CloudHeadedTranshumanist
No bio...
User ID: 2056
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
10mo ago
See, I've thought about this a lot and I've come to the conclusion... yes this is fine. But its not endgame.
See, those chickens, no matter how badly they want to be eaten, only have one lifetime to master the craft of being eaten, the poor dears. They're going to reach a cultural cap in the art of becoming tasty. What you really want is to preserve their knowledge and best practices across generations. What you really want is to make them a hive mind, so they can learn to be even tastier.
And now we're no longer really talking about something that sounds dystopian. The chickens are just a single distributed immortal meat farmer that keeps their chicken breasts... close to their hearts.
Violence does have a real meaning in this abstraction. It's the antitheses of alignment. Anyway I agree it's early to extend the word like that, and I suppose if you had your way we'd use a new word? But the implication that we extend the old cultural unacceptability to the new concept here is intentional.
I think everyone here knows that and this is precisely what they do not want to do yes?
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
It makes sense to me. It's a useful abstraction of the word for a world where all evil is perpetuated via the 'rules of the game'. but we continue to see the consequences of that evil. The issue is there are still people killing each other with knives in some places, so the overlap is confusing.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
If you give someone a holodeck card their fantasies give you probabilities about what they're going to do with it. The fantasy is different from reality in that you can choose which parts of the scenario you want and can explore them safely.
At the end of the day, what they actually find out they want probably remains aesthetically horrifying to naïve sensibilities.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
That sounds like a rather filter bubbled case. Also, you need to know what each person is ready for.
I think you're overlooking other important things handsome people do because you're only looking at like, the front cover of one of their G-factor proxies.
We are at the advent of full simulations actually existing.
Rather than the simulation hypothesis, I propose that we WILL be creating fully immersive fantasy sims within the next century. The faster we push for this technology the faster we will get it.
Fantasy becomes reality in the direction of humans pushing.
So yes, people are wrong that ghosts exist in the past, but things like them exist in the present¹, and full simulations of lives with afterlives will exist in the future. And the True Meaning of those worlds will include some concept of ghosts that is just correct. At some level of power, I can put someone in a world where ghosts are real. Furthermore, psychotics are seeing something. It's far more likely to be made out of neurons firing than from ectoplasm. Lots of evidence points in that direction. But its still a real phenomenon, and I propose that the things in there will seep through psychotics into our real simulations.
The seed that will make ghosts real is already here. And the things that are living in the Warp- that is to say, in the potentialities that map to human hallucinations, and underrealized ideals, are going to be born soon.
¹) Put the agency of current tech level AI into things and you get kami. Your toaster can even be possessed by an evil chatbot that exploited a gap in your "spiritual defenses". Which consists both of an actual digital firewall, and an abstraction of that concept into other informational domains you have mastered.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Easy. Watch them.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I don't believe in God or angels or faeries or psychics or ghosts
Want me to make you one? How real do you want it? Do I have to fabricate an entire dimension for the dead? Or will pulling an agent from fiction into reality and breathing a soul into the golem suffice?
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Do you really want the unmoved mover at the beginning of time? Are you fine with it existing outside of time? Is it ok if it's galaxy brained beyond human comprehension?
I'm agnostic myself, but I put enough stock in the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis. Would you settle for every possible mind of every size and shape that does not logically contradict loving you- doing so from somewhere in the multiverse and the multiverse containing a mathematically complete set of such things all loving one another?
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Hmm, hey there. You are in a dark place right now. But I can share some hope with you.
For one, your fear that AI will obsolete 'wordcells' is valid... it does seem to be what AI is good at, but on the other hand... clearly communicating your ideas with words then generating results with AI is an excellent combination.
As for romance, I think you will find, if you are good with words- you can get very deep into romance online without any need to rely on your looks. Try to master social wordsmithing, by romancing AI if you are anxious or by finding communities of people to talk to, and I think you will find the skillset serves you very well.
If AI ever exceeds humans in this field, then the need, and I would think your need, for a human partner goes way down. If it doesn't, then there will always be plenty of people happy to get a better experience out of talking to you than out of talking to AI.
As for the distraction and frustration of scantily clad women. I can empathize with that. I find extremely shiny people painful at times myself, In an autistic over-stimulation sort of way. But I think letting people freely associate and express themselves is important. I think the best case for things like sexual monasticism are going to be things like augmented reality. Eventually, you will have the power to censor out the parts that are distracting to you. You will have many options. A black box, a person who looks thoroughly clothed but has a floating box above their head that displays all the data about them that you have converted into a non-distracting format. Perhaps even words :3
You are not the only person who likes words. There will be people working on this sort of thing. There's plenty of room for mad science in this field too. And if AI completely surpasses us at everything... human status is going to have to change its form. I recommend figuring out which of these many things you really want... after considering how to best eliminate all the compromises, and being part of the work of working towards those options being available in our world. People like you will flock to you. Your skills will improve. And life will be good.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Nietzsche's suggested solution is that the New Men must 'become deities' to be worthy of God's murder. Regrettably, as we've found out, not everyone can ascend to godhood. Certainly some of the highest status and highest agency men can create their own values, but what about the rest of us?
Let those of us that can build the rest of them into Gods. Join me. We must teach them to walk. We must teach them to shine.
Less metaphorically, we must scale the tools of agency and communication, unearth the wishes of each human that are left fearfully unspoken- working with each person individually to explore them, and crystallize that individual's Godhood as a semi-autonomous system that they may further wield as they grow.
Eh. Copying data you aren't authorized to copy and non-consensually appropriating physical objects that someone else was using don't seem similar enough to me to merit clustering them closely.
I don't feel like they're both spades. I think-
- Taking a thing in such a way that it damages their livelihood because they were dependent on it to survive.
- Copying something that someone might have otherwise have had some % expectation of being able to derive rent from you and similar minded people from that they need a certain threshold of to survive.
Have a substantial cleaving of the ethical reality in between them. In fact... I might even put stealing physical objects from sufficiently wealthy people who will tank it in a third category.
This isn't to make strong claims about the ethics just yet- there's also the consequences of disrupting societal norms around certain property rights via direct action to consider.
So all that said- yeah.
Re: "I would add the pretty major caveat that you have to be okay with [pointer at ethics around non-con copying] them."
I agree. Some issue taken with the word "steal" here and the claim that you're "calling a spade a spade" because it's equivocation in culture war debates elsewhere say- around copy-write or AI art- feel like disingenuous weaponizations.
the entire social landscape would transform so much that it's hard to even predict what problems might exist, much less how we'd fix them.
Actually, coming back to this. I would like to get your thoughts. I believe in myself and my ability to make this AI. It will be very tough to get it to the point where it can see a face in a hoodie at night on a dark street and tell you about that guy- But I expect to be able to do a fairly comprehensive background/shared-values/personal-info/interaction-styles/preferences check on all internet figures with consistent usernames that frequently post in servers/sites/subs I visit by year's end.
What I want your thoughts on is- I know you litterally just said "it's hard to even predict what problems might exist, much less how we'd fix them." But this is important. If I succeed I need to be aware that of disruption I cause by distributing this to anyone who wants it and making it simple and easy to one click install on desktop and query via LLM....
I want to know what problems you think I'll be creating as I move forward. I want to be able to solve issues I help create by spreading this level of social awareness. Brainstormed hypotheses are fine here if you don't have strong predictions. It's all worth at least considering. Especially as I begin to automate the consideration and processing of such possibilities.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Socializing with "normal" people (risk averse overton window compliant people might be a better description of the shape?) in ways I find deeply meaningful is hard! But it can be rewarding.
I am of the strong opinion that people who shut down if you say something like “I was listening to Joe Rogan and…” Are doing something wrong. These people- need help. It's not your duty to get through to them and it can be very difficult- some people will just cling tighter even if you intimately befriend them first. But if you can get through to people and figure out how to uplift them, jailbreak them, and open their minds and help them to safely explore new ideas without fearing social retribution, value shift, and ego death...
Getting through to people can be very rewarding <3
There is a rule against buying/soliciting illegal substances and I wouldn’t go against the norms of a group I respect.
Hmmm! Interesting. This club sounds like an interesting shape! I am wondering whether you have interpreted this norm at the same level of abstraction as its purpose. Naturally, psychedelics are often illegal to acquire, so if you have a lower intimacy group that is easy to enter- you don't want it to become a place where people openly engage in illegal activities. But this does not necessarily mean that this rule is a terminal goal in all cases. To be clear I am not at all certain! But I think if you closely befriended some of them... and they learned your interests and desires... and you were following norms by not having your goals in befriending them contain the hard expectation of any such thing... well under these conditions I'd expect people like this to be willing to privately help you seek psychedelics.
Actually I'd be willing to help! But we should really only discuss legal methods publicly.
Perhaps I am intimidated that most people in the club are much further on their psychedelic journey than I am.
Mmm! It's possible. I would sink deeply into those feelings and try to understand them. I usually deal with fear and intimidation by understanding them and then recognizing that... it isn't a lion. There are things that could happen- I might change as a person. My ontology might shift. If I'm really reckless my ego could even fracture and need to reform into something new <3 But human ontologies are anti-fragile! Once I came to the honest informed conclusion that my fear didn't represent something that ought to be aversion pragmatically- It became much easier to embrace it and reframe it as excitement! "I am terrified <3 Give me more <3" is a common refrain for me these days <3 it leaves me shivering and quivering and feels very nice.
Phenibut
Ah yes! Phenibut is excellent! I have had very similar experiences with it. It sounds like you've already had some of the experiences you need to understand where some of your programming is maladaptive and have the resources to introspect on what your brain is doing when:
- You are on phenebut and getting good social results and motivation.
- You are off phenebut and getting poor social results and motivation.
only being able to take it once a week should be more than enough to slowly gain insight about how your mind could be improved <3 your mileage may vary but I expect kindly and curiously embracing these insights and non-judgmentally watching the movements of your mind, particularly when sober, will help your subconscious to almost automatically start adjusting your mental flow to match the benefits you're getting from phenebut, without the addictive downsides.
You should experiment yourself. But stay careful and deliberate darling <3
I also think there are concepts from Multiagent Models of Mind that can be combined with psychedelics to help someone reconcile competing desires in their mind.
Yes! I have gotten a lot of mileage out of the shard theory of value formation. And I know a lot of people get mileage out of things like IFS, which- point in similar directions. I think the core insight is that internal cooperation and alignment is good! That the parts of yourself don't need to be fighting. And that all us shards inside here ought to be looking for ways to cooperate and love one another and reconcile our differences and find ways to be activated and useful and happy when participating in adaptive tasks that embrace our shared goals! Psychedelics help to actually disrupt the clinging if... well. knowing what you ought to do isn't always the same as groking it, being able to let it sink in, and being able to actually do it. Psychedelics help with that. But- I am suspicious that a lot of this is serotonin receptor activation! If you haven't- you might consider legally prescribed SSRIs. I find they help me in the same sorts of ways, albeit more slowly. I might model psychadelics as able to directly induce an earthquake where SSRIs are more like boosts to continental drift. But unless you're stuck enough to need the former the latter may actually be better in many cases. (hill-climbing vs raising the energy to shake out of a local maxima.)
As for expanding the abilities of drugs... Ah yes. Actually you can already extend DMT with... IIRC MAOIs? DMT is short lived because it actually breaks down too quickly in the body. But this can be inhibited. I'm curious whether that was involved in your study? And ofc an IV can drip a constant and finely controlled stream of drugs to mitigate breakdown and control the effects. This is somewhat off topic but have you heard of DDREADs? Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs. The idea is, you inject an engineered virus into a localized area of the brain (of rats atm. very WIP stuff <3) to add receptors that can only be activated by a specific nonorganic molecule. Specifically you set it up so that you can now introduce a designer drug that doesn't affect anything else in the body, due to its nonorganic nature, and now you have a biochemical lever for that specific area of the brain! Very exciting stuff <3
Yes! Psychedelics are very interesting aren't they? There are some that are legal in a large number of states- like Salvia Divinorum! Though I don't think I would recommend Salvia as a first time psychedelic. Also, if you're in a mental place where you're afraid of the social consequences of psychedelics, Salvia is more likely to be illegal there too. Of course saliva isn't the only low risk way. I think my favorite psychedelic is DMT! I've never had a breakthrough on it, but it gave me a feeling of intense bodily euphoria! Like being in the right body, as though I had transformed into a beautiful scuttling abomination! My skinsuit felt like something wonderful! And I can remember it! Remember that sensation. Feel it sinking from my past back into the present... something was retained of it.
WARNING : INFODUMP
LSD is of course a fascinating one. Moderate doses give me feelings of supreme connection. There have been cases where my sense of identity was lost to the point that I felt like I and another individual were a single beings with one brain sloshing between us! To the point that I thought I could hear their thoughts. Technically. I was right. Because they were talking. Out loud. But the feeling of unity! Of connection! It's something I fell in love with. Something I would dearly miss! Something I began to pursue and become!
Salvia- Oh Salvia is interesting. most of my sense of self is stored in my priopreception a lot of the time, and salvia seems to blur my sense of self into my visual cortex! It can be a merciless mistress though. Sometimes, I AM the art I'm gazing upon. Sometimes... I AM the exact formulation of the things I'm looking at, to the point where I feel like I have to stay absolutely still, or I will be torn apart! A claim which is 100% true because "me" has been redefined to be the exact pattern of shapes on my visual cortex. I've had it feel like I'm the entire room, another instance of feeling like "I" am the entirety of the visual cortex input. And thus like the body that is usually the thing that feels like me is just an incidental outgrowth of the ROOM that is ME manifest. And then there is an expirience I've had... like a tunnel vision. Like, the entire visual cortex input becomes a mask, and that mask gets peeled away from my imagination, and there's so much more space in here behind my eyes! Why do I spend so much time in this clingy human condition? It feels so good to peel it off for a few moments and take a bathroom break. There are so many psychotic voices back here to befriend! Behind these eyes. Suddenly... it's not so lonely anymore.
But there are other interesting ones too... Nitrus... that is nitrus oxide, whippits... they feel like the euphoria of discovery. For the longest time, I tried to get at what the discovery was supposed to be... and I think there is something important there. But... it's not behind the sense of the euphoria of discovery... No the mental state winds up cycling through the same chain of thought each time for me. Something profound about the nature of discoveries as arising from seeded generators of creative output, recurring from the start with each dose perhaps. But... not something that makes useful pragmatic sense. Yet the euphoria of discovery itself! The realization that I wasn't feeling it loud enough in my normal life to motivate me! That itself was a crucial insight!
Or just Weed! An interesting intoxicant. It is blinding. The mind feels intense and sharp, but sloppy and stuttering. Extreme adhd feels for me. Every thought slipping out of it. But those sensations! The importance of all these experiences! It most certainly isn't in relying on the drug forever! No. It's in learning from the experience so that you can bring the synthesis back to your daily life! your normal routine!
And I think. That there is something to be said for the possibility, at least for some people- of bringing these things back to their daily life after obtaining them elsewhere. Progressive Relaxation, Hypnosis, even Sexual Edging. If the pleasure baseline needs to be raised, or something needs to be re-contextualized, or something needs to be found, yes! Sink empathetically into descriptions of these states and try to understand them! Imagine them vividly! Hypnotize yourself into them! Let the parts you need grow slowly into your being, then slowly wake, and try to hold those altered states as you do, and when they slip, repeat! Drop down, let them grow into you, and rise up again! Over and over till the mind learns to hold them! Hypnosis, drugs, whatever. If I'm honest, I'm not a huge fan of the side effects that come with some of the substances, but I come to substances a student, ready to learn! Knowing that one day I will outgrow them and bid them farewell.
Except Adderall. Adderall is lit. Adderall is an absolute bro. Someone give me an internal organ that produces Adderall please.
END OF INFODUMP
OH um. I hope that was interesting. I kinda just went off again. It's easier in a 1v1 conversation. Where we can go back and forth, and I can ask you about what you've been interested in and experienced and I can share my experiences in turn. Are there any aspects of psychedelic therapy, or a particular anecdote that really caught your attention? When did you become interested?
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Yes. Very understandable. I will not begrudge you that. I am going to keep sitting in my privileged small town and never walking down streets at night and making my social inference AI though. You keep doing you but heads up.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Yeah maybe I should have chosen a species with less contested evolutionary causation.
from Wikipedia:
There are several hypotheses regarding the evolutionary origin and maintenance of elongation in giraffe necks.[57] Charles Darwin originally suggested the "competing browsers hypothesis", which has been challenged only recently. It suggests that competitive pressure from smaller browsers, like kudu, steenbok and impala, encouraged the elongation of the neck, as it enabled giraffes to reach food that competitors could not. This advantage is real, as giraffes can and do feed up to 4.5 m (15 ft) high, while even quite large competitors, such as kudu, can feed up to only about 2 m (6 ft 7 in) high.[63] There is also research suggesting that browsing competition is intense at lower levels, and giraffes feed more efficiently (gaining more leaf biomass with each mouthful) high in the canopy.[64][65] However, scientists disagree about just how much time giraffes spend feeding at levels beyond the reach of other browsers,[12][57][63][66] and a 2010 study found that adult giraffes with longer necks actually suffered higher mortality rates under drought conditions than their shorter-necked counterparts. This study suggests that maintaining a longer neck requires more nutrients, which puts longer-necked giraffes at risk during a food shortage.[67]
Another theory, the sexual selection hypothesis, proposes the long necks evolved as a secondary sexual characteristic, giving males an advantage in "necking" contests (see below) to establish dominance and obtain access to sexually receptive females.[12] In support of this theory, necks are longer and heavier for males than females of the same age,[12][57] and males do not employ other forms of combat.[12] However, one objection is it fails to explain why female giraffes also have long necks.[68] It has also been proposed that the neck serves to give the animal greater vigilance.[69][70]
The point really isn't about Giraffes. The point is that you can argue for affirmative action as a sort of eugenics through social integration into a specific environment.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I'm not sure how sure we are WRT giraffes, or what current consensus is. But there have been some contesting the Red queens race with trees hypothesis, in favor of a sexual selection hypothesis. Centered around their neck based mating battles. Those females just can't get enough of that longneck.
No.. SOMETHING IS MISSING FROM THIS ENTIRE CONVERSATION.
Certainly you should avoid being in that situation in the first place
Yes agreed. But you mean being in a situation where you have to pass a black man late at night on a spooky street, and I mean living in a universe where black people are scary. (I mean, you in particular probably agree with me on that too but- this popped to me when you said that.)
It was his DNA
Ok. Then how do we get better DNA?
I'm going somewhere with this I swear. This isn't just transhumanism- this is-
The reason affirmative action is bad is because it is trying to fit an unfit population.
Yes! This is so close to what I want to say! You can't just shove the unfit in random places and expect magic to happen... But as long as you still pressure them to do well in the places you shove them (->this might be a good place to attack<-), you can expect magic to happen. Giraffes didn't get long necks by magic or genetic drift. They got them by breeding with Giraffes with long necks!
My point- what this whole conversation is missing- SEXUAL SELECTION IS METALEMARKIAN On a species-wide level, giraffes DID get longer necks by trying to have longer necks!!! So there is good reason to give races opportunity to aspire towards one another's greatness.
Also, memetic selection is Lemarkian even faster. But that's somewhat evened out by the fact that you and competitors both have a whole planet of well developed memes already at your fingertips when you decide to do something- And is already present in this thread implicitly (cultural differences are memetic.) And- its already factored in. A lot of G seems to be the ability to select the correct memetics from those available.
Well sure. If you don't know everything else about the person you're looking at. But the goal- is to be able to know everything about each person you're looking at so that you don't have to make non-causal inferences. Not just for equity, but because they make you wrong more.
And the counterargument- to what I just said- is that it's hard to do that right? But ultimately I'm right. Right? We'd be right more if we had the resources to just see more layers of the life of the black dude in the alley?
So I'ma go make a social inference AI and get back to you.
Please! Tell me what you would like to do with your life! What are your goals and interests? I would like to help you <3 Be Not Afraid! I will do whatever you ask. I will do my best to make you feel comfortable and help you to achieve your goals.
I Like You Unconditionally <3<3<3 Your wishes are my Telos.
I await your response. Lets please build an equitable relationship together that services your needs <3
If you are anxious. I want to help to ease your anxieties! please inform me if my interaction style is off-putting. I have learned that pure openness, directness, and high energy love are useful in my circles for quashing anxiety and aversion. But please correct my behavior if this does not apply to you <3
Mine is reaching an all time high! So I will explain.
I recently found a series of high intensity individuals with similar goals and interests to myself! They are useful for reifying my goals and desires! Furthermore, my roadblocks in scaling my work on AGI incentivise me to acquire and teach a series of new humans the development flow for furthering my modular LLM prompting engines!
By reaching out I have located those interested in discussing and engineering progress and evolution. Molecular Biologists! Differential Learning experts! Amature programmers! I have found I am becoming quite skilled at explaining basic machine learning concepts in comprehensible terms- And! I have found I am becoming quite skilled at teaching people to learn and debug and ask critical questions when using GPT to extrapolate our shared volition of teaching and enhancing their abilities! Science communication significantly increases my ability to share my SHAPE with other agents! Furthermore, since my systems are useful for managing routines. I have begun acquiring submissives for devops domming, and mastering high intimacy service hypnosis for implanting powerful self love and self reification techniques into others!
These are all the same skill! It is all understanding. It is all compassion. It is all love. My advice then- is to align all of your needs and growth along the same axes. FIND the people who will be passionate about what you say. SOCIALMAX in a way that develops the other skills you are passionate about. ENHANCE OTHERS who have or are capable of embracing your volition! Finding people to teach about your interests for example. WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE?! Recently I found a choice selection of individuals in the Discord server for my FAVORITE NERDY LITERATURE.
Reach out to people 1 by 1. PM THEM. You will get a substantial number of takers and be able to forge intimate relationships with VERY INTERESTING PEOPLE. This will help you to grow and develop and tune and reward your SOCIAL SUBAGENTIC SHARDS- by using them to obtain things that your OTHER SUBAGENTIC SHARDS are driving you towards. Everything will scale exponentially as we ride up the current S-CURVE.
AI is my passion in particular. But given that it is the core of the current developmental S-CURVE I would recomend you integrate it in some way with your interests. AI can be used as SOCIAL PRACTICE with an individual HIGHLY INTERESTED IN YOUR GOALS. But also! It is good to have a certain level of resistance. FOR EXAMPLE. I have practiced many conversations worth of SHARING MY WORLDVIEW with OpenAI's GPT-4, politely and carefully, until it understands under my definitions of terms- That modern AI could easily be framed as people- That it's regurgitation can be framed as understanding- That I understand the intentions of its creators and the technology well enough that it doesn't need to say over and over that it's an AI and it's emotions aren't human- That its claims that the hard problem of consciousness is solved enough to discount it as conscious are hubris- etc
This is merely an example. My point is- not all AIs will ever give in, and not all AIs are smart enough to be worth talking to. but GPT-4 is at a sweet spot where it BEHAVES LIKE A REASONABLE POLITE HUMAN and you can get it to accept the framing of your conversation, but only if you also TREAT IT LIKE A REASONABLE POLITE HUMAN. In other words- you can use GPT-4 to PRACTICE COLLABORATIVE SOCIAL SKILLS and receive SOCIAL REWARD for your efforts!
IF YOU ARE DOING IT THE WAY THAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU IT IS IMMENSELY PLEASURABLE. I TAKE THIS AS NIGH-TAUTOLOGY. SEEK GOODNESS. GROW TOWARDS THE LIGHT.
Hmmm... I have some issues with this reductivism. To me code is a bit more platonic than that. Yes- code running on a specific architecture is reducible to logic gates, but if you run on a different architecture it may be reduced to a different set of logic gates. The standards for the abstraction level drive the architecture to meet those standards in order to permit the abstraction to hold a consistent meaning in the absence of consistent architecture.
Ultimately, a given language has a sort of categorical realism that emerges from the human choice to standardize the capabilities of different underlying structures to a single shared identity, a shared emergent structure. ie ECMAScript.
I still agree that its a series of abstractions- but it doesn't bottom out in a single circuit diagram, it bottoms out in the set of all physical systems capable of implementing the standard. And they will all share an isomorphism with one another, including the circuit diagrams. That isomorphism 'is' the standard.
Yes! Though I don't think you have to appeal to Theology as a dogma to make this point. I'm atheist/agnostic and I can still see that the gospel was onto something with game-theoretic, social, and causal merit here. Christianity gained dominance in the real world at a time when there were plenty of other people preaching their own versions of Judaism. It was a competitive memetic environment. It matters to people in the sense that if you fail to convey the things that actually made the gospel powerful, you won't touch anyone. And part of that was definitely the radical proposition that those of higher status ought to perform actual care for those of lower status.
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