Reduxing Vox Day: Best Novelette

I thought Vox had already achieved Top Kek by recommending File 770 for a Best Fanzine Hugo. But alas, even greater Kek was in store.

"We have been repeatedly informed that homophobia and the lack of diversity is a serious problem in science fiction, and speaking as the leader of Rabid Puppies, I could not agree more. The decades of discrimination against gay dinosaurs in space by the science fiction community stops now, and it stops here!"

 - Rabid Puppies 2016: Best Novelette

Yes, Space Raptor Butt Invasion is a Rabid Puppy nomination for Best Novelette. I say this as a genderless entity who usually can, but this time even I can't even.

I think everyone's initial reaction will be that this is just trolling. But let's look at it from the lens of 4GW and the lens of Distributed Thoughtware.

On the moral level of 4GW, Vox risks nothing. Some Sad Puppies might turn up their nose at it, but he played by the Sad's rules last year. Anti-Puppies already consider him (and the Puppies) the Anti-Christ. People who already hate him and want to destroy him will continue in that position. Oh no.

As a destabilizing move, this has potential to be Vox's ultimate kill-shot. If, somehow, SRBI makes it onto the ballot, the Hugos will lose all pretense of credibility. Let me make this clear: if you care about the Hugos, then your number one priority this year is ensuring that Space Raptor Butt Invasion does not make it onto the ballot.

Again, that might horrify some Sad Puppies (the only group Vox could potentially lose moral ground with), but for the Rabids, this is the stretch goal.

So the ultimate potential good is razing the Hugo's credibility and the ultimate potential bad is alienating a few Sad Puppies and neutrals. Not a bad trade-off, considering.

Even if SRBI doesn't make it on the ballot, the lulz will be good for Rabid Puppy morale. It's pretty funny and it's a great talking point ("why are you afraid of homosexual sci-fi erotica?") that allows for mass trolling. For a throw-away in a minor category, that's a pretty good stack of outcomes.

Shifting more towards Distributed Thoughtware, I expect Gay Raptor Gate to gain the most traction of any manufactured controversy at the 2016 Hugos. File 770 refusing to turn down a nomination? Humorous, but not damning. Nominating Video Games for Best Dramatic Presentation (Long-Form)? Intriguing, but not controversial enough. Dinosaur Sodomy in Space? Now that grabs headlines.

I mean, it did get me to start blogging about Vox again. I'm going to guess that other people aren't going to be able to let this one go either.

Frankly, it's almost a Rainbow Polka-Dot Flag Op (one of the openly political ones). Think of it as a "Mexicans are rapist and murders, but I guess some are fine" moment. It's going to suck all of the oxygen in the room away from everything else, and towards this (and hence, Vox).

There's one last way that this works for Vox, and that's the rhetorical level. First, it will be used to argue that the Rabids are a powerful voting block or to argue that the Rabids aren't block voters. Think about it:

SRBI Gets the Nomination: "We are legion! We are strong! We can get Gay Space Dinosaurs on the ballot!"

SRBI Doesn't Get the Nomination: "What block voting? If we were block voting, Gay Space Dinosaurs would be on the ballot!"

Either outcome can be effortlessly rolled into a Rapid Puppy talking point.

More importantly, this allows Rabid Puppies to build a mental link between diverse, transgressive Sci-Fi and Space Raptor Butt Invasion. I expect to see many people being asked why their favorite homosexual Sci-Fi novel isn't like SRBI. The point isn't that they're actually the same (we can all see that, right?), the point is that the question is even being (will even be being) asked.

Pre-Posting Update

Vox has conceded that Space Raptor Butt Invasion is less than 5,000 words and thus not eligible for the Novelette category. After the announcement picked up traction on File 770, that is:

Khitty Hawk
Not sure what VD’s goal is since "Space Raptor Butt Invasion" isn’t even a novelette. The thing’s less than 5000 words. No one could No Award it since it’d get disqualified beforehand.

Call me a psychotic Vox apologist, but this was an intentional error. Think about it this way: what's the best way to get more people talking about Space Raptor Butt Invasion? Other than the title, naturally. Why, by making a Tar Baby error. "Oh no, mister File 770, please don't talk about my nomination! That would be ever so dreadful! Please don't shout about how silly I am to nominate Space Raptor Butt Invasion to the wrong category! Especially not when I still have plenty of time to switch its category!"

And lest you think I have fully succumbed to Vox-induced paranoid ravings, I was on the original Best Novelette thread yesterday, and comments mentioning SRBI's length kept mysteriously disappearing. Why? Because the gambit wasn't complete until the Anti-Puppies started talking about SRBI, and a chance to talk about how dumb Vox is is something Anti-Puppies never passed up.

Granted, that's a theory that rests on something that I subjectively noticed and didn't screen-cap. Maybe Vox did just poop the bed on this one. Take it with a grain of salt, but either way, this "mistake" costs him nothing and gets more people talking about Space Raptor Butt Invasion. Whether the win was intentional or a side effect of his systems is largely academic.

I'm calling it here. This is my falsifiable statement: if the 2016 Hugos are the Year of the Gay Space Raptor (ie, the biggest talking point and what people remember it for), Vox knows what he's doing.

Killing Donald Trump Part Three - Rainbow Polka-Dot Ops

[Previous: Killing Donald Trump Part Two - The Qualify and Attack]

A "False Flag Op" (or "Black Flag") is an operation under a false identity. For example, every time there's a mass shooting, pro-gun advocates claim that it was set up by the Federal Government. Why? So that the Federal Government has an excuse to take everyone's guns!

Conspiracy advocates love the idea of Black Flags - Bush did 9/11 (or allowed it to happen), Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor in advance and let it happen, etc. And Black Flag operations have been used throughout history to great effect.

We've already seen stirrings of Black Flags in this campaign against Trump. For example, do you really believe these guys were members of the KKK?

The Black Hand of the KKK reaches far and wide

Or this guy?

Sheriff KKK endorses Trump!

Note that this all happened before the whole "David Duke supports Trump" thing. There's no way to know if any of these people were acting in concert or were feeding off of each other's energy, but the timing and build up are obvious.

Now, the David Duke thing gained some traction, but it also gave  Trump an even bigger (even YUGE-er) piece of our Distributed Thoughtware. Up until Super Tuesday, it was "Donald Trump" this and "Donald Trump" that and "Is Donald Trump" etc.

I think we can do better. It's time for Rainbow Polka-Dot Flag Ops.

The Donald Trump Paradox is that every time someone talks about him, he gets bigger. He says something racist? Bigger. He says something sexist? Bigger. He walks out on a debate? Everyone talks about it, he gets bigger.

The Distributed Thoughtware is caught in a processing loop. All available mental resources are dedicated to Trump, whether trying to figure him out, trying to tear him down, or trying to point out why someone else is a better candidate than him. The only way to break the loop, the only way to crash the program, is to do something so ridiculously ludicrous that it seizes every person's processing power.

The only thing that can stop Trump is something so huge, so unbelievably ridiculous, that it sucks the air away from him just as effectively as he sucks the air away from other candidates.

The Rainbow Polka-Dot Flag Op would not be recognizably political. We don't need Rubio donning a feather boa and running around Miami - that puts the ball back in Trump's court. We need someone to announce free Fusion energy and for the media to talk about nothing but that. We need someone to drape the Eiffel tower with a floral pattern. We need 500 gallons of Jello to spill onto downtown LA. 

We need a series of coordinated, non-political strikes of ridiculousness to snap us all out of the political mindset. We need ridiculous distractions so huge that no one thinks about Trump, or even the presidential race.

Alternately, we could attempt to shift the narrative from Donald Trump to Fascism. Not by directly calling Trump a fascist (oh man, has that not worked). I'm talking about fleets of Zeppelins bearing the Iron Cross floating above major cities. I'm talking about mailing out fake 'Deportation Notices' mailed out from the 'Committee on Un-American Activities.' Simply calling Trump Hitler 2.0 won't work because it is demonstrably false. Giving the masses a sense of creeping Fascism - that "It Could Happen Here!" might tip the balance.

SuperPacs, I'm looking at you. Any candidate who did this directly would be torpedoed, but a SuperPac who did this "totally without the knowledge of Senator Cruz" while giving him advanced knowledge could pull it off.

Rainbow Polka-Dot Ops. Think about it.

[Next: Killing Donald Trump Part Four - Really, Guys? Really?]

Killing Donald Trump Part Two - Qualify and Attack

[Previous: Killing Donald Trump Part One -  Ultionem in Nigroque Cygno]

I took a jab at John Oliver in the last post, but his Last Week Tonight segment on Trump was one of the few bits of anti-Trump media to pick up significant footing in my personal slice of the Distributed Thoughtware. A quick search for "John Oliver" on YouTube or "Drumpf" on Google indicates that it probably gained traction in yours too.

You may or may not have viewed his attack as effective. But I'm guessing more than one person in your personal network went nuts for it.

I'm going to argue it's because he used a variant of the "Disqualify & Dismiss" tactic - the "Qualify & Attack."

"Disqualify & dismiss" works as such:

"That guy's a racist! Now I can say whatever I want about him while ignoring anything said in his defense because he is a racist!"

The exact nature of the disqualification differs from group to group ("That guy's a Socialist! Now I can..." "That guy's a heterosexual! Now I can..." etc.), but the tactic itself remains the same. It has been pointed out that the Left  in particular likes using this tactic, and has used it quite effectively up until recently.

Just think of the list of -ists and -phobes that have been minted in recent memory. We kept minting new cards because the tactic kept working. But overuse is diminishing their value, particularly outside of Leftist bubbles.

John Oliver took pains at the beginning of his assault, not to disqualify Trump, but to qualify him. 'Look, I get it, I get why Trump is popular and I find him personally very entertaining,' and so on. He doesn't start with the assumption that no right-thinking person would support Trump. This allowed him to bypass a lot of knee-jerk defenses.

Think of it as throwing your left arm around someone and pulling them in tight so that your right arm can come into gutting distance.

This, but more British

Usually you want to avoid stepping into your opponent's frame. If you can avoid it, absolutely avoid it. But when you're up against a frame that cannot be entirely avoided, step inside quickly and stab, stab, stab.

Now I doubt John Oliver is going to change the minds of any Trump supporters. But there's a good chance that he helped harden the opposition. The way people reacted to it - it's the first attack in a while that people perceived as landing.

There are still things to criticize here. Trump supporters were able to swing it around as evidence that John Oliver was anti-immigrant or immigration-shaming or whatever. Worse, it did nothing to shake Trump's hold on the Distributed Thoughtware. All things said, however, it was a solid move that will stick far longer than cries of "Racist! Sexist! Homophobe!"

Qualify and attack. Look for more of it in the future.

[Killing Donald Trump Part Two: The Rainbow Polka-Dot Flag Op]

Killing Donald Trump Part One: Ultionem in Nigroque Cygno

"What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes.

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme 'impact'. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.

I stop and summarize the triplet: rarity, extreme 'impact', and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability. A small number of Black Swans explains almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives."

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb


So we all see that Donald Trump is a Black Swan, right?

1). Donald Trump's success most definitely "lies outside the realm of regular expectation." Sure, there were a few unusual people preaching the Gospel of Trump from relatively early in the election cycle, but that it itself is not that unusual. You're always going to have a few people riding a hobby-horse candidate. If Ben Carson was crushing the primaries, I guarantee you that some fringe pundit would be crowing about how they 'called it.'

2). Trump's success indisputably has "extreme 'impact.'" At the minimum, we're talking about overthrowing one of the two political parties of the world's sole superpower. At the maximum, we're talking about a permanent shift in the global balance of power. That's impact to an extreme.

3). Everyone and their mother now has a theory on why Trump was inevitable. It doesn't matter if anyone is right, what matters is that we're already engaging in the inevitable stage three of a Black Swan event. When only the prophets and madmen could have called it in advance, it does not have prospective predictability. 

By every predictive mechanism available, Trump will take the White House in November. But of course, Trump has already smashed every predictive mechanism available. Can we use mechanisms based on "regular expectation" to predict the course of a Black Swan? Probably not. It's hard to say. It's a Black Swan.

Let's look at a quick list of the things that have not stopped Donald Trump that have stopped other candidates in the past:

1). "Racist!"

2). "Sexist!"

3). "Unelectable!"

4). "Degenerate!"

5). "Psychotic!"

6). "Extremist!"
7). "Fake conservative!"

8). "Etc.!"

Obviously, the usual playbook of disqualification is having no effect, other than giving Donald Trump an impressive hold of our Distributed Thoughtware.

Since this first script has failed, people are looking for other options. Here's a list of common knee-jerk strategies I've seen floated around:

1). Shouting the above phrases even louder

2). Shout everything even louder

3). Assassination

4). Voter fraud 

5). Back-room political shenanigans

Despite accusations that Microsoft rigged the Iowa vote for Rubio, there's no evidence of vote tampering beyond the usual levels. Outright fraud is probably not going to happen.

Back-room political shenanigans are still on the table, and may be enough to prevent Trump from getting the Republican nomination. This option will also likely permanently destroy the Republican party, so the establishment isn't going to use it unless absolutely necessary. Of course, Republican establishment figures are already talking about voting for Hilary instead of Trump, so...let's call this one a "maybe."

Shouting "racist" et. all even louder seems least likely to work, and where anti-Trump figures are pooling most of their chips. *cough* John Oliver *cough*.

Shouting EVERYTHING EVEN LOUDER means stooping to (more accurately, stepping up to) Trump's level. It means the other candidates committing to full retard mode to make Trump less special. Unfortunately, I can't see the other campaigns seriously considering this - for the reason that they seriously consider things. They'd do it less effectively than Trump and lend him legitimacy (more accurately, make questioning his legitimacy even less effective).

Assassination has been mentioned (in a "I'm joking, but not really" sort of way), but would likely require cooperation from a figure inside the Secret Service. It would also likely destroy any shred of faith Americans have left in the political process. I won't rule it out as a possible thing that could happen, but I am ruling it out as a thing that anyone should ever consider a good idea.

Conventional wisdom says that the most likely thing to stop Trump at this point is a brokered convention or similar back-room shenanigans. But you didn't come here for conventional wisdom.

Let's go deeper.

[Next: Killing Donald Trump Part Two: Qualify and Attack]

Distributed Thoughtware and the 2016 Election

When's the last time you formed an opinion in a vacuum?

The mere fact that you're reading this blog indicates to me that the answer is "before the internet existed, if not before that." The idea that anyone who isn't some sort of information junkie would end up on this site is laughable.

What's less laughable is this: you haven't had an independent thought since (at the latest) Web 1.0.  

Let's get this part out of the way: language and culture shape what thoughts we are capable of having and how we express them. No human being has had a 100% independent thought since the invention of language.

But 100% independent thoughts are not what I'm talking about, so let's skip the petty definition game.

What I mean by "an opinion in a vacuum" is "an opinion not subject to internet crowd-sourcing." An opinion that was not directly influenced by the briny churn of  ideas super-colliding on Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Reddit/Web 2.0.

Personally, I can't think of an opinion that I've had that wasn't eventually influenced by the internet hive-mind. I'm old enough to still read paper books, but even on the occasion that an initial thought is inspired by traditional media, I'm almost certain to post it to the internet hive-mind for comment. If an opinion doesn't make it to that stage, it's usually because I forgot about it. It literally wasn't important enough to remember.

Our minds no longer functions as individual computers processing away at individual programs. We don't swap data a little at a time, from one terminal to another via floppy-disks and punch-cards (books, newspapers, conversations). We're plugged in, distributing our thought-programs over the network. It's Distributed Thoughtware, and we're all a part of it.

Here's the bad news: you will never have another opinion of consequence that will not belong to the Distributed Thoughtware. If you were born after the invention of the internet, it is likely that you have never had an opinion independent of Distributed Thoughtware and never will.

This means that almost everyone voting in the upcoming election has had their current opinions formed by the internet. Not their underlying biases, mind you, but their knowledge of the current situation and how they interpret it. I'm not talking about Twitter comments displayed during the debates or Marco Rubio's Instagram account, I'm talking about the hive-mind formed by their Facebook friends, Twitter feed, and so on. The people who, to a certain extent, do your thinking for you (more accurately, with you).

At first glance, Distributed Thoughtware seems immune to control. How can you control billions of minds at the same time? How can you clamp down on the Truth when it can be uploaded from anywhere? As long as there's one person who can see through the lies, it will get uploaded and distributed. Game, Set, Match against tyranny, right?

You can't control billions of people by physically (electronically) restricting what they upload. Someone will always get through, again and again and again. This is what actual totalitarians do, and it's usually ineffective. There are always workarounds and holes to exploit. Maybe Chinese internet activists will never take down the Communist Party, but the Communist Party will never be able to truly take down internet activists.

You also don't control billions of people with Shadowbans (as Twitter may be doing) or bans for inflammatory material (as Facebook does). This is what soft totalitarians do, and it too is usually ineffective. If anything, half-measures that toy with algorithms behind the scenes explode more violently than full-on totalitarianism. You only have to resort to half-measures in societies that believe in freedom of speech, and societies that believe in freedom of speech will react violently to underhanded censorship when it is exposed.

 Whatever is suppressed by the ego or superego is redirected into the id. Whatever is suppressed by the conscious mind empowers the subconscious. Repressed speech festers and explodes.

So how do you control the billions of minds that make up our Distributed Thoughtware? You say something so big - whether because it is brilliant or ridiculous - that it crowds out everything else.

This is why Donald Trump runs the table. It's because he has set what program we will run since his "Mexicans are rapists and murderers" speech. Everything is a reaction to Trump, not an opinion in a vacuum. We are all, as terminals connected into Distributed Thoughtware, running the Donald Trump application whether we want to or not.

This, in combination with the libidinal energy pushed into the subconscious by soft totalitarianism, is what propels Trump to victory. We can't talk about anything else. Our software is too busy processing the Don.

It is probably impossible to prevent a Donald Trump presidency at this point. It is definitely impossible for any other Presidential candidate to stop Donald Trump at this point. But that doesn't mean that the Donald Trump presidency will mean anything. The hivemind will keep processing Trump, and will keep interpreting this processing loop as a win for Trump, as long as he is an outsider. That changes once he's elected.

Once Trump is elected (and barring a second Black Swan event, he will be elected), he will have to start taking definite actions instead of gaming the Distributed Thoughtware (more accurately, in addition to gaming the Distributed Thoughtware). People will support Trump as a middle finger to the establishment, but will they support him as President? I know plenty of people who backed Obama up until the inauguration.

I'm not alone in predicting that Trump will take the presidency, so let's talk about what happens next. That way, you can check to see if I'm just talking out of my ass in a few years. Falsifiable predictions, people!

Scenario #1 - Trump proves to be a completely ineffectual president. The backlash hits the Right hard and delivers the nation into 1,000 years of Socialism. Our Distributed Thoughtware rejects Capitalism and Right-ism in general as hard as Geocentrism. See also: Trump proves to be an actual Hitler, ushering in 1,000 years of Socialism.

You'll know I was right because Donald was a terrible president and the world moves noticeably to the Left for a generation.

Scenario #2 - Trump proves to be an amazing President. The political establishment and mainstream media are proven drastically, undeniably wrong. The Right makes major gains, but the largest change is a decentralization of opinion-making. Our Distributed Thoughtware has a whole new set of Administrators, almost all of which were not associated with the Old Media at the time of the election.

You'll know I was right because Donald becomes the most beloved president since Reagan and mainstream media viewership/readership drops off sharply (ie, faster than its current rate of slow death). 

Scenario #3 - Trump proves to be roughly as effective as Obama. He makes some gains for his side but fails to deliver on the promised Candyland utopia. The Right and the Left remain about as balanced as they are now (with a slight advantage to the Right). Our Distributed Thoughtware still moves towards decentralization, though not as sharply as in Scenario #2.

You'll know I was right because Trump has favorably ratings at the end of his presidency roughly equal to what Obama has now (roughly 48%) and the mainstream media dies out at a faster rate than it is now (though a quickly as in Scenario #2).

Interestingly, none of these scenarios retard the growing ubiquity of Distributed Thoughtware. In all cases, the inability of the political establishment/mainstream media to stop Trump moves us away from centralized opinion-making. When a cartoonist, a self-help guy, and a professional troll have more insight into the national mood than any given poli-sci PhD, journalist, or politician, our confidence in the system plummets.

Scenario #1 is the only one in which our Distributed Thoughtware fails to grow geometrically. If the Establishment can get one thing right - Trump would be a terrible President - then they retain a shred of dignity. There is a fig leaf: "We might not understand anything about the real world, but at least we understand the political world."

But even Trump becoming the worst president in history wouldn't slow the death of the Central Thought Systems. It only means the Center's death isn't as fast as it could possibly be.

Why? Because if you love Trump, you already hate the central media/government establishment and want him to smash them. Even if Trump fucks up the country, you're unlikely to start loving Big Brother. If you hate Trump, you already hate the central media/government establishment for failing to stop him. And that hate will grow stronger in November, and stronger still when the country goes in the toilet.

I suppose that if Trump fucks up the country (and the global economy by proxy) so badly that no one can afford to use the internet anymore, that might disrupt our Distributed Thoughtware. But you'll be too busy knifing another hobo over a can of beans to remember that some internet jackass' prediction failed.

Speaking of which, here's how you'll know I was wrong:

Scenario #1 - Donald Trump fails to become president because he loses the vote. This excludes an assassination or massive, documented voting fraud. If Trump is not elected, I was wrong. If there are accusations of voting fraud, but no real evidence, I am still wrong.

Scenario #2 - Donald Trump is a terrible president, and there is no backlash against the Right. Also, Trump is a terrible president and we become less dependent on Distributed Thoughtware (ie, there is a resurgence of the traditional media/trust in the establishment).

Scenario #3 - Donald Trump is an excellent president, but the country still moves permanently to the Left. Also, Trump is an excellent president and we become less dependent on Distributed Thoughtware (ie, there is a resurgence of the traditional media/trust in the establishment).

Scenario #4 - Donald Trump is a mediocre president (with an approval rate of ~48%) and the country takes a hard, hard turn to the Left or the Right. Also, Trump is a mediocre president and we become less dependent on Distributed Thoughtware (ie, there is a resurgence of the traditional media/trust in the establishment).

So there you go. Three ways I can be right and four ways I can be wrong. Now sit back and enjoy Super Tuesday.

[BTT016] "How can a Just God..."

Previous: [BTT015] "If the Death and Resurrection of Jesus..."

Question 4. “How can a just God punish people for sins that occurred in a timeline which no longer exists?”

In a certain sense, individual sins are committed at discrete points in Time. God does not hold us responsible for sins we do not commit. Although the strict Calvinists among us may say that God has predestined "vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction," (Rom. 9:22) and the less strict may say that God's foreknowledge allows Him know our sins before we do, I know of no theological system that claims God will punish us for sins that we at no point actually commit.

So then, if Time is recreated without sin, doesn't this mean that all humans would suddenly become sinless? God may justly condemn humans for sins they have not yet committed, but can He condemn us for sins that were un-committed?

For example, let's say God goes back in Time and makes Genghis Khan be born as a sinless human being This means that he would not have killed and raped his way across Asia and Europe. This in turn would mean that all of the humans he killed would have lived (longer), the women he raped would not have become pregnant (with his children), and a substantial percentage of the human race would not be related to him.

In this scenario, is Genghis Khan responsible for the sins he would have committed in the original timeline? All evidence of his crimes has disappeared, all his victims are spared, no sin can be laid on his account.

Once again, this question betrays Marty McFly-style thinking. From the in-time perspective, changing history changes what sins are committed, but the eternal perspective gives us a different picture.

Moreover, this question also assumes that God the worst part of sin is the harm that it does to others. Murder is wrong because it ends the life of a fellow human being. Stealing is wrong because you deprive someone else of what belongs to them. Our common assumption is that the worst part of sin is that it harms others.

Of course, looking at the Scriptures, we see something quite different.

Christ tells us that it is not the consequences of physical acting out of a sin that matters most. If you murder in your heart, you are just as guilty as if you had stuck a knife into a person's heart. On the other hand, the law of Moses provided cities for refuge for those who accidentally took human life. What matters most is not the physical act of ending a human life, but the state of the heart in relation to the act.

This is not to say that physical acts do not matter - in the New Testament faith without works is dead, in the Old Testament accidentally coming into contact with an unclean object still defiled a person. But the heart from which the act flows is still given precedence over the consequences of the action.

If I intend to toss a ball to my friend, but it hits him in the head, killing him, I have taken human life, but I have not committed murder. If I toss a ball to my enemy, hoping that it will kill him, but he instead catches it, I have not taken human life, but I have committed murder.

In this way, we see that it is not the temporal consequences of our actions that matter most to God, but their eternal consequences. Matthew 10:28 tells us "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." It is more terrible to commit a sin and be thrown into hell than to be sinned against. A murder does temporal damage to his victim, but eternal damage to himself.

I think part of the answer to the Problem of Pain is that death and other temporal pains are not the worst thing that can happen to us. The worst part of murder is not the end of a human life (it would end one day anyway), but the staining of an eternal human soul. The worst part of theft is not that a person loses some money (that will turn to dust), but that a soul has lost innocence.

It is not that the ending of a human life is not serious thing (or else it would not be a sin). Intentionally desecrating the image of God present in all humans is a grave offense, but we can say that one thing is more important than the other without lessening the importance of the second.

In weighing the relative importance of keeping my children clothed and keeping them fed, I say that both are essential. I would sacrifice my own comfort to secure either one. But when it comes down to it, if I could choose only one, I would choose to keep them clothed above keeping them fed.

Go back and read the last sentence.

Did that make any sense to you? Did you ask "who in their right mind would let their children starve to keep them clothed? It must be a typo. There is no way on Earth anyone's priorities could be so skewed!"

And that's my point. No one in their right mind would let their children starve in order to keep them clothed. While both scenarios are horrible to consider, one is clearly worse than the other.

Just as our minds and hearts revolt against letting our children starve to keep them clothed, so God objects to prioritizing a person's temporal life over their eternal life. And just as a good human seeks to clothe their children in addition to feeding them, so God seeks both our temporal and eternal good. He wants both our internal hearts and our external actions to be holy, but He starts with the heart.

And it does start with the heart. In the Old Testament, the prophets condemn sacrifices offered with unclean hearts and unwashed hands. In the New Testament, Jesus and Paul both condemn outward shows of prayer and offerings done with sinful motives. Even a divinely sanctioned action such as prayer to the One True God is sinful if done with a sinful intent. This is why Titus 1:15 tells us that "To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. "

So if the heart is what matters most, and the worst part of sin is the stain it leaves on the heart of the one who commits it, does it still seem unusual that God would judge us based on the state of our souls instead of our actions in Time? If sin has an eternal effect on an eternal soul, is it so strange that the effect would remain even if Time is destroyed?

And if you remain unconvinced, consider the rebel angels. Whatever relationship angels have to time, scripture indicates very strongly that they were present before the creation of our world. If angels are not creatures of Space/Time, by what means can we say that sin requires Time or temporal effects? If Hades was prepared for the rebel angels, surely God can justly punish sinners for sins which occurred outside of the Space/Time in which humans live.

Sin can only be erased by the blood of Christ, not by the destruction of Time. The destruction of the current, fallen timeline would in no way dilute the seriousness of sin. To the contrary, only the redemption of Time can satisfy the holiness of the Eternal God. Christ came to destroy the temporal effects of sin (death, disease, suffering), but His most important mission was to overthrow the eternal power of sin (separation from God, eternal death).


Next: [BTT017] Further Objections

State of the Blog: February 2016

I've been stupidly busy, is the short version.

You may have noticed that the A Brief Theology of Time series is still updating. That's because all of the posts were finished and scheduled back when the series first began. I haven't had much time to seriously write since around then.

This is 90% work-related and 10% life related. I'm thinking of going for a PhD (general distaste for academia notwithstanding, credentials are important for a translator) and have been trying to catch up on the literature in my free time.

I am working on a few projects though.

1). Archetypes vs. Tropes will probably be the next series, It unpacks the "sexist tropes" argument by looking at it from a Jungian Archetype lens. The short version is that the recurring popularity of the Damsel in Distress trope comes from the psychological principle of the Anima, not from lazy sexism. We'll also be looking some ways to handle female-driven stories that rise above the usual "man with tits" and "bad-ass action grrrl."

2). Along with the StudyOke! series, I'm working on some material on the convergence between traditional enka tropes and Azuma's moe database. This will be drawing heavily on Tears of Longing. This one will be further in the future.

3). I've been dabbling in some pen-and-paper game design and still hope to post on it. The hardest part has been figuring out the format for posts!

4). As the 2016 Hugos race heats up, I may be revisiting the Killing Vox Day series. I argued that Vox's 4GW strategy is theoretically sound and observably effective. I also argued that the only way to kill the Puppy momentum was to treat them with basic human dignity. Despite token olive branches from GRRM and a few others, the Puppies and the Hugonauts seem no closer to civility than in 2015.

After posting the series, I was eventually swayed to the basic Sad Puppy position - vote for the work, not for the author's politics (or the politics of the author's fans). This has not changed the essential point of Killing Vox Day - turning the Hugos into a political referendum will ultimately feed the Rabids, lose the high ground, and potentially destroy the Hugos.

Vox said the gloves are coming off in 2016, and that makes 2016 the critical year for the Rabid Puppies. Claims of eternal enmity and willingness to fight until the Sun explodes aside, if they can't score some undebatable wins this year, the organized movement will likely peter out and turn into your usual right-wing sewing circle. I've publicly argued that their strategy can work. I don't want to be proven right, but hey, everyone likes a nice ego-wank.

4). And of course, I'll continue looking at HBD topics, although that will stay limited to the HBD Comment Thread for the foreseeable future. There won't be a full series until I think I have something  substantial to contribute to the argument. I love a good argument, but genetics and biology are outside my usual wheelhouse.

That's all for now.