted Les Festin des Dieux was a christian… His depiction of Roman gods and entities are probably as accurate as The lion at Gripsholm Castle is to a real lion. And again, at the time there were no Roman Pagans alive to appropriate from, just as there are none today. You make no sense.

That’s a pretty poor excuse since the meme makes a statement presented as factual that falls apart upon scrutiny. Without this connection, the meme is nothing.

Secondly, the meme isn’t actually funny, it just validates the previously held beliefs of this community. There is no joke, just a poorly argued “gotcha”. Validation feels good, but it’s not actually humor even if the two is often confused.

This meme is just confused. The Feast of the Gods motif would be familiar to da Vinci and whether it was deliberately referenced or perhaps just a visual convention of how to portray a feast, and who influenced who are questions best asked to an art historian specialized on the time period. But ultimately it doesn’t really matter - da Vinci’s The Last Supper is one of the most iconic images in history and it’s not strange that people watching makes the connection, I certainly did even if I also got the reference to Les Festin des Dieux. Of course the idea that the ceremony mocks Jesus or whatever is a hysterical reaction, but that’s American evangelicals for you.

Connecting this to christian adaptation of Pagan holidays and motifs, however, is farfetched and ahistorical. The Last Supper is a painting, Leonardo is not the christian church. Leonardo was active during the high renaissance, a time when the ideas and imagery of (mostly pagan) Antiquity was reintroduced into christian europe. References to pagan rome and greece was à la mode in art.

Well, there’s a difference between democrats not having any power because of a coup or because R did their politics so well…I’m not defending this interpretation btw, but you asked.

Fair point, but I would argue that if you had that kind of experience on twitter, you’re weren’t really the target demographic.

Desperate and out of touch, yes, but deliberately fucking up a platform and ruining his “Iron Man” persona? He’s too stupid and too invested in what people think of him.

There’s a version of this conspiracy I could buy though: the Saudis gave him money and stroked his ego knowing that there was no way he wouldn’t fuck the whole thing up. Everyone except him knew how this was going to end. That conspiracy I could get behind.

Well, since he’s talking specifically to christians, in the context that he wants all christians to vote: he could have meant that he will fix all their concerns during his term – no more abortions, “christian values” in school, etc – so that next election, they don’t have to worry anymore. Just come out and vote this time, he’ll fix America so good that the liberals can’t even undo it if they win the next one (but they won’t, because everyone will be happy in this new golden age).

I don’t buy this conspiracy theory at all, 1) twitter is disinformation heaven, which is very useful to authoritarian regimes and 2) Musky would never intentionally do anything to harm his public image, he’s a textbook narcissist after all.

“I hate that site, I hope someone Musks it up soon”