❝❝Mrs. Bookworm,

Are you trying to make me irritated with you?

You keep going off on these anti-pagan rants. This is what, the ninth or tenth? It's blood libel. You wouldn't stand for it if the targets were Jewish or Christian. I don't see why I should "turn the other cheek" when you target pagans.

Nature worship as such is not the problem. Any more than the KKK (a nominally Christian organization) is. Intolerance is the problem. Demanding that others follow the rules of your faith is the problem. Yes, Nature is red of tooth and claw. So are humans when untempered by civilization. And no, I do not mean civilization is Christianity. I regularly tell people that Christians (and the other two Big Monotheisms) are nicer people when they aren't the only game around. Yes, Christianity says some pretty nice things in that book. But it only plays by it's own rules when there is competition keeping it honest.

The vice or virtue is not in the label. It's in the words and actions of the individual. We're measured in the lives we touch.

You want to go after someone for intolerance, be my guest. You want to go after someone for monoculture and echo chambers, go for it. You want to go after someone for Nature worship, then you'll have to start with me. And I will turn it back on you with a vengeance. Not nicely, like I usually do with these discussions. Because you would do the same if it were your faith that was attacked. And so would everyone else here.❞❞

Tags: Bookworm ∙ anti-pagan ∙ blood libel ∙ Christian ∙ Christians ∙ civilization ∙ vice ∙ virtue ∙ label ∙ monoculture ∙ echo chambers ∙ Nature

❝❝The only reason to follow the rules is if the other does too. If they don't follow the rules, you aren't bound to the rules.

Tit for tat.

You play by civilized rules until the individual doesn't. Then you crush them.

Not the group they belong to, the individual. You refuse to treat the label as the enemy. That prevents them from retreating into the safety of the group identity, and it delegitimizes the moral claims of that group. It also demonstrates that rules work only if everyone follows them. And when someone doesn't follow the rules, then they don't have the protection of the rules.

I might have had some small experience fighting this type of battle.

ETA: Oh, it also makes someone who believes in collective identity for the greater good feel very exposed when they can't retreat. Very exposed.❞❞

Tags: tit for tat ∙ rules ∙ Other ∙ civilization ∙ group identity politics ∙ individual ∙ moral claims ∙ collective identity

““Recent centuries have given us a new paradigm of how cooperation creates civilization-a paradigm other than control from on high. Civilization rises from the grassroots. It arises through the uncoordinated and voluntary association of individuals and groups. It comes from catallaxy, which is sometimes called “catallactics.” The concept was a long-sought-after intellectual breakthrough that allowed free-market advocates to explain the evolution of society without a central authority.””
     — Wendy McElroy, Crypto and the Impossibility of Knowledge in Planning

Tags: Wendy McElroy ∙ catallaxy ∙ cooperation ∙ civilization ∙ grassroots ∙ voluntary

““Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof.””
     — P. J. O’Rourke

Tags: P. J. O’Rourke ∙ civilization

“You Are Still Crying Wolf”

Tags: 1967 ∙ video ∙ animation ∙ Scrooge McDuck ∙ currency ∙ money ∙ Disney ∙ cIrculate ∙ salt ∙ salary ∙ trade ∙ civilization ∙ inflation ∙ economics ∙ financial discipline ∙ taxes ∙ economy ∙ guest content

You should read it all, it’s very good.

Tags: climate change ∙ science ∙ skimmed ∙ Patrick Moore ∙ Greenpeace ∙ Vikings ∙ carbon dioxide ∙ Greenland ∙ Little Ice Age ∙ Medieval Warm Period ∙ Newfoundland ∙ Roman times ∙ fossil fuels ∙ civilization