A trilemma transition

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe contemplates the implications of what appears to be a Münchhausen Trilemma transitory period playing out in modern society:

The so-called Münchhausen Trilemma is actually Agrippa’s Trilemma, attributed to Agrippa the Skeptic of the Pyrrhonist school of 4th Century BC. Agrippa’s Trilemma phrases the attack a bit differently:

  • Circularity: The truth asserted involves a circularity of proofs.
  • Progress ad infinitum: The truth asserted rests on truths themselves in need of proof, and so on to infinity. 
  • Assumption: The truth is based on an unsupported assumption.

However it is phrased, the Trilemma presents a choice of “three equally unsatisfying options.” Or so it is claimed. Is that the case? Perhaps one of the three options is not “equally unsatisfying” and there are good reasons for adopting one of these three. But before we delve into that, let’s first explain why it matters. It seems a strange thing, after all, to dwell on an unsolved 2,500 year old philosophical dilemma. Why should we care?

Human beings are rational animals; each of us is endowed with our own sense organs and our own mind. By our sense organs we receive precepts about the world, from which we form concepts about what we have perceived. What we perceive and conceive is unique to each of us; no one else has access to the qualia of our senses or the thoughts of our mind. Our consciousness is independent of others.

Human beings are also social animals, who by nature flourish only in society with others of our kind. To exist in society, human beings must cooperate, which requires establishing and asserting their needs and wants, and consensually exchanging value for value with others of their kind. When humans cannot or do not cooperate, they struggle instead, using force or fraud to extract value from others nonconsensually. In both cases, our existence is dependent on others, either as creators, traders, looters, or moochers.

The juxtaposition of our independent rationality and dependent existence creates the necessity for agreement on what can be justified as true. Man in solitude doesn’t need to know or care what others think is true. Man in society must know and care what others think is true: The very concept of exchanging value without fraud presupposes the existence of not-fraud, which is to say, truth.

When human society is simple, the justification necessary to establish truth is equally simple, and typically based on foundationalism relying on sense perception. “Is it rain out?” “Hand feel wet. Yes.” As the complexity of human society increases, the justification necessary to establish truth also becomes more complex. More and more matters arise over which each independent consciousness might disagree. “Does Theodore rightfully own Breckenridge manor?” is no simple question.

As a result, every society of sufficient complexity has created institutions such as courts of laws, trials by jury, assemblies of law, boards of peer review, and other tools to decide what is true. Each such institution fundamentally works the same way: The individual consciousness, with its ability to reason, is embedded within a group of other individuals, and a method used to force the group to come to an agreement (often by deliberation and voting, as in a jury or parliament, but sometimes randomly, esoterically, or even violently).

Over time these institutions, in the process of defining what is true, build a great scaffolding – law, custom, tradition, craft, and practice – that collectively form its culture. But always it remains that what is true about complex matters is reliant on a core set of propositions which are deemed foundational and outside the scope of deliberation. (In the words of America’s founders: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”)

That is, the culture of every society has historically arisen from a series of agreements made out of necessity to permit cooperation to accept certain propositions as justified, with these agreements developing over time in a hierarchy as society becomes more complex, with all ultimately justified by reference to propositions held by that society as foundational.

But Münchhausen’s Trilemma holds that foundationalism is merely one of three “equally unsatisfying” resolutions to the impossibility of proving any truth. And if there is no possibility of proving any truth, it would seem there is no possibility of justifying the culture of any society as good, beautiful, or right. Worse, those who would argue against our society’s way of life do not even have to grapple with its truth-claims at all: They can simply develop another culture, based on another set of propositions that are self-consistent with themselves, and dismiss our own as irrelevant, unfounded, and wrong.

Read the whole thing there. Because what we tend to regard as a culture war is just as much a philosophical war as it is a spiritual war. The reason American society is showing cracks is that its philosophical foundations have been under assault for nearly 120 years.

“A blatant lie”

Joe Biden is publicly called out for lying about his connections to his son’s business dealings on Tucker Carlson:  

Bobulinski and Hunter formed a company in 2017, specializing in infrastructure investment. No deals appear to have been completed, and the firm folded in 2018. Joe had left the White House and was a private citizen at the time. Nevertheless, he has insisted he and his son never discussed business – which Bobulinski claims is untrue. 

‘That’s a blatant lie when he states that,’ Bobulinski told Carlson. ‘It’s a blatant lie. It was made clear to me that Joe Biden’s involvement was not to be made in writing, but only face to face.’

Bobulinski is listed as one of the recipients of a May 13, 2017, email detailing their business deal, and he claims that ‘the big guy’ mentioned is a reference to Joe, whom he claims Hunter regularly asked for business advice. 

Joe has always insisted he was not involved in Hunter’s numerous business ventures. 

It should be interesting to hear how the Bidens otherwise account for the massive payments made to Hunter by a variety of foreign sources. It’s not as if the guy isn’t a complete screwup totally incapable of doing legitimate business to save his life. 

These are direct, credible, and easily provable allegations. And given the other Hunter Biden scandal, there can be little doubt about them being true.

The Ent in the Moon

 

The Forge of Tolkien Episode 14, THE ENT IN THE MOON, is now live on #UATV.

Tolkien insisted that he did not consciously invent many of the details in his stories, including most famously the Ents. These characters, he insisted, were compounded of “philology, literature, and life,” drawing on particular words from Old English, stories like Shakespeare, and the actual differences between “male” and “female” attitudes towards gardening. In this episode, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown explores the roots of the Ents in the Old English poem “The Ruin,” Tolkien’s work for the Oxford English Dictionary on words beginning with “w,” the Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the song Frodo sang at the Prancing Pony—and its “Mannish” predecessor about the Man in the Moon. What do giants have to do with towers and the “stain” on the Moon? It is all part of the mystery of “asterisk reality” and the love of Logos. 

They rationalize too much

It’s fascinating to see the media frantically citing the overwhelming Fake Poll numbers, as if by repetition they can stave off the approaching reckoning. And yet, they are observably worried that all the polls are wrong.

As Election Day approaches and President Donald Trump continues to trail Joe Biden by high single digits both nationally and in key states, their respective bases are buzzing with either hope or dread that “the polls could be wrong again.”

In truth, public opinion polls are imperfect instruments, and there’s always bound to be some degree of error, especially given the widely varying quality of the nation’s pollsters. But Trump would probably need a larger polling miss than in 2016 to win re-election, and there’s no guarantee a systemic polling error this year would run in his favor….

Fundamentally, the current polling in the 2020 race is different from 2016 in three important ways.

First, Biden’s lead is larger and much more stable than Clinton’s was at this point. Second, there are far fewer undecided and third-party voters left to woo — reducing the chances of a late break toward one side.

And third, the scores of district and state-level polls conducted by the parties to make spending decisions in down-ballot races generally align with national polls showing Trump running behind his 2016 pace, including in key states. In 2016, these same polls had shown flashing red warning signs for Clinton, particularly in districts with lots of white working-class voters.

The spinning won’t stop until the Young Turks cry. Just for the record, let’s note the prediction by The Economist.

95{5c1a0fb425e4d1363f644252322efd648e1c42835b2836cd8f67071ddd0ad0e3} Joe Biden 95{5c1a0fb425e4d1363f644252322efd648e1c42835b2836cd8f67071ddd0ad0e3} 249-421

05{5c1a0fb425e4d1363f644252322efd648e1c42835b2836cd8f67071ddd0ad0e3} Donald Trump 117-289

Trump winning the popular vote is really going to shatter them.

Hunter Biden = Samson

Or so Carlos Osweda concludes:

I’ve been looking at photos of the senile guy’s son.

The newly released photos.

He exposed his father deliberately.

No doubt in my mind.

Why?

Here you go. Look at the son’s face. It tells the whole story.

The son has steadily documented his self-destruction.

He seeks oblivion.

Since he can’t escape what was done to him and what he chose to do, he’s bringing down the whole rotten structure.

I’m more than a little dubious, in light of how in one of Hunter Biden’s text messages, he talks about how merely making the accusations of his behavior is tantamount to putting a gun to his head. If he really wants to bring the whole thing down, all he has to do is go on Tucker Carlson and speak honestly about what he has done, and what has been done to him. 

But the theory would make for an intriguing story. The truth is that none of this began with Hunter and none of it will end with him. His ongoing public humiliation is merely proof of what many of us knew all along.

Mailvox: a new religion

I’m a longtime reader of your blog and a pastor. Your denunciations of Churchianity are spot on, and I’ve lived through an ugly denominational transition out of the apostasy. I can testify to the rot. I’m attaching the letter I read to begin a sermon this year, where I call out the New Religion, so that you can see how at least some of us are fighting the good fight. I know there are other pastors out there doing the same, but the level of cowardice among so many of my peers in the pulpit is a shame to me.

There’s a new religion growing in our world.

A new Marxist faith.

A new Woke orthodoxy.

A new kind of Luciferian worship that is as old as sin and idolatry itself. 

Eight weeks ago I stood in the pulpit of this church and declared that the formal organization called Black Lives Matter was demonic in both origin and nature. That BLM isn’t, as it purports, an organization promoting racial justice – but, rather, is an organization that is actively working to undermine the knowledge and worship of the One True God.

Eight weeks ago I kicked off this sermon series aiming to help us understand the nature of our enemies by calling out this one organization, but BLM does not stand alone against God in this world.

Instead, what we have been seeing over the past six months, and what has become increasingly clear in the two months I’ve been preaching this series, is that this new Globalist religion has many apostles and adherents in the world – many individuals, groups, and organizations that have bowed the knee and are now demanding the same:

  • Antifa
  • Hollywood
  • Disney Corp.
  • Google/FB/Twitter
  • the Main Stream Media

along with Governors, Mayors, and other elected officials, at almost every level of government and in both political parties, who have pledged their allegiance to this new Globalist, Marxist, Anti-Christian religion.

And believe me when I call it a religion, because it literally has all the makings.

There are, for instance, blasphemy laws in this new religion.

Just try saying, “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter” in public or on social media. Try to link to a video with medical professionals breaking ranks and speaking to the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine and see how long it stays up.

And there are holy scriptures for this movement too.

Marxist ideologies and writings, which always and only result in class wars and totalitarianism, are the foundational texts of this faith.

Writings about Critical Race Theory pit people against one another based solely on the amount of melanin in our skin.

Prevailing Gender and Sex Theories clearly and purposefully undermine the Biblical definitions of man and woman, husband and wife, and family.

And, even more, this religion’s teachings on Intersectionality argue that victim status is the measure of a person’s worth – with victim status defined as follows:

The less white, the less male, and the less Christian you are, the more you’ve been the subject of systemic victimization, and the more we should be listening to you.

Which is precisely, by the way, how this new orthodoxy distinguishes between clean and unclean.

  • The more white.
  • The more male.
  • The more Christian.

And the more conservative you are politically, the less clean. The less pure. The less holy. The more sinful.

And so this new faith offers the rights of expiation – of having your “sins” forgiven:

Are you hopelessly locked into your White Privilege, and so unaware of your own deep-seated but invisible-to-you racism? Get on your knees and say sorry to a Black person today!

Have you offended the Race Hustlers? You can donate money to the right causes!

Is your workforce not diverse enough? You can make your employees complete sensitivity trainings!

Have you tweeted something the mob didn’t like? You can march with the protestors!

In fact, depending on the nature of the transgression you can do lots of things to seek forgiveness, but in this new Woke Church it only counts if the Priests of this new faith accept it; if the leaders of this cultural revolution deem you acceptable.

  • Has Colin Kaepernick vouched for you?
  • Do you have President Obama’s endorsement?
  • Does Rashida Tlaib, Shaun King, or Van Jones agree with you?
  • Have the influential pundits vouched for your credibility to the cause?
  • Is there a local person of influence in the movement that can accept your sacrifice?

Without this approval, no amount of sorrys will ever be enough.

Because this is a war over Truth, and this new religion demands your conversion.

As exhibit “A” I present to you this perverted faith’s one and only Sacrament – which is clearly the murder of the unborn through abortion. The zeal with which this Globalist, Marxist, and anti-Christian religion pursues this agenda reveals just how sacred a right they believe it to be!

It. Is. Demonic.

And so while it looks like we fight against these so-called priests, they are just men and women: blood and flesh. Their blasphemy laws and rights of forgiveness may be lived out in the physical world, but they are rooted in the spiritual forces of darkness. The “scriptures” they lift up can be held and read, but they are simply the tangible expressions of their spiritual agendas. Their definitions of “clean” and “unclean” are built on the foundations of power and control in the material world, but they have neither.

Because our real war is with the Principalities and Powers that lurk behind and empower from underneath – that hide their demonic faces behind the masks of institutional “progress” and “wokeness” and “being on the right side of history”.

Our real battle is not with the destructive fruits of this movement, but with its demonic roots.

The end of the annual flu

The medical and scientific communities can’t figure out where the flu has gone or why it has virtually disappeared:

In the Southern Hemisphere, where the flu season happens during our summer months, the WHO data suggests it never took off at all. In Australia, just 14 positive flu cases were recorded in April, compared with 367 during the same month in 2019 – a 96 per cent drop. By June, usually the peak of its flu season, there were none. In fact, Australia has not reported a positive case to the WHO since July.

In Chile, just 12 cases of flu were detected between April and October. There were nearly 7,000 during the same period in 2019. And in South Africa, surveillance tests picked up just two cases at the beginning of the season, which quickly dropped to zero over the following month – overall, a 99 per cent drop compared with the previous year.

In the UK, our flu season is only just beginning. But since Covid-19 began spreading in March, just 767 cases have been reported to the WHO compared with nearly 7,000 from March to October last year. And while lab-confirmed flu cases last year jumped by ten per cent between September and October, as a new season gets under way this year they’ve risen by just 0.7 per cent so far…. Other research by Public Health England has confirmed this. Globally, it is estimated that rates of flu may have plunged by 98 per cent compared with the same time last year.

‘This is real,’ says Dr David Strain, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School. ‘There’s no doubt that we’re seeing far fewer incidences of flu.’

So where has flu gone?

Covid-19 is the flu, obviously. Despite whatever differences there might be between a coronavirus and a rhinovirus, Covid-19 is simply playing the role that the annual flu strain, which is different every year, does. It is a little more dangerous than the normal flu virus, though considerably less dangerous than certain historical strains. Which is why all the lockdown and mask nonsense is now totally pointless, and is merely delaying the natural process of the virus working its way through the population before it finally peters out.

It wasn’t a bad idea to err on the side of caution when the virulence of the disease was unknown. But now we know, so there is no reason to continue being paranoid about it.

This is what gatekeeping looks like

While whining about how Amazon won’t post his Very Important Review of The Plot Against the President, Powerline’s Scott Johnson reveals his real imperative as a conservative gatekeeper:

I found three of the several talking heads in the film to be out of place: Mike Cernovich, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Jack Posobiec. However, I appreciated the inclusion of the eminent historian Edward Luttwak. Among Luttwak’s many books is Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook. He brings scholarly expertise to the theme of the film. He knows what he is talking about.

Keep in mind that the “eminent historian” is primarily known by historians for writing a book about Roman grand strategy while being clueless about Roman history, and is famous for wrongly predicting that Desert Storm was going to be a protracted and bloody campaign in which U.S. troops would suffer thousands of casualties. He has also written a book on the “grand strategy” of the Byzantine empire despite knowing no more about the Byzantine empire than you, me, or Kimberly Guifoyle.

Notice that Johnson doesn’t explain why three people who are active observers of U.S. politics are supposed to be more out of place than an obvious ticket-taking globalist who still doesn’t understand how Trump was elected in the first place, and whose referenced book is “a hilarious satire”.

Krugman admits economists were wrong

 About free trade and globalization:

Paul Krugman has never suffered fools gladly. The Nobel Prize-winning economist rose to international fame—and a coveted space on the New York Times op-ed page—by lacerating his intellectual opponents in the most withering way. In a series of books and articles beginning in the 1990s, Krugman branded just about everybody who questioned the rapid pace of globalization a fool who didn’t understand economics very well. “Silly” was a word Krugman used a lot to describe pundits who raised fears of economic competition from other nations, especially China. Don’t worry about it, he said: Free trade will have only minor impact on your prosperity.

Now Krugman has come out and admitted, offhandedly, that his own understanding of economics has been seriously deficient as well. In a recent essay titled “What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization,” adapted from a forthcoming book on inequality, Krugman writes that he and other mainstream economists “missed a crucial part of the story” in failing to realize that globalization would lead to “hyperglobalization” and huge economic and social upheaval, particularly of the industrial middle class in America. And many of these working-class communities have been hit hard by Chinese competition, which economists made a “major mistake” in underestimating, Krugman says.

It was quite a “whoops” moment, considering all the ruined American communities and displaced millions of workers we’ve seen in the interim. 

Notice that they still haven’t admitted that they’re wrong about immigration and debt. But they still think you should listen to them, instead of the contrarian economists who have repeatedly been proven correct by events. It will be particularly amusing if he cites my labor mobility argument against free trade. I tend to doubt he will credit it properly….

What I find infuriating, though, is the way their own simple mainstream GDP models quite clearly predicted what will happen in a trade war between the USA and China. Any nation with a seriously negative balance of trade will automatically benefit from reduced trade and therefore win the trade war because a reduction in trade increases the (X-M) total. Reduce imports, increase GDP. The relationship is basic math.