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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 11th, 2023

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  • I think “good person” is a nebulous and generally subjective term. If some people need an external factor to hold themselves accountable then as long as they willingly seek out that accountability then that’s all that matters to me ultimately, I’m not going to try and micromanage how other people reconcile with their own morality in a large uncaring universe, or act like I’m an authority on how people are supposed to be “good”, all I care about is how they treat other people at the end of the day. But a lot people use religion not as a way to hold themselves personally accountable for their actions, but rather as an excuse to get away with doing bad things and dictating how other people can live their lives without having to suffer consequences. They use it to ESCAPE accountability, and that’s when I take issue with it.


  • That depends on the culture and the method of distribution, many cultures that practice oral history did have widespread interest and access to it and an understanding of how their culture fit into the broader scope of the world to some degree, though the way they understood or related to it might differ from culture to culture (some cultures tie their history to places, or names, or events, or people or seasons, etc). As another example, the Romans are well known for their prolific historiography and many of their surviving texts are still referenced to this day. Look up Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, who were just as well known and respected as historians at the time as they are now. While written works such as the Encyclopedia Natural History (written by Pliny the Elder and believed to be the first encyclopedia) would often be released to the public to be copied and spread, they would also often recite written works orally so illiteracy wasn’t as much of a barrier as you’d think. Oral history is a lot more important in providing a record of a culture’s history as well as making that history accessible to others than a lot of people think. It was important in ancient Greece as well, and is a huge part of many other cultures around the world including many indigenous ones. It’s also not as inaccurate or unreliable as some people might think, as there were many methods these cultures used and still use to preserve the accuracy of their oral history as it was passed down from generation to generation.

    Now in terms of awareness, obviously there was propaganda and rewritten history going on back then just as there is now, but it’s not as if none of the citizens would have been aware of that. One of the papers I wrote for a class about the importance of comparing primary sources featured 3 different accounts of what Athens was like and the views people there held at a certain point in history from 3 different people of varying social and financial status, and there was absolutely awareness of that sort of dissonance between what their government claimed and what the reality was even among the more common folk. So I would say they did certainly have a significant understanding of how their culture fit into the broader scope of human history.















  • I mean Musk wasn’t as loud about his bigotry at that point, not in the way he is now at least, and Mr Beast has been openly supportive of trans people. Being a bit of an idiot and being a raging bigot aren’t the same thing, and that incident mostly convinced people that Elon was an idiot. It’s entirely possible he’s changed his mind about Musk in 3 years. I’m not a Mr Beast fan by any means, I don’t watch his content or anything and tbh I found his reaction to the Jacksepticeye thing to be annoying which hasn’t endeared him to me, so I don’t have any skin in the game on his end of things, but there were a lot of people who didn’t hate Elon after the cave diving thing who do hate him now so I wouldn’t really treat that post as gospel personally. A lot of people don’t want to admit it but Elon used to have way better PR than he does now, and a lot of people have changed their minds about him over time. So atm I don’t see any reason to believe that Mr. Beast would revoke his support for trans people for Musk. His support of trans people is more recent as well. Maybe I’m wrong but I’d rather be optimistic about it until he gives me reason not to be.