DocWatts

Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, considered by some to be the Uylessys of the sci-fi genre for its depth and originality. The book is set in a far off future where the sun is dying and human society has regressed from an interstellar empire to a Stage Red feudal society trapped on a dying world. The story is written from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, as an in-universe political memoir of how a lowly executioner ascended to the throne. The work explores spiritual and metaphysical ideas, while also being a deconstruction of the Hero's Journey. In addition it's as chock full of literary allusions and references as a Herman Melville book. That said I wouldn't recommend this book to everybody, as it's not a by any means light reading. It's a thought provoking and challenging book that rewards paying close attention, and rereading. If I had to try and think of a comparable work it would probably be Frank Herbert's Dune.

Even if midterms and the 2024 elections aren't completely disastrous for democracy in America, the Republican Party isn't going to be out of power forever. US institutions have done little in the way of enacting safeguards to prevent a better organized Republican Party from being successful in thier next coup attempt. It's highly probable that in the next 10 to 20 years the US will shift to what's known in political science as hybrid regime (that's a mixed democratic authoritarian regime, ala what exists in Russia). This isn't a doomer mentality, as there are structural reasons for this. US political institutions literally don't have the capability to address the underlying root causes behind the rise of authoritarianism, as those who benefit from the destruction of democracy are in a position to block reforms that could begin to address underlying root causes . Root causes such as wealth inequality, for-profit propaganda syndicates given free license to manipulate public sentiments, and the undemocratic nature of the US Senate and Supreme Court, just to name a handful of things that are making the gestalt shift away from SD-Blue so tumultuous. So hang on to your butts, it's going to be a rough ride here in the States. The only solution I see is social solidarity around democratization politics, but I suspect that won't gain significant traction until Right Wing authoritarianism makes things so bad for ordinary people that the country can unite around tossing Right wing autocrats out of power.

If Putin had concerns about NATO expansion along Russia's borders, he's sure as hell made that a self fulfilling policy through the way that Russia's been treating its neighbors. That said, a cornered animals is when it's at it's most dangerous, as Putin's failure in Ukraine could mean the beginning of the end of his regime. So it's important to give Putin a way out of Ukraine while saving face.

Both CNN and Fox News are for profit businesses that are dependent upon a 24 hour news cycle supported by advertisements, so of course this profit motive biases everything they do. That said, Fox News is leagues worse in this regard. In addition to the problems that come with for profit news coverage, it's also a propaganda platform for far right ideologies that's found a way to become highly profitable by spreading emotionally manipulative, very low consciousness content. Pay attention to the style and tone of CNN and Fox News, and in particular the use of emotionally charged language meant to trigger thier audiences. I guarantee you that's it's at least 10 times worse for Fox News than CNN.

Then add to that demographic anxiety, as America is becoming less Christian and less white, with whites poised to no longer be the ethnic majority in America in a few decades. An aggrieved majority that's anxious about losing its privileged status is a dangerous state of things, as it's a scenario that's ripe for manipulation by bad actors. In fact it tends to be a fairly reliable warning sign before genocides. Not that I'm suggesting things will go that far here, but the intention on the American right to reinstate of aspects of Jim Crow (such as the effective repeal of the Voting Rights Act) should make us take pause.

While Reagan was a terrible president whose brand of ideology is responsible for many of the problems we're experiencing today, I'll also agree that the level of narcissism and mask off authoritarianism among the American right has gotten much worse in the intervening decades. The difference is that Reagan's ideology was a more straitforward Blue / Orange, while what we're seeing with the cult of Trump is Red taking advantage of and manipulating Blue for its own ends.

Barbs aside, conservatism exists on a spectrum. One one end, there are plenty of conservatives who are liberals 15 years removed, judging from the shifting Overton window on things like marijuana legalization and gay marriage. On the other end, some portion of conservatives will end up supporting fascism. Not that they'll come out and say this, just that given the choice between progressive social democracy and fascism, they'll consider fascism the 'lesser of two evils.' Of course the majority of conservatives will fall somewhere between these two poles.

Conservatism : The fear that somewhere out there, those you've deemed to be your social inferiors may have the audacity to demand equal treatment.

Extreme forms of Relatively are ultimately self undermining, and unworkable as a pragmatic way of engaging with the world. This is because we're constantly having to make Value judgements as part of Being-in-the-world with others. The goal of the deconstruction that comes with Relativity should be to eventually synthesize more Truthful, Compassionate, and Authentic values afterward.

We can thank a corporatist political platform that the Boomers voted for for that. One that systemically dismantled the very support structures that the Boomers used to achieve thier middle class lifestyle.

Millennials and Zoomers get to be the guinea pigs for what happens to society when an entire generation is pushed out of being able to afford a home and denied opportunities to build wealth that they can pass on to the next generation. Perhaps a gestalt shift towards housing as a basic human right might be the result of this, but it's going to be long, difficult road to make it to that point.

The best modern guess is that Nietzsche was likely suffering from dementia by the time he was institutionalized. In addition, his upbringing under the thumb of two overbearing sisters likely created a shadow around his relationship with women, which could explain why he was never able to form a healthy relationship with women throughout his life. Regardless of the merits of his philosophy, he was also basically the 19th century equivalent an an incel. My own take is that he was a highly flawed genius, someone to learn from but not idolize or try to emulate.

VR will in all likelihood become increasingly accessible and useful for all kinds of niche applications, but don't expect them to replace flat screens in your lifetime. As someone who uses VR regularly, some of the claims about it (both advocating for it and decrying it at dystopian) are just out of touch with reality. The average person isn't going to want to sit with a device strapped to thier head rather than looking at an external device such as a phone or television, especially since more often than not we're interacting with other people when we're looking at a screen. In my view, an optimistic scenario that's at least somewhat plausible is one where maybe %5 of electronic media migrates over to VR as the technology becomes more accessible. Perhaps a good analogy would be something like drone technology, which has made a noticeable impact in niche areas, but has barely made any noticeable impact in the lives of.moat ordinary people.

@Vercingetorix For me it's a tossup between The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. The former deconstructs the sociological implications of gender and how survival challenges shape socio-political institutions. It takes place on a planet where the male/female dichotomy doesn't exist, and where brutal survival conditions impact every area of life and society. The book is also a very moving and sincere portrayal of friendship. The latter is a loose Cold War analogy that explores the strengths and weaknesses of both socio-economic systems in a nuanced way, that also shows how science proceeds in a divided world. The main character is a scientist who's trying to cross the Iron Divide to work with his colleagues from the other society. Both take place in a shared sci-fi setting, with varients of the human species spread out across different planets. Her short stories are also really good. Those Who Walked Away From Omelus is a relatively short read / listen, and is a really thought provoking and relevant philosophical thought experiment.

If you're looking for high consciousness sci-fi / fantasy, I'd highly recommend Ursula K Le Guinn If you're looking for sword fights you won't find it in her work, but if using fantasy as a unique lense to explore sociological and philosophical ideas, Le Guinn is one of the best.

You might also appreciate John Vervaeke's Awakening From the Meaning Crisis series on YouTube, he talks quite extensively about mystical experiences from a philosophical and scientific perspective (without taking a reductionist approach to these experiences). Best explanatory content I've seen for this sort of thing, as he strikes a nice balance between taking an analytic explanatory approach while not trying to reduce these experiences in a way that robs them of their meaning.

Also, as far as books that engage with ontological and epistemological questions in a relevant and accessible way (ie basically the opposite of most academic philosophy), The Structures of Scientific Revolutions would be the first book I would recommend to someone. In a similar vein, Science Ideated by Bernardo Kastrup is also another good recommendation.

@melontonin You're welcome! I'm actually quite familiar with Thomas Kuhn's most well known work, which is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. What Kuhn was trying to do was correct common misconceptions of how science is normally understood among the public. Foremost among these misconceptions is the idea that the endeavour of science consists of an accumulation of facts and theories towards 'Truth', similiar to how a construction worker might lay down bricks to build a house. Rather, the way that Kuhn describes science is more akin to a dialectic of shifting and incommensurable paradigms. These paradigms govern the ontological and epistemological assumptions behind how a field of science is carried out. What is and isn't considered 'scientific' and relevant to a particular field is derived from these assumptions. For example, the origin of the physical universe wasn't always considered a 'scientific' question, until emperical evidence for the Big Bang forced a shift in to a new paradigm. Kuhn also spends a good deal of time articulating a distinction between 'normal' and 'extraordinary' science. 'Normal' science describes the majority of scientific research, and is akin to puzzle solving. It's under this modality that paradigms get articulated, methodologies get refined, and measurements become more precise and useful. What drives a move in to a new paradigm, and what makes progress in science possible in the first place, are the emergence of scientific crisises. Some emperical observations will tend to emerge that the prevailing paradigm is unable to account for (for example Ptolemaic astronomy being unable to account for the movement of the planets, causing headaches for those trying to develop an accurate calenders). Or more broadly, the current paradigm is faced with intractable problems that it's unable account for. When this happens, it becomes possible for 'Extraordinary' science to emerge which makes room to forge a new paradigm. This part is almost always carried out either by young scientists or scientists new to a particular field, and this is because they've yet to be fully indoctrinated into the prevailing ontological and epistemological assumptions of the old paradigm. The rest of the field either dies off from old age,or eventually converts to the new paradigm once it's demonstrated that it can solve intractable problems that the old paradigm couldn't account for. Anyways, that's more of less the gist of it. Hope this helps!

Since there doesn't exist a 'neutral' ontological paradigm to evaluate metaphysics from, the answer is no, essentially. Ontological assumptions aren't necessarily a bad thing, it's just important to be aware of the assumptions you're using and factor that in to one's epistemology. If anything, one's a-priori assumptions should be made as explicit as possible. It's when oncological assumptions are implicit that they're covered up and forgotten, and it's in those scenarios where they're more likely to lead us to epistemological errors. The philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote quite extensively on this, with his explorations in to the meaning of Being. Even a seemingly obvious and self demonstrating statement such as "I think therefore I am" contains ontological assumptions, since it assumes the meaning of 'I am' is well understood and obvious. In actuality, a deeper exploration reveals that there are a ton of ontological assumptions baked in to traditional Western conceptions of Being. He takes a deep dive in to all of this in his magnum opus Being and Time. I wouldn't necessarily recommend picking it up if you're not used to reading academic philosophy, but fortunately there exist books and videos to make Heidegger's philosophy much more accessible. I found the following to be quite helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Heidegger-Introduction-Richard-Polt/dp/0801485649

Just some context and clarification about more men living with their parents than with romantic partners: The median rent in the US is around $1100 a month, and it's not uncommon for landlords to require someone make three times that per month to get approved for a lease. If a person is working a full time job, that would amount to around $30 an hour before taxes. Federal minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour, and a the national median wage is around $17 an hour. Admittedly this is a bit of an oversimplification, but it should hardly be surprising that a growing number of people are living with their parents well in to thier 20s and even 30s when those are the prevailing economic circumstances. Lest we overlook the obvious, building a mature relationship with a partner where moving in together and getting married are a realistic possiblity typically requires some degree of financial independence as a prerequisite.

The way I think about the issue of Values, is to try and consider the foundations upon which my schema of Reality is constructed and cultivated. For me, it can boil down to a small number of baseline principles that have a wide degree of applicability. (1) Compassion - Compassion wins over empathy in my book, because empathy biases us. For example we have a much easier time empathizing with someone who looks and behaves as we do, and a much more difficult time doing so with someone who has very different values or life experiences. Empathy can also lead to projecting your life experiences and beliefs on to others. (2) Dignity - Both myself and others are worthy of self-respect. The primary purpose of social structures should be to make it possible for individuals and communities to live a dignified life. (3) Contemplation - One's meaning making apparatus should be cultivated over a lifetime. Attitudes and beliefs should be scrutinized and deconstructed. This also includes cultivating one's ability to adopt new perspectives. Learning should be a lifelong process.

Identifying it as a matter of Care is the core of it. The majority of human beings haven't developed to the point that the exploitation of other human beings is a matter of serious concern if it's not happening directly in front of them, so it's not surprising that concern for non-human animals isn't even on the radar for most folks. To get to that point, someone has to develop where Care is extended to beings that one has no investment in. That's a big ask for most people, as it involves deconstructing the sorts of ego-defense mechanisms that allow us to benefit from the exploitation of others without paying the emotional and spiritual costs that that entails. Societal structures puts the suffering and exploitation that make contemporary consumer society possible behind high walls, where one has to go out of their way and be highly motivated to even begin grappling with these sorts of ethical concerns in a serious way. Yet I suspect that even if somehow visiting a factory farm was a requirement for being 'allowed' to consume meat, even in this scenario most people would continue to do so because it's not enough just to show people things, there has to be an Internal Transformation for any real change.

I take a Harm Reduction approach myself. In that my approach has been to adopt a diet that's something like %98 vegetarian and %75 vegan. Basically I don't buy animal products when I purchase groceries and will always order vegetarian or vegan when I'm at a restaurant if that's an option (vegetarian meals are almost always an option, vegan options tend to be more limited). That said, most of my social relationships are with friends and family who aren't vegetarian or vegan, so rather than ask for special preparations on my account or decline to attend I will occasionally eat meat if I'm in a social situation where a meal is being served.

Insofar as as those pov's are having a societal impact, I would say we should seek to understand those perspectives. Note that this doesn't necessarily mean empathizing with them, as the vast majority of human beings who aren't white supremacists won't to be able to empathize with a neo-Nazi. If societies are creating large numbers of hateful and alienated people, it behooves to understand why that's happening. I'll likely never be able to empathize with someone who lynches another human being, but I also understand that had I been born in to a very different context with different social conditioning, that could have been me. As far as caring about these perspectives, while most of the time care has a positive connotation, caring also can mean taking something seriously while disapproving of it.