Game Review--Call Of Juarez: Gunslinger (Switch)

"As my late father pointed out to me more than once--God made men, but Samuel Colt made 'em equal."

--Silas Greaves, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

Like the Assassin's Creed series before it, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger brings multiple historical figures to its plot--all while intentionally remaining ambiguous about the events in a way that ties the game narrator's personal anecdotes to historical information while intentionally or unintentionally broaching the issue of historical epistemology.  As he recounts stories, he confuses names and makes very bold claims about interactions with people like Jessy James and Billy the Kid, stirring up mixed reactions from his audience.  The way the chapters are told alone makes Gunslinger a cleverly constructed game, and the shooting mechanics blend elements of the Western and first-person shooter genres together very organically.

Production Values

The great character models and generally clear environments of Gunslinger are marred only by occasional issues like the extreme blurriness of specific shadows as they fall on structures.  More specifically, these shadows come from plants, and the plants can be the least detailed, most pixelated part of the in-game world.  The landscapes are quite varied, meaning not every level features lots of vegetation.  One level has you pass through a cave system, another has you walk across derailed train cars bridging a canyon, and yet another has you fight through a sawmill.  Between and during levels, narrator Silas Greaves tells his supposed personal story of involvement in the events, and parts of the world literally are added or removed as he suddenly remembers--or at least claims to remember--how things unfolded.  Silas has the most voice lines, but the listeners and questioners have their own clear personalities and the same realistic level of voice acting that Silas gets.

Gameplay

Because of the Western setting, some first-person shooter norms are changed, such as how you can eventually throw dynamite rather than conventional grenades.  Most FPS conventions are preserved in some way or another, including the bursts of slow-motion that accompany some actions in many games from the genre.  This mechanic can also be triggered manually as a bar fills up from killing enemies either before or after the meter is completely full.  Unlockable passive abilities can make this "bullet time" more productive for the player.  In turn, this can lead to more experience points.  The most XP is gained from chaining kills together one after the other, with special abilities increasing the multiplier faster or otherwise aiding the process.  Even aside from boosting the rate of acquiring XP, the abilities that can be unlocked with points earned from leveling up make general combat and finding secrets easier.

One of the most thoroughly unique aspects of the game is its duels scattered throughout the story and a mode devoted solely to this kind of showdown.  Duels can be challenging and require precise, swift aiming and careful positioning of the Silas's hand before the guns are drawn if the player is to have the advantage.  Pulling out the gun too early results in a "dishonorable" kill unless one starts the duel over.  The duel mode that is separate from the story strictly consists of these encounters.  An additional arcade mode features smaller sections in locations pulled from the main game but has a greater emphasis on score multipliers.  In story mode, the "score" is just XP.  In arcade mode, XP is used as a score, and, upon completing a level, the points are combined with previous totals to unlock more passive abilities for different classes for use in arcade mode specifically.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A man who calls himself Silas Greaves tells the story of his life to a group in a tavern as they drink, starting out by describing how he fought alongside Billy the Kid just to be captured with him.  His story repeatedly brings up several men who he says committed a grievous wrong that he will clarify later.  However, Silas gives internally contradictory details for his own tale and also says things that conflict with or supposedly complete standard historical accounts.  Jesse and Frank James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and other renowned outlaws make appearances as Silas proceeds with his story.  Ultimately, he reveals that he was in search of people who killed his family members, only to become more and more consumed by the quest.

Intellectual Content

The listeners sometimes ask questions about contrary historical claims that they assume weaken the plausibility of Silas's recollections, with Silas often changing his story to accommodate details or dismissing them as irrelevant to his main points.  Exaggerations that do not match what the player sees onscreen, and the onscreen events sometimes literally change or are reset as Silas and other characters attempt to clarify what, according to them, really happened in major shootouts and other events.  Still, the dialogue does touch upon the one way to prove that certain historical claims are inherently false: contradictions.  If a personal story or historical document ever contradicted itself or any purely logical truths (such as axioms), it would automatically be false, while no amount of consistent hearsay and sensory evidence actually proves that an event happened.  Silas sometimes says he only changed certain details of his account to see if listeners were paying attention, but a much more premeditated reason comes to light by the end.

Conclusion

Merging the kind of pseudo-historical backdrop found in games like Assassin's Creed with the stylized action of a creative first-persona shooter, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger succeeds in presenting a clever tale with plenty of unique mechanics and philosophical elements alike.  The very strong voice acting, duel system, historical information, and environment which changing as the story does come together to provide one of the best Western shooters in recent years other than Red Dead Redemption.  Silas Greaves makes a very fitting narrator for this shifting story of a man seeking vengeance as he encounters one legendary outlaw after another.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Blood often sprays out when enemies are killed, especially from headshots.

 2.  Profanity:  "Damn," "bitch," "bastard," and "shit" are heard in the dialogue.

Alleged Objectification In Video Games (Part 2)

Does Kitana from Mortal Kombat wear "sexual clothing"?  Of course not!  Her standard blue costume in the series reboot does little to cover her body, but this does not mean that she is in any way sexually objectified--or that her clothing could objectify her, as some claim revealing clothing does (the asinine complaint is typically just raised about female characters, though).  This is true because clothing cannot reduce someone to just their sex appeal [1], as I have already addressed specifically in the context of gaming, but another reason it is true is the utterly nonsexual nature of clothing [2].

If clothing is nonsexual even though it can be worn in sexual contexts or with sexual intentions, it does not follow from showing a female or male character in revealing clothing that she or he is supposed to titillate players of the opposite gender.  The clothing of a character like Mileena, Jade, or Kitana, no matter how revealing it is, is not sexual in itself!  Thus, it is impossible for the clothing of a video game character--female or male--to objectify the wearer, not only because clothing can do no such thing, but also because that clothing is not sexual.

This also means that it is impossible to tell if the developers of a game intend for a character wearing revealing clothing to be perceived as sexy.  Perhaps they do, but the virtual clothing or lack of it in no way serves as evidence for either possibility on its own.  Hence, the decision of Netherrealm Studios to remove "sexual" costumes from Mortal Kombat 11's female characters is a misguided one given its seeming motives.  Sexiness is purely subjective, and clothing is objectively nonsexual; there is nothing a development team can do to truly objectify its characters

Samus Aran's Zero Suit, Lara Croft's shorts (in the older Tomb Raider games), and Ayumi's revealing outfit (from Blades of Time) are objectively nonsexual.  That said, the human body is still a sensual thing, and the irrational fixation on female beauty at the expense of the male body has led to the sensuality of the female body being emphasized over that of its male counterpart.  While revealing clothing is not objectifying in real life or a work of entertainment, neither the male body nor the female body needs to be emphasized more than the other.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/06/alleged-objectification-in-video-games.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/08/lingerie-is-not-sexual.html

Friendship After Dating Revisited

It is possible for even people who are very affirming of and grateful for opposite gender friendships to think of friendships with past dating partners as lesser choices as friends, or perhaps even as liabilities if a hint of romantic affection or sexual attraction remains.  Ironically, the presence of these things does not render friendship with someone of the opposite gender impossible or without reward before dating (or when dating never happens), and the same is true even on the other side.  If friendship between men and women is possible even when there is sexual or romantic attraction--even intense attraction--it is possible for men and women who once dated to either realize they prefer friendship to dating or love each other sincerely enough to want to remain companions of a more platonic kind.

Not all dating relationships end in a way that leaves both persons eager to remain involved in each other's lives in a more platonic way.  This, if it happens, does not mean either party is automatically opposed to opposite gender friendships or thinks that it is impossible to specifically remain close friends with a former dating partner.  It just means their situation is not as conducive to keeping a strong platonic bond after they had an explicitly romantic relationship. When a man and woman are willing and personally able to stay friends after ending their dating relationship, though, it can serve as a powerful reminder that romantic and sexual attraction are not even the most important parts of human relationships.

The people who can at least stay casual or close friends with a former dating partner might even find that their relationship is stronger, more fulfilling, and personally empowering when it is platonic than it is when it has romantic elements.  Dating and marriage are not the pinnacle of human relationships.  Relationships built on a shared love of truth, true philosophical ideas, mutuality, emotional openness, and deep personal affection are the pinnacle of social life, whether or not they have any romantic components at all.  Romance and sexuality do not define all relationships or in any way make relationships more important by default.

In fact, a healthy dating relationship or marriage is often just a friendship with explicitly romantic additions.  Remove those aspects, and a strong friendship and strong dating relationship or marriage look practically identical.  For those who can handle it, then, it might be ideal to preserve the deep friendship dating might have built on or sparked even if the dating itself stops.  It is not as if dating removes a person's ability to relate to, appreciate, and bond with someone else, even if some people might have difficulties with this in some cases.  Before or after dating or if dating is never involved at all, friendship rooted in truth and personal love is the integral kind of relationship.

Both opposite gender friendships where neither party is interested in dating the other and opposite gender friendships that outlast dating express a connection men and women can have that transcends romance and sexuality.  Nothing about dating someone needs to forever discourage one from staying sincere friends who participate in each other's lives and enjoy many of the relational aspects they did before, just without the romantic ones.  Not everyone is immediately ready for friendship with someone after dating them for a prolonged period, but not everyone needs to be.  There are simply personal benefits and deep truths about relationships that can come to light when close friendship after dating is regarded as the potential option it is.

Empty Space Within Atoms

Supposedly, the miniscule particles of matter called atoms contain more empty space than actual matter--to the extent that atoms are said to be more than 99% empty space.  When touching a physical object, this does not at all seem to be the case.  One feels solid matter that does not even hint at its alleged emptiness.  All of the evidence for this even reduces down to mere hearsay based upon prior assumptions, so it is not as if the interior empty space of atoms can truly be proven or disproven.  People enamored with contemporary claims about atomic science simply get swept away with things like the empty space conception of atoms due to arbitrary persuasion.

If this is true, though, it would provide an alternative way to approach the distinction between space and matter.  Anyone could realize the conceptual difference--and therefore metaphysical difference--between the space in which matter resides and physical substance itself.  Then there is the fact that there would be absolutely no reason to use the two terms at all on a linguistic level if the two were the same.  That people do not use the words space and matter interchangeably reveals that they are not referring to identical concepts even if they would deny it in order to manipulate how their metaphysical ideologies are perceived--for instance, a strict naturalist who never thought of the ramifications of space itself might spontaneously struggle to conflate the two.

No, space is not and cannot be matter, and the former term does not refer to outer "space."  The concept of outer space is the idea of the very low-gravity vacuum between the atmospheres of celestial bodies like planets.  The kind of space that contains matter transcends the gaps between planets and stars.  According to some dimwitted metaphysicians, though, space is matter, and yet they still distinguish between the concepts and words at other times!  The only way for them to be consistent is to ignore the conceptual differences and abolish use of the two words except as synonyms, which would still contradict other modern scientific ideas like the positing of empty space between the matter of atoms.

Empty space is something or else it could not be conceptually identified and thought of in the first place.  Now, one would not have to know if it exists or would exist in the absence of matter to simply identify the concept.  This is the first step.  However, it follows from the conceptual nature of space as a dimension that holds matter or that could hold matter (in its absence) that space is something that both precedes the physical cosmos and would exist if the universe in its entirety disappeared.  If it is the nonphysical, boundary-less region in which matter created by God or some natural process is placed, it clearly does not depend on matter for its existence.

The notion of empty space within atoms only even works if space is made distinct from matter.  Otherwise, it is just a gratuitous way of saying that matter resides within matter, which does nothing to address spatial dimensions directly and would not do anything more than present a repetitive statement that ultimately communicates nothing clear.  Why care to even use or explain the phrase if space is not separate from matter?  Of course, the two are conceptually, metaphysically distinct no matter how much some people contradict themselves to say the opposite, but the laws of logic and the physical world are not dictated by misperception.

Lovecraft's "Cosmicism"

H.P. Lovecraft's cosmicism is the literary application his nihilistic atheism, so at least he was consistent enough to avoid the errors of pretending like atheism is existentially compatible with any kind of ultimate objective meaning.  Someone could be an atheist and still believe in objective meaning or morality, but they would only be holding to two ideas that logically exclude each other as far as truth goes.  Lovecraft, like some atheists, still embraces a denial of God's existence that contradicts the necessity of an uncaused cause and that would still be unverifiable (and thus unjustifiable) even apart from that, yes.  He just does not run from the logical ramifications of this false stance.

The being Azathoth ironically still serves as a literal uncaused cause of the universe in Lovecraft's mythos, although the nature of how his creative power works, just like several other things in his fiction, is commonly described in a way that reduces down to logical impossibilities that only a fool would possibly think true--or even hypothetically possible.  In this case, Azathoth's dreams keeping material reality and other minds in existence is impossible because a dream inherently does not connect with an external world [1].  He could accidentally trigger the existence of other creatures which have metaphysical dependency on him as he happens to sleep and dream, but that is as close to the typical summary of his dream-based creation as is possible before conceptual contradictions and therefore illogicality arise.

Another even more important flaw is that Azathoth is often said to sustain all of reality other than himself, and yet the laws of logic and the space in which created matter is placed cannot not exist [2].  Epistemologically and metaphysically, logic cannot change, and one ramification of this, albeit a particularly abstract and precise one, is that logic alone is the one thing that has to exist regardless of what else comes in or out of existence, including minds, creatures, and the entire cosmos.  Not even the uncaused cause could exist unless it was at least logically possible for it to be a part of reality.  Then there is the supposed incomprehensibility of the cosmic creatures in Lovecraft's writings which are supposed to suggest themes of nihilistic indifference towards human life.  Looking at entities like Cthulhu is supposed to inflict madness due to their allegedly incomprehensible appearances.

Nothing is actually incomprehensible; if this was not the case, to comprehend that something is incomprehensible means it is not beyond comprehension anyway!  There are just logical facts, introspective experiences, or sensory experiences that some people might feel "crazy" for thinking of or or that they might feel mystified by.  No matter what the issue is, at least logical axioms must apply to it, and everyone who thinks about the matter without making assumptions can realize this necessary truth.  Thus, there are always at minimum a handful of inescapable logical facts about a topic or idea that could be known by anyone as long as they are willing to look to reason.  I do not know if Lovecraft truly believed that an unknown or unknowable thing is beyond human epistemological limitations rather than the necessary truths of reason, which are self-verifying, universal, and therefore infallible, but the popular presentation of his ideas does not cast this aspect in a favorable light.

These deep philosophical problems with his literary philosophy, which contradict the truths of rationalism and are still passed off as if they are logically possible, combined with Lovecraft's cosmicism and prominent racism, make him a thoroughly irrational thinker at best.  He is just a racist person who assumed nihilism is true--for nihilism could not be proven even if it is true--and also happened to create a story that still grasps at subjects of great depth, as he was at least dedicated to philosophy enough to think about issues of "cosmic" importance directly and take them seriously.  His stories can still be enjoyed by rationalists and Christians who appreciate the sincerity and scope of the themes; it is just that cosmicism and its erroneous ramifications would never be thought anything more than metaphysically false or epistemologically baseless ideas, depending on which part is considered.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-dreaming-mind.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-refutation-of-naturalism-part-2.html

The Great White Throne

At the grand judgment of Revelation 20:11-15, God resurrects humans who have died, whether their bodies are buried in earth or drowned in water, and the dead are forced to stand before God's penetrating presence.  Every human soul that has not made itself right with God by sincerely committing themselves to him (which is literally all that "believing in Christ" means, and anything else would actually be irrational of God to demand of us [1]) has no more refuge from the sole being of intrinsic moral authority in existence.  Perhaps some of them will be offered a chance to accept salvation they ended up previously avoiding for whatever reason, but perhaps not.  The passage does not state this one way or another.  What it does say is that the dead are judged according to their deeds and those whose names are not written in the book of life are transitioned to the lake of fire.

Now, only in verse 10, just before the great white throne is mentioned, Revelation 20 already declares that Satan, the beast, and the false prophet will face eternal torment for their offenses against God.  Is this what also awaits the resurrected dead of Revelation 20?  Not according to the chapter itself and many other Biblical passages.  As always, the way to best understand what the Bible actually teaches is to read it, grasp the concepts tied or seemingly tied to the words, and reason out what does or does not follow from those concepts.  There is no other way to approach any text without choosing assumptions over evidence and, more importantly, alignment with a rationalistic stance towards the text's contents.

Does Revelation say that the resurrected humans who have not reconciled themselves with God will suffer "day and night forever and ever," as it just specified will be the case with Satan, the beast, and the false prophet in Revelation 20:10?  Not only does it not say this, but it reintroduces a phrase from earlier in Revelation that could only be fully applicable when talking about actual death.  Revelation 20:14 calls the lake of fire the second death, which corresponds to Jesus calling the normal, just fate of humans in hell death in Matthew 10:28 and to Paul calling the wages of sin death in Romans 6:23.  Ezekiel 18 and other Biblical chapters or verses only affirm that this is the standard destiny of humans who have not received salvation.

The small part of Revelation 20 detailing the judgment said to occur before a "great white throne" only remains entirely consistent with the numerous other descriptions of the cosmic punishment for human sin.  The second death means exactly what the phrase would literally suggest: unsaved humans will face a resurrection, stand before the deity who rejects them for their voluntary moral flaws, and then place them in hell, where they will ultimately be dismissed from existence at some point.  Nowhere does Revelation or another part of the Bible say that the everlasting conscious punishment of Satan and demonic beings is the same as the eternal punishment of death that it assigns to general humanity.

As soon as someone who has given himself or herself over to the fallacies of eternal conscious torment stops making petty assumptions or looking to the stances of imbeciles aligned with false traditions, it becomes quite clear that the typical human punishment imposed after the great white throne judgment is torment of finite duration ending with permanent death of the soul.  The Bible actually teaches things about hell that many Christians would be relieved to find out.  It is not hostile to God's moral nature to announce that death, what Paul calls the last enemy of humans in 1 Corinthians 15, is a grave penalty all its own and that God plainly prescribes it to the unsaved again and again.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/03/commitment-is-not-belief.html

One's Own Existence

One's own existence is ever before each experience, waking and dreaming, whether it involves the senses or introspection.  There is no such thing as a thought, emotion, belief, perception, or preference that is not contained within a consciousness, or a mind.  Mental states are omnipresent in experiences.  In light of this logical fact, it is somewhat bizarre that so many people fail to reflect on something as philosophically foundational and basic as their own mind's epistemological self-evidence, metaphysical nature, and relationship to the external world.  Some people even say that this kind of abstract knowledge is already possessed by everyone by default, as if every person truly happens to "just" understand the absolute certainty of mental experiences and the different metaphysical natures of parts of consciousness.

Anyone who has not reflected on the logical impossibility of their own mind not existing as long as they perceive anything at all has not truly reflected on the epistemological infallibility of knowing their own existence through rationalistic introspection.  Someone who goes through their life driven by emotionalism, mere pragmatism, or social conditioning has not truly grasped the epistemological and metaphysical ramifications of their own existence.  As such, they do not possess even the baseline knowledge of self-verifying truths that the newest rationalist can know how to understand after minutes or even moments.  To deny this is to deny that there is a difference between someone who intentionally makes no assumptions and analyzes the foundations of reality and the common kind of person who gets seemingly confused the moment serious rationalism, metaphysical consciousness, and absolute certainty are mentioned.

Going through life without having any explicitly philosophical sense of self-awareness and intentional rationality means one forfeits any claim to having truly "known" basic facts about consciousness all along instead of either just assuming them to be true or never bothering to directly contemplate them.  If these were the same things, no one would ever be able to distinguish between rationalistic awareness of consciousness (or reason) and the philosophically dull, aimless wandering through daily experiences that so many seem to constantly let themselves face.  It is impossible to distinguish between a thing and itself!  Only a fool would even pretend otherwise.  It is possible to distinguish between aspects of something or different epistemological stances on it, however.

Realizing this is not the same as being needlessly harsh with the typical person for their apathy and laziness.  It is the only way to be honest about this issue as it relates to the daily life of the masses.  For someone to go their entire lifetime without even dwelling on the self-evidence of their own mind's existence, much less on the even more foundational self-verifying nature of logic, they must not even try to think about the nature of reality, in which case they must live for arbitrary delusions or petty assumptions that simply happen to be true instead.  Of course, most people only selectively tolerate something like this.  Almost no one wants others to live like this when it is inconvenient for their own individual benefit.  Few are intelligent and sincere enough to be consistent in what they demand of others or themselves.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

Game Review--The Persistence (Switch)

"Nothing prepares you for deep space . . . the vastness of it all.  Some say it makes them feel small, insignificant.  I can't say I share that feeling.  I helped make this ship, The Persistence.  She feels like mine . . . all that power.  How could anyone feel insignificant next to all that possibility?  I have one hope to save her, to save myself . . ."

--Serena, The Persistence

Full of challenge, The Persistence lives up to its name: you will likely die again and again and need plenty of persistence to reach the end of the campaign.  It first debuted on the PlayStation VR as a game that can be played with or without the PS4's virtual reality add-on.  Last year, it came to the Switch, complete with VR-like controls that completes tasks by just looking at items.  This horror shooter some of the most clever in-game justifications possible for its respawn mechanic and procedurally generated rooms even as it does very little to vary up the gameplay grind as the campaign goes on.

Production Values

The Switch is not as powerful as the PS4 and does not have a VR component for major game releases, so the experience of playing The Persistence is different on the Switch than it would be on the PS4.  Colorful enemies and futuristic rooms (that are shifting around due to a "macrostructure" design glitch, hence the procedurally generated main floors of the ship) still are right at home on the hybrid handheld-docked console, even though the game is far less immersive without VR.  The VR origins can still be seen in the simplicity of the controls.  As mentioned above, looking at something can trigger an activity, like opening a door, obtaining health, or using a computer terminal.  A teleportation feature also seems like it was originally conceived of as a way to provide more mobility despite the very unconventional nature of virtual reality games.  Both of these simplify the gameplay, which leads right into the next section of this review.

Gameplay

Regular gun use might be a more plausible approach later on, but stealth is vital early in the game for those who want to avoid death while gathering the resources needed to repeatedly upgrade.  Once they can be more consistently purchased, the weapons are very useful and diverse, ranging from a teleportation device with a buzz saw that cuts through enemies as you teleport to a rage serum that temporarily provides immense physical strength to a revolver that can kill some enemies in one shot.  Then there are more stealth-friendly options like a knife that quietly and instantly kills any living enemy, as well as a device that slows perceptions of time so that you can run past enemies or fight them while they can scarcely move.

New weapons can be created using Fabricators, machines that require Fabrication Chips found throughout the starship.  Stem cells can also be amassed and must be used if the player wants to switch to alternate characters upon respawning once their DNA is recovered or if upgrades are to be purchased improving Zimri's health, melee damage, stealth aptitude, and dark matter meter.  Both kinds of pickups can be found very easily.  Stem cells can be extracted from living enemies with stealth kills from behind--or even by teleporting around attacking foes or pushing them back with the shield and taking them during combat.  The less damage has been done to an enemy, the more stem cells can be harvested.

Two short challenge modes are also available.  The first lets you choose a firearm type, all of which have unlimited ammunition, and has you clear 24 rooms with only a single unit of health and no shield.  If the slightest damage is incurred, you die!  The second has you sneak from room to room to reach an end point armed only with a knife.  Upon completing the campaign for the first time, extra campaign modes unlock that have a fixed number of lives or additional upgrades--but with a particularly dangerous enemy type constantly following you in the case of the latter.  The new game plus mode is the ideal path for players who crave even greater difficulty and more powerful weapons.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A woman named Serena uses a cloning DNA printer on a stranded starcraft called The Persistence to bring a copy of fellow crew member Zimri to life after an accident.  The ship is printing modified humanoid beings, some with special abilities like energy blasts, threatening Serena's chances of setting the course for home.  Zimri can see a gravitational singularity outside of the ship upon being "printed," and Serena gives her five objectives necessary for escaping the singularity's pull and getting the duo back to Earth.  The pair communicates as Zimri moves from one deck to the next completing tasks, but the strange creatures on The Persistence attack her at every opportunity they have.

Intellectual Content

Puzzles are rare and the minimal dialogue hardly tackles the philosophical issies of cloning, leaving the strategic side of the gameplay and basic premise of the scientific kind of "resurrection" Zimri experiences as the most explicitly intellectual parts of The Persistence.  Of course, creating a clone with the same memories as the former Zimri is not true resurrection, as the clone is a separate being that happens to share memories with a now-dead woman.  A physical and phenomenological duplicate of a living thing cannot truly be the same being.  After all, the former person has died and is not the one experiencing life as the clone.  The cloning in the story's setup is still one of the most intelligent ways of acknowledging a respawn mechanic in a video game that I have ever seen.  It makes respawning a core part of the plot itself with a genuine narrative reason beyond just letting players retry an area by resuming from a previous save.

Conclusion

The Persistence brings some very unique twists on familiar video game elements that make the title stand out quite a bit for its sheer cleverness.  Its repetition, minimal story, and great difficulty also stand out.  The difficulty is not a drawback, just an aspect that some people will not be subjectively pleased by; the other two do hold it back overall.  Despite the very limited story, alternate campaign modes and separate challenge modes could extend the replay time significantly for those who enjoy it with particular fondness, and each of these modes is different enough that even non-completionists might want to try them out.  The Persistence, with its obvious successes and problems, still gives the Switch another port that shows how Nintendo's system can handle plenty of games from the more traditional consoles it came out around.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Bodies can be found with blood nearby, and attacking enemies also results in blood appearing.

 2.  Profanity:  "Fuck," "bastard," "damn," and "shit" are used, mostly when Zimri becomes conscious after dying and being cloned again.

Ezekiel 16's Adulterous Wife

Ezekiel 16 describes an allegorical scenario similar to one referenced in Hosea 2 (a passage I have already addressed [1]) where an adulterous wife, representing idolatrous Israel, is stripped naked before being executed for her offense.  This treatment of adulterous wives is a recorded historical practice in other ancient societies, which might lead some to wonder if Ezekiel 16 condones or prescribes forced nudity as punishment for certain sexual offenses.  There is one case where involuntary nudity is part of a punishment authorized and prescribed by the Bible, but it is a very specific situation that does not apply in the context of the Biblical punishment for adultery.

By Biblical standards, it is unjust to degrade someone by exposing their full body against their will as a punishment for a crime.  The penalty for adultery is mere execution for both parties (Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22); neither the offending man nor the offending woman are to be psychologically tortured by having their nude bodies displayed against their wills.  The punishment is death alone, not any kind of humiliation or pre-execution torture of any kind.  Now, the reason is not because seeing nudity is morally erroneous on the part of anyone witnessing the execution, but because it is unjust to degrade criminals (Deuteronomy 25:3), especially in the name of justice.

Nudity itself is not the issue with this manner of punishment, of course.  The naked body is utterly nonsinful on its own [2]!  Even if nudity itself was sinful, a person would not be sinning by having their nude body exposed against their will, as they would not have consented to removing their clothing (compare how an engaged person is not treated as an adulterer or adulteress if he/she is raped in Deuteronomy 22:25-27).  The only context where involuntarily stripping someone partially or wholly naked is part of a Biblically sound criminal punishment is one where an application of Lex Talionis involves genital mutilation.

In the case of an assault that results in a genital mutilation of the victim, the offender would need to have his or her lower clothing removed in order for the same permanent injury to be inflicted on them, a punishment reserved only for assault with permanent injury (Exodus 21:22-24, Leviticus 24:17-22).  This is because permanent injury is prescribed a mirror permanent injury, not because forced nudity is prescribed forced nudity.  Involuntarily stripping someone naked in other punitive contexts is an act of assault that may or may not be sexual in nature, and thus it would likely deserve either a number of lashes, which can be assigned to miscellaneous crimes not given specific Biblical penalties, or financial damages, which are prescribed for general assault that does not inflict permanent mutilations on the victim (Exodus 21:18-19).

Ezekiel 16's adulterous wife is nothing but an allegorical figure used to metaphorically predict what would befall Israel as God withheld protection due to idolatry.  The exact punishment given to her in the allegory is not meant to clarify or supercede anything about Deuteronomy 22:22.  It remains the case that the only time when uncovering someone's body against their will for the sake of Biblical justice is the aforementioned scenario of assault which leads to permanent genital injury.  Even here, making someone expose part or all of their body or stripping uncooperative offenders for the application of Lex Talionis is incidental.  Forced nudity (whether partial or full) is not part of the punishment; it is something that allows for the punishment to be precisely carried out.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/cerseis-punishment-and-hosea-23.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-naturalness-of-nudity.html

Philosophy In Television (Part 9): Loki

". . . stepping off your path created a Nexus event, which, if left unchecked, could branch off into madness, leading to another multiversal war."

--Miss Minutes, Loki (season one, episode one)

The Time Variance Authority, or TVA, makes it first appearance in the MCU in Loki, with the titular character finding himself brought to a special set of offices in a detached part of reality where humanoid beings keep track of "variants," or different versions of people who disrupt a timeline by making an event the TVA opposes occur.  Loki himself drew their attention by taking the Tesseract as seen in Endgame.  Because his actions could lead to events the TVA has not "ordained," he must be removed.  His conversations with Agent Mobius lead him to talk of people outside the TVA as if they have mo free will because it is the TVA that intervenes to ensure a specific set of events happen in a given timeline.  However, it does not matter whether foreknowledge is possessed by God or some other being like the enigmatic Timekeepers (if they exist) or their TVA agents.  In either case, merely seeing the future does not causally impact anything in the future at all.  Loki has so far sidestepped this logical fact.

Ironically, WandaVision made it as clear as it could through dialogue and in certain scenes that Wanda was forcing people to act against their wills, something the people of Westview were very aware of, and yet characters in Loki talk as if everyone the TVA observes in other timelines (the idea that the TVA is outside of time is blatantly untrue, as moments elapse and events occur inside the offices) has no freedom to make uncoerced decisions.  The TVA would never have to correct any timeline in the first place if they were truly in direct control of people's wills, as opposed to just having the ability to intervene and reset certain events.  Manipulating or hindering people after they have already done something is not a nullification of free will.  This is instead an indirect admission that the TVA is either not able to override people's individual wills or they choose not to--the only other option is extremely unlikely, that being that the TVA overrides free will in beings outside of the organization and makes them distort timelines just so they have something to do.

There is no evidence for this and much evidence to the contrary.  Either way, for anyone to say or think that oversight of a timeline means the beings in that timeline have no free will is highly irrational.  Observation is not causation (except in some hypothetical idealist metaphysics where perception literally causes matter to exist, but even that has nothing at all to do with free will).  Whether a certain outcome is dictated by beings with greater power than humans and the other human-like beings of the MCU has no bearing on whether the inhabitants of a timeline are making their own choices without being knowingly or unknowingly forced to think, believe, and act exactly as they have.

An apocalyptic event like those discussed in Loki might happen with or without the free choices of many people.  For example, if a volcano is going to erupt and destroy ancient Pompeii, as is depicted in the second episode, free choices by humans will not change that.  Free will does not mean one's thoughts and will can freely direct actions that can in turn prevent every unwanted catastrophe in the external world.  This is an asinine misrepresentation that has somehow become popular both in entertainment and in the arbitrary beliefs of non-rationalists.  Will and action do not mean one can do anything that is logically possible (anything that does not contradict reason or itself, which includes many possibilities beyond human control) or stop nature or God or some other thing from making an event happen whether you like it or not.

Loki dances all around the true nature of free will by making it seem as if will depends on physical circumstances rather than will being a mental/phenomenological part of a being's mind and outside events being potentially uncontrollable circumstances.  A person's will is thus not free or determined by outside forces based on whether certain natural or supernatural events occur.  It is free if a person is capable of making choices without being forced to--not in the sense of a situation or person narrowing a person's range of possible actions.  Since the ability to grasp reason and use it would be an illusion if free will of some kind did not exist, as knowledge would be impossible because no thoughts would be voluntary, proving that one has free will is as sime as proving that logical axioms and one's own consciousness are absolutely certain.

Spirituality And Masturbation

A Christian has every reason to strive for a sense of comfort with nonsinful sexual behaviors, even those that do not involve a partner.  Doing so reflects a genuine desire to celebrate the fact that each person is free to live as they please as long as they are not violating any of the moral obligations rooted in God's character.  As such, an act of sexual pleasure like masturbation can be celebrated not in spite of commitment to Christianity, but because of it.  Masturbation is not divorced from Christian spirituality or the individualistic psychological characteristics of the person engaged in it; no aspect of life is, but this is especially true in the case of masturbation because it is a sexual act that reflects something of a person's worldview and personality.

Sexual self-stimulation can be an act of spiritual expression and even gratefulness for the that the Christian God intended for sexuality to be a pleasurable, significant part of human life--for both spouses and singles.  Sexuality is not a result of sin, but an integral part of human nature that can be indulged in by those of any relationship status without sin.  Whether someone is married, engaged, or single, they are capable of expressing their spirituality and sexuality simultaneously.  There is nothing about either that conflicts with the other.

There is no thus reason to fear masturbation when the Biblical God so clearly permits it [1], and self-pleasuring has potential for far more than immediate pleasure.  Because sexuality is highly phenomenological and because it was and created by God, it is therefore directly connected to human spirituality (consciousness is the spirit/soul that is emphasized in spirituality), meaning it has a special relationship with the moral and theological aspects of human life.  It is not an act that is antithetical to a sincere commitment to God, and it does not elevate pleasure to a hedonistic status.

For this reason, pleasuring one's own genitalia, contrary to what many Christians might believe or be willing to admit, can be a thoroughly spiritual experience that entails a respect for God and the body he created.  There are possible ways to misuse masturbation, such as masturbating to sensual images or videos of the opposite gender while reducing the individuals therein to nothing but their sex appeal (only reducing someone solely to their sex appeal or other sexual dimensions is objectification, and masturbating to imagery is not sinful in itself), but it is a theologically positive act when not misused.

Savoring the sexual functionality of one's body, the pleasure of innocent sexual expression, and the introspective depth of masturbation [2] is far from spiritually useless.  Nonsinful uses of one's body and mind cannot dishonor the God who fashioned them with the capacity for self-inflicted sexual pleasure, after all!  Instead of feeling guilt or spiritual disconnection during masturbation, Christians who practice self-pleasuring can fully embrace masturbation with intentional emphasis on the spiritual potential of sexual self-stimulation.  Nonsinful sexual practices are worth celebrating as Biblically legitimate and spiritually freeing even if one does not personally engage in them.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/sexual-self-stimulation.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-introspective-potential-of.html

A New Eden

Pleasure is more than just a trivial, pointless distraction from pain in life on Earth within Christian theology; it is quite literally a significant part of what life in Eden and life in the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21 are intended to contain.  Never does God condemn humans for simply desiring and seeking out what gives them a sense of deep pleasure unless there is some immoral component to that pursuit.  On the contrary, it is clear that God intended for people to live as they wish as long as they do not specifically violate the obligations rooted in his nature (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Unfortunately, many Christians have a very incomplete grasp of New Jerusalem that either does not incorporate certain nonsinful pleasures or goes so far as to be hostile towards them.

A restored relationship with God and a lack of subjective boredom or discomfort with that relationship is pleasurable enough on its own, but there is far more to pleasure than simply the awareness of and delight in God.  If this was not the case, God would not specifically have created humans to experience other pleasures or ensured that a rational analysis of the Bible is one that vehemently rejects legalistic opposition to things which are not immoral no matter how exciting or stimulating they are.  Every day humans have the ability to realize the true scope of pleasure across all aspects of existence and how pleasure itself is never antithetical to Christian morality.  The very fact that humans have the capacity for physical pleasure at all shows that God, whether humans reached their current species status by immediate creation or theistic evolution, is not against bodily pleasure, and the psychological pleasures that can be found in knowing truth, exercising autonomy, introspecting, prayer, and human relationships are likewise not contrary to God's wishes.

Pleasures of every nonsinful kind would have no reason to not be pursued in heaven in both the sense of there being no logical contradiction involved in them existing in heaven and the sense that something that does not violate moral obligations would not be out of place in a state of moral perfection.  In Eden, any nonsinful thing would be permissible by default before human sin, or else it would be sinful rather than nonsinful.  Heaven (or New Jerusalem) is Eden restored.  Revelation 22:1-3 mentions the tree of life and the removal of the curse of sin from Genesis 3.  This is a place of freedom to live without the presence of the wicked, for no one vile will enter the city (Revelation 21:27), and this means that it is injustice and other evils which are not encountered, not pleasure itself.

Now, it would still be logically clear that any nonsinful thing cannot be morally wrong in heaven just because heaven is not Earth.  The nature of sin and righteousness could only have to do with acts and motives themselves instead of locations.  Something would be nonsinful on Earth for the same reason it is not sinful in heaven--it does not conflict with God's moral nature.  This is why a Christian who truly understands which activities do not fall under God's condemnation in the Bible should have no difficulty in affirming that eternal life in New Jerusalem is not incompatible with the enjoyment of whatever amoral or nonsinful deeds a Christian may desire.

The true Biblical conception of heaven is not a realm of constant physical worship of God and nothing else, leaving the redeemed human imhabitants bored and restless.  It is Paradise: it is all that Eden could have been, only on the opposite side of theological human history.  In other words, every nonsinful pleasure derived from truth, individuality, the senses, spiritual fulfillment, and sexuality would have no reason to be excluded and might even be all the more delightful having followed the darkness of human sin.  It is not that pleasures that God morally permits cannot be understood and appreciated in this life, but that undergoing redemption from sin could grant a deeper affection for what human sin forfeits--life and the ability to do what one pleases where there is no sin.

Supply And Demand: How Social Constructs Are Mistaken For Inevitabilities

There is a distinction between the laws of logic, laws of nature (scientific laws), moral laws, political laws, social constructs that become trends, and random, happenstance patterns.  Sometimes what falls into the latter two categories is arbitrarily called a "law" even though it is not a necessary truth of logic, a natural phenomenon in the external world, or a legal rule.  Moreover, certain things in the latter two categories might even be wrongly treated in a reductionistic manner as a fixed, driving force of economics when their actual significance and scope are much smaller than the misrepresentations suggest.

The "law" of supply and demand is an example of such a thing.  The core idea is that when there is a large supply of something that can be purchased, consumers are not willing to spend as much on it and the prices drop as a consequence.  Inversely, when the supply of something is small, people are supposedly willing to spend more money to obtain it than they otherwise would because demand is allegedly high.  While people sometimes act in a way consistent with these ideas, it is only in select circumstances, and this reaction to temporary or permanent scarcity and abundance is by no means a "law" of logic, nature, or moral philosophy.  Sincerely calling a situational trend like this a "law" as some do signifies a lack of rationality.

Just because supply is small does not mean there is enormous demand or even any demand at all for a given item or service.  Also, that a supply of something is limited does not mean that thing is economically valuable, and vice versa.  Suppose a person has a small container filled with the only trash on the planet.  Does the small existing quantity of the trash mean it is worth immense resources?  Other than those who sincerely but arbitrarily wish to own actual trash, would anyone even have an interest in exchanging money for such a thing?  Perhaps, but perhaps not.  Trash would not be inherently valuable just because there is only one container full of it.

Someone might hypothetically be willing to pay a large amount of money to study or collect the trash due to its rarity, but this would never be a logically necessary outcome, as it also might come about that no one at all has interest in owning it whatsoever.  All of that depends on the personalities and goals of the specific people involved.  Wares like food will be pursued more than non-vital, miscellaneous items, but the fact that many people might pay more for food in times of scarcity does not mean that a small supply of something else like trash will even generate any interest at all.  The popular conception of supply and demand is not a "law" of any sort.  At most, it is a very limited trend that could change at any time even when people are paying more for rare things.

Supply and demand are factors that do impact community and national economies, and to deny that they have some relevance in certain cases is erroneous.  It is simply also true that supply and demand do not form an inevitable, inherent structure that all economies are strictly bound to.  The nature of various wares and the subjective priorities of potential buyers might lead to actions like those predicted by supply and demand reductionist and also might not.  This is because supply and demand are just two of many factors that can have wildly differing impacts on a given situation.  As important in a practical sense as they can be, all economic systems are mere social constructs, including popular components like the irrational reductionism surrounding supply and demand.

Movie Review--Dark Skies

"I remember going in the grass to play with the other kids, then I wasn't me anymore."

--Sammy Barrett, Dark Skies

Before Blumhouse-produced horror films like The Purge, Halloween (2018), and The Invisible Man (2020) were released, with their emphasis on human antagonists instead of supernatural entities, the company backed an alien horror movie called Dark Skies.  The film still treats the alien threat like other horror movies treat demonic or otherwise explicitly supernatural forces, with J.K. Simmons even playing an alien expert that has similarities to the priest or paranormal investigator role in other stories.  Dark Skies is actually a better representation of the epistemology of alien life than it is a film with deep characterization.  Like in many other horror movies either focusing on alien or purely supernatural entities, multiple characters in Dark Skies pathetically assume at first that entirely possible explanations are automatically impossible, even though there is no logical contradiction in the idea of aliens being behind certain mysterious events.

Production Values

The aliens, one of which is first shown around half an hour into the runtime, are among the only things that actually require some kind of obvious special effect that goes beyond the more practical kind.  The creatures appear as slim, shadowy figures that can phase in and out of visibility if not teleport outright.  Contrasting with the superficial characterization (not that every character in a movie needs to be developed blatantly or have obvious depth of some kind), the cast performances of the family of main characters are the driving force of the film alongside the mystery of why the protagonists were targeted.  Keri Russel plays the mother, a saleswoman who explores the possibility of an extraterrestrial presence before her husband acknowledges such a thing is even possible.  She perhaps showcases the best acting next to J.K. Simmons himself.  Simmons has a smaller role as a man familiar with stories of extraterrestrial encounters.  Indeed, he claims he has experienced them tampering with his surroundings and calls them the Grays.  The other primary or significant members of the cast have their moments, but it is the youngest actor Kadan Rockett who stands out for his talented acting at such a young age.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

An American family faces an unusual set of difficulties when they find their food scattered on the floor one morning in strange patterns.  The youngest son says something called "the Sandman" appeared to him and rearranged the kitchen items, and every single sensor in the home's alarm system is triggered simultaneously one night shortly after.  Numerous photos from frames by the downstairs TV go missing around the same time.  Birds begin randomly and fatally flying into their windows en masse.  Even a new set of camera feeds all report static around the same time on a certain night when the father attempts to investigate what is happening.  As this is ongoing, members of the family act as if they have become overridden by some external force or lost their awareness of their own perceptions and location.

Intellectual Content

The Arthur C. Clarke quote shown at the beginning states that both the absence of extraterrestrial life and the existence of alien life have terrifying ramifications, but this is a very fallacious misrepresentation of the issue.  First of all, the statement merely expresses a subjective sentiment which is only objectively true when framed as if it merely is the personal perception of individuals like Clarke.  Second, if alien life does exist, it might not be dangerous or threatening in any way.  There are many logically possible variations of alien species that could exist, ranging from enormous cosmic beings with mystical or otherwise superhuman abilities to microbial organisms to mere plants.  Unsurprisingly, the epistemological approach to the concepts referenced in the Clarke quote is just as flawed as that of many characters in the movie.

Epistemology is naturally a very significant part of Dark Skies thanks to the story setup of a family dealing with alien-induced events while outsiders offer nothing more than assumption-based suggestions instead of rationalistic possibilities.  Daniel himself, the father in the Barrett family, dismisses the possibility of alien interference without even giving it a few moments of thought.  Indeed, almost everyone fails to react to the initial events with something that starts to resemble rationalistic skepticism of unproven things--that is, the realization that anything that cannot be disproven is possible.  Anything at all that does not inherently contradict itself or the laws of logic and has not been disproven is possible no matter how bizarre it might subjectively seem.  Mounting evidence brings Daniel to abandon his denial, but he still exemplifies the asinine kind of skepticism in cinema where people reject logically possible claims without understanding that they are indeed possible.

Conclusion

There was potential for Dark Skies to have deeper characterization and perhaps have certain characters verbalize a more prominent embrace of the difference between something being logically possible, true, and false, but the general restraint with the manner in which the aliens are portrayed and the appearance of J.K. Simmons all help counteract some of the mediocrities.  As far as alien movies of the horror type go, Dark Skies is not one of the worst, though it never reaches the more slow burn heights of films like the original Alien.  This leaves it with a mixture of clever and undeveloped aspects that together amount to a movie that misses some opportunities while exploiting others.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Dark blood comes out of Daniel's nose in one scene.  Kerri Russel's character bangs her head against glass forcefully, and multiple birds fly into windows at the family's house so hard that they die.

 2.  Profanity:  Whatever overt profanity might be in the film is minor at best.

 3.  Sexuality:  A young character is shown watching sexual material online before any nudity has appeared.

Thinking Using Language

There are different ways a person could express their thoughts within their own mind.  Perhaps they reason things out with no specific imagery, sounds, or memories in mind, just an immediate grasp of concepts.  Perhaps they think by visualizing concepts and their thoughts about those concepts, with mental images reflecting their natural thought processes.  Another possibility is that they, as many people seem to do from time to time, think by using words or even speaking full sentences in their head.  Someone could use one, multiple, or all of these approaches to thinking even if they have never dissected just what makes them different.  While it is easier for some people to realize that thinking without imagery is possible, it is less common for people to admit that words do not confine or structure all thoughts.

This equating of words to thoughts themselves, as if there is no difference, conflicts with basic facts about logic and phenomenology.  For example, a person can switch between purely conceptual thoughts and mental self-dialogue using words on a regular basis, going from one to the other throughout a single day intentionally or by developed habit.  Even if someone had transitioned from thinking in a more abtract sense in terms of concepts or mental imagery to almost exclusively thinking using words, it would not be impossible to reverse this, nor would this mean words have supplanted conceptual reflection.  After all, words only have linguistic meaning when there is an intended concept behind them, even if that concept is vague or the concept of nothingness.

Thus, even in cases where a person does happen to think mostly by using language to speak to their own mind, it is never because of some special necessity of language for introspection or general thought.  It would have only become a habit by choice or something the individual slipped into by happenstance.  A grasp of the laws of logic, intentionality, and the capacity for introspection do not hinge on whether a person has ever even been introduced to language.  Each of these things is present even when someone thinks linguistically instead of thinking in various ways that happen to sometimes involve language (or just entirely in other ways).

All the same, language can be a useful tool for processing thoughts, especially if those thoughts are specifically supposed to be communicated to others verbally or in writing at some point in the future.  Language is still never the foundation of thought or the thing by which people grasp the laws of logic themselves.  This could never be the case because the opposite is necessarily true.  It is the other way around.  The laws of logic allow people to reason and understand experiences and thinking is used to associate words and ideas.  Words can be part of thinking processes, but it is always only because someone took a pre-existing grasp of reason and at least some concepts and applied words to the thoughts.

Lingerie Is Not Only For Women

Lingerie is marketed and commonly assumed by people who allow themselves to be captivated by societal conditioning as if it is something "feminine," something that men passionately desire to see on women but that would be out of place if worn by a man.  This naturally spills over from the asinine idea that women are more inherently beautiful than men and that women in particular want to be perceived as sexy, while men are supposedly concerned with the sexiness of their partners and not their own appearance or physical sexiness.  Since gender is nothing more than a kind of physical body, and since it does not logically follow that having certain genitalia (or chromosomes) makes one have any sort of specific talents, desires, or other aspects of personality, the very idea that any kind of nonphysical femininity and masculinity exists is already false by default.

Of the numerous sexist ideas about men and women present in Western society, some are more overt and some are more subtle to the uninitiated.  Popular attitudes and practices surrounding lingerie are among the latter.  It would be outright abnormal for someone to vocally affirm that men would have any interest in wearing lingerie as opposed to seeing it on women they perceive to be physically attractive--and I do not mean that men would want to wear and enjoy female lingerie as some would seem to expect before they entertain the thought of what I truly mean.  Men can wear lingerie tailored go the male body in order to feel sexually aroused, confident about their bodies, and desirable to their girlfriends and wives.  In other words, the exact same motivations and kinds of fulfillment a woman might experience regarding lingerie made for their own bodies can be experienced by men regarding lingerie made for theirs.

The folly of Western gender stereotypes that are rooted in illogical assumptions (and all assumptions are inherently illogical) would have many people never even pause to wonder if men do not want their bodies to only/mostly be seen as useful tools of physical labor or brutality.  Male and female bodies can be used for labor and violence, and male and female bodies are sources of great sexual and nonsexual attraction from many members of the opposite gender.  The way that some men and women understand, express, and react to their sexualities can be distorted by assumptions inherited from others or blindly latched onto through their own doing; this cannot override the logical facts about the matter.  Of course, one of the ramifications is that lingerie can be enjoyed in the same ways by both genders when worn by the other.

Girlfriends and wives err if they think that women have some natural monopoly on sensuality, sex appeal, and the westing of lingerie to please a partner or arouse one's own self.  Boyfriends and husbands err if they think that men are psychologically defective if they want to display their bodies for female pleasure in a way that the idiotic masses might ridicule or misunderstand.  Men and women share the same capacity for wearing lingerie, appreciating it, or masturbating to it when worn by the opposite gender.  The irrational gender-based expectations surrounding something like lingerie might not even ever seriously be considered by many people.  In fact, they almost certainly would not do so without direct prompting from rationalistic individuals.  The ideas they absorb lurk, attached to other false, arbitrary, and hurtful beliefs about men and women.

Mixed Economies

The needless worry in modern politics over the natures of capitalism and socialism could perhaps in part be abated if the concept of mixed economies was more mainstream.  A mixed economy combines elements of capitalism, or free market characteristics, with elements of socialism, or government-controlled/regulated characteristics.  Very rarely, if ever, has a historical government been solely capitalistic or socialistic in the sense that seems to be commonly meant by the words, as the presence of any level of government regulation dilutes a purely free market and any degree private property ownership or economic freedom dilutes the purest form of socialism.  Terror over the supposedly inherent injustices of either major economic system keeps the masses railing against the whole of capitalism and socialism when they might be contradicting themselves in doing so.

America itself has a mixed economy, although capitalists and socialists like to exaggerate the influence of the kind of economy they do not think has moral superiority over the other.  Now, if tyranny and exploitation are the concerns that drive people to fallaciously believe that either capitalism or socialism is truly obligatory, they have ignored the vital fact that both could be implemented in predatory, shackling ways.  Slavery to a purely free market consisting of greed-driven imbeciles and slavery to a government that redistributes wealth without consent (except in the case of just legal penalties involving financial damages) still reduce down to a form of involuntary slavery to financial systems being used in abusive ways.

Mixed economies can prevent some of these abuses of capitalism and socialism alike.  However, not one broad economic component or the other has some special status that makes it Biblically prescribed or deserving of automatic condemnation.  What matters is how they are structured and what the motives of the participants are.  Apart from this, there could be nothing intrinsically immoral about either basic economic system unless there was something morally wrong about mere freedom or government presence!  Within a Biblical framework, there is not anything wrong with either freedom or government by default, even if the prescribed allowances differ very sharply from the kind of freedom and governments condemned by Christian morality.

Since utilitarian concerns by logical necessity literally have nothing to do with whether something is actually right or wrong (if an act or motive is immoral, no amount of resulting benefits can change that), historical "trends," both those evidentially supported by actual records and those merely assumed to have occurred, are of no ultimate significance.  However, capitalism and socialism could easily lead to the deaths of numerous people if applied in certain ways.  Neither system is incapable of being hijacked for the sake of tyrannical leaders and neither system is incapable of functioning smoothly without exploitation.  Rabid, assumption-diseased conservatives and liberals are too focused on maintaining the party status quo to bother with the level philosophical honesty needed to admit this.

To accept a mixed economy, though, is to accept this fact on some level even if one has never thoroughly pinpointed the different components of the American economy (or that of some other country with a mixed economy).  There is a vast difference between different forms of the same general economic structure, and rationality is all it takes to see that some aspects of these differing structures are in fact compatible with each other after all.  It still might take a great deal of verbal or ideological force to get people already living under mixed economies to see that they probably approve of combining capitalism and socialism.  Regardless, despite the closed eyes, every minor economic freedom for buyers and sellers to connect as desired contradicts pure socialism, and every minor government intervention in an economy (including sending stimulus checks or bailing out an industry) contradicts pure capitalism.