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> In the beatific vision, faith is no longer necessary
Many traditions argue that faith and hope are temporary, since in God's presence all is revealed. But on the basis of Paul's statement "these three remain: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love", others argue that faith and hope remain within the culminating beatific vision, since even the saints in his presence know him truly but not fully in the infinity of his nature. Faith and hope are at that point an enduring confidence that he will continue to be and do what is ultimately for his glory and our good throughout the "ages to come."
When the church stopped being the arbiter of permissible thought, other arbiters rushed in to fill the void -- such is human nature. The question is not whether such institutions exist in society, but who they are at present.
Sometimes the "middle" just means avoiding either of two incorrect and diametrically opposed viewpoints.
I.e. justice for all, not just for the rich or the poor.
People often react to something wrong in society with another wrong that is diametrically opposed. In that case, the term "balance" is appropriate - it's about correcting what's wrong without overreacting.
I think modern people in the West, and especially people who are against communism, may not realize that Marx's ideas took hold so forcefully because they seemed to provide a way for everyday workers to fight back against the working conditions that arose following the industrial revolution. (Charles Dickens's novels provide a lot of detail from the perspective of the working class.)
One example: in retrospect, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia resulted in much death and starvation. But the people of Russia in the 1920s were fed up with the working conditions and effective two-lane legal state in Russia (i.e. the law bound poor people and protected rich people) that had existed for hundreds of years under the Tsars.
As far as I can tell, rule of law is always the best answer to injustice - a law that reflects the will of the people, binds all equally, and protects all equally. But when injustice has persisted for a while, people can be vulnerable to ideologues and ideologies that can take advantage of the situation, create a new ruling class, and cause an overcorrection.
It's insane to me that some countries have such high taxes that tax breaks become the most important variable when deciding which mode of transportation to use.
I take no position on which mode of transportation is preferable for others to take (though I have my own preferences, to be sure).
Where I come from, taxes are comparatively low. So it's weird to see people talking about them influencing their behavior so significantly. That's a lot of power the government has... I'd rather keep my money than let bureaucrats spend it to manipulate the public's behavior.
I'm not talking about building infrastructure or paying directly for things that cost money for the government to do, I'm talking about market manipulation.
Seems to me that it's probably worth the incremental cost to buy one that's already here and registered in your state; there's a lot of unknowns in customs and vehicle licensing, and I'd rather not deal with it. But I spent my weird car slot on a 1981 Vanagon instead of a kei truck/van.
> Looking forward to the inevitable goalpost-moving of "that's not real reasoning".
It's less about the definition of "reasoning" and more about what's interesting.
Maybe I'm wrong here ... but a chess bot that wins via a 100% game solution stored in exabytes of precomputed data might have an interesting internal design (at least the precomputing part), but playing against it wouldn't keep on being an interesting experience for most people because it always wins optimally and there's no real-time reasoning going on (that is, unless you're interested in the experience of playing against a perfect player). But for most people just interested in playing chess, I suspect it would get old quickly.
Now ... if someone followed up with a tool that could explain insightfully why any given move (or series) the bot played is the best, or showed when two or more moves are equally optimal and why, that would be really interesting.
I suspect we're dealing with the fallout of the loss of an American nomos (shared values, traditions, and moral principles formalized into law, custom, and convention) -- the very issue John Adams wrote about in a 1798 letter:
While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is working diligently under the cover of these pleasing appearances and employing the most insidious and base artifices, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
When moral virtue is not valued, who will rise to the top and be elected to public office but non-virtuous people?
Failing the development of something like what John Adams is referring to, I fear that the only way "forward" (if it can be called that) is a different form of government, in which individual liberties will be greatly reduced or denied altogether.
My personal opinion -- it's a spiritual problem that needs a spiritual solution. Pray for the nation.
Or we can just keep trying to run through molasses :)
>But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is working diligently under the cover of these pleasing appearances and employing the most insidious and base artifices
It's always amazing to me that slave owning men on stolen land could not see the hypocrisy of such a statement
John Adams in particular was not a slave owner, and he called slavery an "evil of colossal magnitude." So he and those like him (and there were many) shouldn't be condemned in any sense along that line.
I agree that slavery and ill treatment of Native Americans were egregious problems. But on both issues, there were prominent voices speaking out in favor of what was right, including among the founding fathers -- Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, etc. Also, William Penn (founder of Pennsylvania) was an awesome example of someone who insisted on honest, fair dealings with Native Americans, and he won their respect in a big way.
It is hypocrisy to preach about freedom and the equality of man while also owning slaves and believing some men to be unequal. It's not that this was unknown at the time either. Abolitionism was not a new idea in 1798.
Well sure, Adams in particular maybe not, but for him to warn about this hypothetical scenario while it was ostensibly unfolding in front of his eyes is still something i can find a bit ridiculous.
> for him to warn about this hypothetical scenario while it was ostensibly unfolding in front of his eyes
Well why wouldn't he? See something, say something.
I'm sure he saw direct reasons to be worried about people becoming ungovernably immoral, and I bet slavery was one of those reasons -- after all, he did believe it to be a colossal evil.
That's a misquote - that phrase doesn't appear in the letter. I don't think that idea was present either. Could you clarify which phrase(s) conveyed that to you?
If anything, I think he felt compelled to write what he did (not only in this letter) because he felt a sense of imminent danger -- that if the people individually and collectively failed to rise to the high calling of good moral character, the new republic would not last. Remember, the longevity of the United States was by no means a foregone conclusion at the time -- the US Constitution had been ratified a mere 10 years before he wrote this letter, and Adams himself had just been elected as the second president the year before.
(All of which doesn't make his thoughts inapplicable to our time.)
Just putting this out there. This is one area where Esri's software really shines. They have so many software offerings and so much is said about different things you can do with ArcGIS (and competing systems), but the capability of their projection engine and geocoding systems - the code that lies at its heart - is unmatched, by far, at least as of 5 years ago when I left for a different company.
I had long conversations with Esri's projection engine lead. Really remarkable guy - he's got graduate degrees in geography and math (including a PhD) and he's an excellent C/C++ developer. That kind of expertise trifecta is rare. I'd walk by his office and sometimes see him working out an integral of a massive equation on his whiteboard (not that he didn't also use a CAS). "Oh yeah, I'm adding support for a new projection this week."
Many people don’t appreciate the extent that building robust geospatial systems requires seriously hardcore mathematics and physics skills. All of the mapping companies have really smart PhDs wrangling with these problems. I’ve always enjoyed talking with them about the subtleties of the challenges. There are so many nuances that never occurred to me until they mentioned them.
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