The Effort Of Gaming

Gaming offers everything present in other art forms, from aesthetics to music to storytelling depths to philosophical exploration and more.  The superior factors are the combining of what other mediums can only do in part (music, for example, lacks any visual component on its own and is the most vague of all art forms), the potential for many more hours of use during first-time completion than other mediums allow for, and the unique element of controllability, which reflects the capacity for choice in moment by moment life.  Still, what is the appeal for the people willing to invest dozens (or hundreds) of hours into a virtual experience, and more specifically, why are they usually able to enjoy activities in virtual worlds that they would despise in their own lives?  I have never heard of anyone who said they enjoy pulling weeds out of the physical ground, though such a thing is logically possible.  In Animal Crossing, though, pulling weeds and paying mortgages can be enjoyable or "addictive" for people who likely dread these things otherwise.

It cannot be a lack of effort involved in the digital version of these actions even if someone believes this is not the case, as gaming does indeed require effort, and perhaps an extraordinary amount.  The only entertainment/artistic medium to require input from the user, and sometimes constant, precise input that can demand great skill with puzzles or combat at that, gaming is by default not a passive experience.  To analyze any art, one must actively think (and to know logical truths about the matter, one must avoid assumptions and discover what does and does not logically follow), a form of mental effort.  Analysis, much less rationalistic analysis, is not necessary for a person to merely experience or enjoy art, yet gaming demands control from the player regardless.  Some games will need almost non-stop interaction and some will have periods of lesser controllability (like with cutscenes), but to be a video game, electronic art must have this interactivity.  Lack of effort cannot possibly be what makes gaming appealing since playing a game can never entail its utter absence, though its ordeals are not the same as actually running great distances with one's own legs or collecting hundreds of the same item with one's own hands.

The person who pulls weeds in Animal Crossing still probably does not enjoy the same activity when it is physically carried out in their backyard.  The person who eagerly spends hours searching an open world far and wide in Metroid Prime or Dying Light to obtain items might loathe actually traversing the equivalent of such distances in "real life."  Yet, there is no such thing as a total lack of effort that makes doing the same things in a digital environment more pleasant or even deeply enjoyable.  It by necessity cannot be the case that gaming does not require effort, not just because of player input and the elaborate nature of some of the in-game pursuits, but also because of more situational functionality like the Wii's.  Literal motion control, which imposes an additional level of effort over ordinary gaming, was the major aspect of the system (and one that survived to the Switch for select titles).  A person could as much as sweat from this incorporation of physicality or from immersive concentration just as they could if carrying out some task in their daily or professional lives.

With or without gimmicks like motion controls, gaming features labor of some kind.  Physical labor in other contexts, however, is something many people are not interested in except out of sheer practical necessity, a distraction from some greater problem, or the desire for compensation.  The effort of gaming is, on the contrary, something many people, the same people, might seek intentionally out of a desire for pleasure and admiration.  The difference is that one kind of effort is related to survival or a rather ongoing struggle for comfort and can be burdensome, mundane, and exhausting, going so far as to induce hopelessness under the right circumstances.  The other is, though it has the greatest capacity for rational and introspective stimulation out of all art when executed correctly, a more leisurely kind of effort.  Both are labor of their own sorts.  That of gaming just gives people the chance to exert effort without using as much as standard physical labor would.  It is the combination of requiring labor of mental attention and physical input from the player without approaching the potentially negative characteristics of other effort that sets gaming apart here.

One Truth Or Existent And Another: Equally Real

One thing that is real, that is true, is no less real than another thing that is true.  Some things are less foundational than others, and some things depend on others for their metaphysical possibility, as with everything other than the laws of logic inescapably hinging on them, but nothing that exists is more or less real than another truth/existent.  If a tree exists, if quantum energy exists, and if angels exist, all three are part of reality; none of them or anything else in existence is more real than the rest.  Some people confuse epistemological unverifiability for something not being a part of reality.  Likely oblivious to how even a tree that one sees or smells with one's own senses is not proven to exist (only the visual sensory perceptions have to exist if one sees it), much less a quantum scale far removed from macroscopic experience, a person might think, for instance, that if a hypothetical subatomic particle has not been proposed, it must be less real than something like atoms or mountains.

All that exists is equally real, just not equally important.  If the seeming stimuli encountered in waking life really do exist beyond one's consciousness, they are not more or less real than mental existents like thoughts.  If matter only exists because it is metaphysically sustained by conscious perception as some variants of idealism hold, a logically possible but unprovable thing, it is not less real than mind, yet it is less foundational.  Either way, mind is still epistemologically more foundational because the mind must be relied on to reject or doubt the existence of the mind, while any matter would be external to one's mind, neither self-evident nor demonstrable from mere passive sensory observation.  At the same time, neither mind nor matter would be more real than the other.  Matter can actually be logically proven to exist [1]--the only way to prove anything--but it is not less or more real than my or any other consciousness regardless of whatever causal relationship between the two is ultimately correct.

Some people deny that consciousness is real, though they of course have to be conscious to do so.  Some deny that matter is real when even the absence of a logical proof of such a thing would only make skepticism demonstrable, as it would not logically follow from an inability to confirm its existence that it does not exist.  There is literally nothing that can do the knowing if there is no consciousness to perceive and think despite how there could be visual perceptions of material objects and environments even if no physical substance existed.  However, what almost everyone never thinks of or accepts is that there is only one thing that could possibly be the heart of reality and the intrinsic truth(s) and supreme existent: the laws of logic which could only be false if they were still true, making their truth inherent.  For example, that something logically follows or does not follow from another concept could only be false if it followed from reason being false that anything reason would necessitate is false, and reason could only be false if reality was such that it logically necessitated reason's falsity.

It is the necessary truths of logical axioms that aee the ultimate part of reality: reason is the supreme existent and the epistemologically self-evident thing that no one could even know of their own existence without relying on.  More than just being an inescapable epistemological tool, since reason must be true, anything that contradicts it cannot exist, that is, it cannot be true.  It, by contrast, can only be true in itself without dependence on any other thing.  If anything, it could only be reason that is "more real" than anything else in reality, but it is reason that means it is impossible for one thing to be more real than anything else in existence.  Again, metaphysical primacy and epistemological accessibility are not equal across different aspects of reality, but nothing known or unknown in all of reality, both categories being consistent with and governed by the necessary truths of logic, is more or less real than the rest.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/dreams-and-consciousness.html

Legacy Admissions

As a means of supposedly securing verifiable knowledge about reality, college of any kind is absolutely, obviously irrelevant, since everyone can look to reason directly, starting with logical axioms, and some degree of autonomously revisiting logical proofs one was prompted to think of by others is at the very least necessary to have true knowledge, though for many logical truths, no such social prompting is required whatsoever.  Not only is college and any formal education unnecessary and indeed useless if it is not in accordance with the transcendent truths of reason, but these metaphysically inherent, epistemologically certain truths are not what many colleges are known to focus on.  On the contrary, secondary and unverifiable matters of history or science, as well as arbitrary moral frameworks held to because of petty conscience or societal pressures, are what most universities will trend towards emphasizing.

As a means of potentially securing a job, the philosophically lower objective but pragmatically beneficial purpose of college is genuinely important in its own way.  Higher education is supposed to facilitate finding jobs, and higher paying options in particular, for graduates who can apply the information or skills they became acquainted with during their undergraduate or postgraduate programs.  Prohibitively expensive for many people, artificially prolonged with bloated classes for maximum financial gain, and, most importantly, philosophically trivial on its own in all regards (see the first paragraph), the higher education of college is overall more about siphoning money from people who might be in the worst position to repay their loans: students who have little to no time to work because of their course loads, little to no personal savings, and scarce access to livable compensation because they have not yet completed the education requirements for their pursued careers.

It does not follow that there will be a decent job waiting after graduation or that a student will obtain it, of course, in spite of everything.  On top of this, there is the problem of legacy admissions, where the children or perhaps broader family members of a college graduate have a higher likelihood of entrance to the same school because of family connection.  It is not just the family tie, though, that is a factor here.  The real or perceived wealth of the families and their hopeful willingness to donate to the school are more likely to be the more underlying factors here.  Entrenched alumni dynasties with deep "pockets" have the power to fund a college more than students with purely academically merited admission (which does not mean someone is rational, as only being philosophically rationalistic, not good at memorizing or vulnerable to belief in hearsay or appeals to scholastic authority that many colleges bask in, makes someone intelligent).

Just offering legacy admissions does not mean that every legacy applicant, or child/grandchild of an alumnus, will enter, nor does it mean that they are all unmerited for admission based upon factors having nothing to do with family or school connections.  Still, wealthy graduate families, the ones that least benefit from advantages like more probable/automatic admission to a given school because they do not need them, might be given the priority just because the school will have more money to pull from.  Sustained over many generations, one family can be quite the financial provider for a university.  Applicants from families like this could also attend a college possibly moreso than others simply to continue family traditions, conform to community expectations (no one is special for college attendance, so this is an asinine pressure), or casually pass time.

As for the philosophical/moral legitimacy of this, it is not problematic if someone hires their own child or some other family member over someone else if they are at least equally qualified, if the family member is not more qualified, the same being the case with college admissions.  The issue is not that wealthy or well-connected students get into universities at all.  Rather, the means by which they could do so is where the real potential for immorality or other stupidity arises.  Legacy admissions in themselves are about money and/or tradition, or else the children of alumni would be able to get into many universities (given that there are sufficient slots) without relying on their family name or ancestry.  When this is not what happens, those of a less socially established family or lower economic class are more likely to be excluded in spite of being qualified.

Movie Review--Cube 2: Hypercube

"A hypercube isn't supposed to be real.  It's just a theoretical construct."
--Jerry Whitehall, Cube 2: Hypercube


Before the first Saw movie was released, two films in the Cube series had already debuted.  Vaguely similar but very distinct, the series that came first brushed up against moral, existential, and epistemological issues in its initial entry, which focused on a small group of people trapped in connected cube-shaped rooms.  Cube 2: Hypercube expands on the geometric potential of a series of large, shifting rooms shaped like cubes by introducing elements that are more explicitly connected with contemporary science fiction: quantum teleportation, tesseracts, and spatial distortions all factor into the plot.  The original Cube's relative simplicity and mystery worked incredibly well at establishing a setting and tension between characters, but Cube 2 builds on that mystery by leaping far more overtly into the philosophical waters the series was always floating in from the start.


Production Values

The CGI probably struck many viewers in 2002 as already looking outdated and primitive, but it is thankfully used only in very particular scenes.  Many of the rooms within the larger cube need little more than practical effects pertaining to lighting and physical sets.  Regarding the latter, the rooms are much brighter this time around, in contrast to the dull, dim environment of the first movie.  In typical Cube fashion, the cast is largely unknown to more mainstream movie audiences, which can be a great asset when independent movies handle this factor right.  Mostly solid performances animate the characters, even if some of them fall into the exact same broad categories as the characters of the original Cube.  For example, at least one member of the group trapped in the cube recalls involvement in designing it, and another member has extensive familiarity with theoretical mathematics.  Despite the efforts of the cast, though, the concepts at the heart of the film take the spotlight first and foremost as the plot progresses.


Story

Some mild spoilers are below.

Following in the footsteps of the first Cube, the sequel opens with a lone abductee waking up and searching for numbers in the passageways between the cubic rooms.  Later, a group of people begins to meet inside the cube, finding that certain rooms contain gravitational or spatial distortions, and in some cases even distortions of how aging and deterioration normally occurs.  It is suggested that this massive cube comprised of smaller rooms of the same shape has been used to research quantum teleportation.  Again, like in the first film, at least one person on the inside was minimally involved with the construction of the place.  Each member turns out to have links to the group that do not surface immediately, which only heightens the stakes.


Intellectual Content

The rooms that suspend or otherwise manipulate the natural laws of science intentionally or unintentionally illustrate how the laws of physics never were necessary truths and never could be.  By nature, laws of physics, from gravitation to the rate of a particular substance's decay, hinge on the uncaused cause and the specific initial conditions of the material world.  Nothing about a given law of physics had to be the way it is in the sense that it could not have been any other way.  No, each one could have differed, and each one could potentially change, even if such a thing never happens.  However, the logical concept of shapes like a tesseract, a four dimensional cube otherwise called a "hypercube," cannot change.  Material environments and objects have shapes; otherwise, shapes do not exist except as logically possible concepts that govern physical matter.  In other words, squares, cubes, triangles, and diamonds are not ultimately found in the natural world; objects in the physical world have shapes, but they are not shapes themselves.  This means that even the concept of a tesseract is neither a natural object nor purely a human conceptual construct.  We may not have any reason to reflect on it or search for something with its properties outside of the mere concept, but the concept is hypothetically accessible to everyone.


Conclusion

Cube 2 does not have the best examples of effects work the early 2000s offered, but it does stand firmly on a unique set of storyline concepts that negate the need for more elaborate effects that could have overshadowed the higher quality of the acting and premise.  Cleverness can keep smaller, independent films with little cultural recognition afloat even without a great amount of resources in front of or behind the camera, and that is exactly what Cube 2 accomplishes.  Indeed, other than the very primitive CGI, much of the film avoids any need for criticism.  This does not mean it is flawless, just that it is not terrible despite its budgetary limitations!  Viewers can expect more about the vague lore of the onscreen universe to be revealed without sacrificing the basic aspect of mystery that drove the first film from beginning to end.


Content:
 2.  Profanity:  Different forms of "damn" and "fuck" get used on occasion.
 3.  Nudity:  Female breasts are shown very briefly--as I have said before, neither the female chest area nor male chest area is truly "nudity," but Western ratings systems treat the former as such.  In another scene, two nude, intertwined shriveled corpses float in a seeming gravitational vacuum.

 1.  Violence:  Overall, the first movie in the series had far more gore than this installment.  Among the worst of the violent imagery is a scene where a man's head is struck off by a substance resembling a crystal.

Seventy Times Seven

It is a question Peter asks Jesus that leads to the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18.  In this parable, nothing is taught that contradicts the logically necessary truth of how mercy is not deserved, for it is by nature optional.  That is, it is optional unless someone asks for it in sincerity, as Jesus describes in Luke 17:3-4.  In that case, it is Biblically obligatory, he teaches, for to treat someone who is genuinely repentant and seeking to acknowledge their error like someone who has no concern for disregarding truth and morality is itself erroneous.  However, otherwise, mercy is good but not mandatory at best, and it is logically impossible for it to be any other way even if some deity other than Yahweh exists and there is a very different set of moral obligations in existence than the ones prescribed in the Bible.

This is because to show mercy is to withhold true punitive justice, justice being that which people should uphold.  Extending mercy to an unrepentant person is to not treat them as they deserve, rather than to treat them as they do deserve.  I have already written about how the parable of the unmerciful servant agrees with all of this by comparing God to a king who shows mercy even to the point of cancelling a great debt--when he is asked.  After all, God does not forgive anyone without their desire/request for him to do so (see 1 John 1:9).  This is affirmed over and over in the Bible by the way that its doctrines on forgiveness are worded.  Here, in Matthew 18's parable of the unmerciful servant, as well as in Ephesians 4:32, it is taught by analogy (or by direct statement in the latter) that we are to forgive as God does, but he does not forgive us involuntarily.

How many times are we to forgive when asked, though?  When Peter asks Jesus before the telling of the aforementioned parable, saying, "'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?  Up to seven times?'" (Matthew 18:21), Jesus tells him that it is not seven times, but seventy times seven times (18:22).  He also states in Luke 17:4 that we should forgive someone when they ask us even if they sin against us and come to us repentantly seven times in the same day.  Now, in Luke 17:4, Jesus is not saying that after seven times in one day, one should no longer forgive them until the next morning, even if all seven instances are related to the same person and happened one after the other within the same 24 hours.  Jesus already mentioned a much higher number in Matthew 18.

Similarly, in Matthew 18, in light of Luke 17, Jesus is not saying that after 490 times, there is never an obligation to forgive the truly repentant.  He teaches in Luke that we must forgive when someone sincerely asks us.  He goes so far as to claim in Matthew 6:14-15 that withholding forgiveness--obviously, this only applies to withholding it when it is required of us in a very specific context, not when someone has sinned and remained apathetic or unwilling to apologize--will be met by Yahweh withholding forgiveness from us.  Those who forgive, in contrast, are said to be shown forgiveness by God.  In neither the case of Matthew 18:22 nor Luke 17:4 is the seemingly totally arbitrary number of times meant to convey a fixed maximum amount past which forgiveness is not owed when someone is repentant.  God is willing to forgive the repentant, and thus we should be too, for it is his nature that grounds moral obligation to begin with.

While the New Testament is where elaborations on how being unforgiving will incur lack of divine forgiveness and other such things are clarified, the Old Testament does not teach the lack of forgiveness often ascribed to it even with its many prescriptions of particular punishments for miscellaneous sins--and these punishments, which correspond to God's unchanging moral nature (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17), are not revoked in the New Testament (Matthew 5:17-19, 15:3-9, Hebrews 2:2, and so on), which would entail a massive philosophical contradiction if the alternative was taught.  There is also a great deal of forgiveness embedded into obedience to Mosaic Law or in the narratives of the Old Testament.  For instance, Numbers 15:22-29 elaborates on how Israelites could go to the Levitical priests to receive forgiveness for unintentional sins on a community or individual level.  In 2 Samuel 12:13, the prophet Nathan tells David on Yahweh's behalf that he is forgiven for his sins of adultery and murder.  God shows a distinct willingness to forgive people of even grave sins if only they repent in Ezekiel 18:21-29 and 33:12-20.  Forgiveness, even up to seventy times seven times or more, is not introduced in the New Testament by any means.

Pursuing Empowerment

One person might feel empowered by professional success, another by maintaining deep friendships, and another by savoring verifiable philosophical truths.  Someone else might feel empowered by buying a home or vehicle, wearing flattering or minimal clothing, or completing practical chores that need to be done.  What is empowerment?  It is the experience of feeling or being more secure in or accepting of oneself, of feeling/being stronger or capable in some way and enjoying this status, or finding pleasure in something like an accomplishment.  What of irrational or immoral things?

Yes, someone could feel or seek empowerment through any belief or action, no matter how false, unverifiable, or evil it might be.  Feeling strong or excited is a subjective thing, and perhaps even involuntary, though one could try to foster or control this experience by selectively engaging in an activity.  While one person might feel empowered by helping the poor, another person might feel empowered by exploring them.  If morality exists, only one of these two approaches to poverty could be permissible/good, and thus they could not both be good or both be evil.  This would be contradictory.

However, either thing could empower someone at least subjectively.  It also might feel subjectively empowering to kill anyone one does not personally like even though it might be murder or to be disproportionately brutal with someone else in order to feel or appear strong.  After all, if it makes someone energized, excited, or as if they are authentically realizing or expressing their true self, then it is empowering, even if this empowerment is derived from things that should not be done.  This is not the same as something being rational or morally correct.  One could feel empowered intentionally or by happenstance in practically anything, but the veracity or moral legitimacy of that thing has nothing to do with how one feels or benefits from it.

Empowerment in the truth, such as in knowing logical axioms and relishing how they cannot be false as self-necessitating, absolutely certain things, cannot be illegitimate.  If something is true, then one could only be free to want or try to cultivate a sense of freedom or pleasure in it.  Someone could, for instance, come to welcome the uncertainty of epistemological limitations with something like the seeming truth of Christianity by discovering evidences in its favor and realizing what does and does not follow from its real tenets in spite of their inability to verify it beyond the probabilistic level of mere evidence.

Feeling empowered because of a belief in something like white or black supremacy, in contrast, is to be empowered by something false and also assumed (one can only assume false things, not prove them).  Whatever one's asinine basis for such a belief, the feeling of power or correctness does not mean this ideology is correct.  In fact, each of these and other racial supremacist philosophies is logically false by necessity since the color of someone's skin does not dictate their worldview, personality, moral standing, and talents.  None of these things follow because they are objectively unrelated.  Subjective empowerment has nothing to do the objectivity of logical truth.

Taking A Pledge

Across Mosaic Law, the subject of accepting and returning pledges for debt, or items held by the lender as security in case the lendee fails to repay, comes up.  Deuteronomy 24:6, for instance, says to never seize someone's millstones as security (a pledge) for a debt/loan because this would be taking someone's livelihood as a pledge.  Like many things in Mosaic Law, it logically follows from this that other things would be immoral as well, for the reason given in the verse, someone's livelihood being at stake, would apply to not only millstones, but also to any technological means of making food or using a trade to earn money to live.  Thus, an entire category of items is forbidden for seizure by this one verse, not even for a day.

Another category of security is addressed in Exodus 22:26-27 and elsewhere.  This type of pledge is that of clothing.  The aforementioned verses say that someone who offers their cloak as security must have it returned by sunset because they will have nothing else to sleep in.  Yes, the text specifically says the article of clothing is the only covering this person had, possibly due to poverty in light of Exodus 22:25 prohibiting the charging of interest to the poor (see Leviticus 25:35-37 also).  To deprive them of this when they would otherwise sleep vulnerable to the elements is to mistreat them, this teaches.

An often ignored ramification of this is actually that the person's body would be naked, visible to all, until the pledge was returned before nightfall, and in this case, the cloak is returned so soon specifically because they have nothing else to wear; public nudity is absolutely nonsinful under the supposedly prudish laws of the Torah and is in fact outright acknowledged throughout the Old Testament as neutral or even as good, acknowledged directly or indirectly throughout Genesis and Mosaic Law as something that is by no means evil to partake in or view.  Whether due to personal preference or sensual appreciation or poverty with its need for offering pledges, the body can be displayed uncovered.

When Deuteronomy 24:13 mentions returning a cloak by sunset, it does not say that they by default have no other clothing, though it does reiterate the obligation to ensure they can sleep in it.  Deuteronomy 24:17 does exclude a widow's cloak from being taken, but this is due to the special repeated emphasis in the Bible on helping widows, not any sort of inherently female privilege or general prudery (men's and women's bodies can be freely shown and seen according to the parameters of the Torah, contrary to popular expectations and assumptions).  The same vulnerability of a poor widow could be had by a widower, after all, and neither gender's body is unfit to be seen or deserving of special reverence one way or another.

Whatever the item being taken, however, Deuteronomy 24:10-11 addresses the general process of securing a pledge.  If it is in someone's home, the lender is to allow the debtor to bring it out themself and not forcefully enter their dwelling and disrespect their autonomy.  Verse 12 adds that a poor debtor should always have their pledge returned, clothing or not.  While the following verse again mentions a cloak like Exodus 22:26-27, Deuteronomy 24:12 does not.  The borrower's dignity, safety, and comfort is clearly always prioritized over the lender constantly having a pledge to hold over the lendee.  Their livelihood is not threatened, their bodily vulnerability is limited to daylight, and the belongings of the poor are repeatedly given back by night.

Profit Sharing

An employer who expects every employee, no matter their hours, pay, or life circumstances, to be as psychologically invested in the business as they are is utterly irrational.  Not only do workers, like all people, have lives that transcend work (though some employers and employees try as hard as they can to trivialize everything beyond the workplace!), and not only are they very likely not being compensated well enough to justify anything near such efforts, but they are simply not the owners or executives.  They objectively have no reason whatsoever to care in a typical situation.

If the company does well, unless they are directly receiving bonuses in addition to an unflinchingly livable base compensation, nothing changes for employees--except maybe that they have higher expectations placed on them for the exact same amount of pay.  In the ordinary workplaces of America at this time, one could pour an abundance of time and energy into work output and be greeted with, if anything, little to nothing but verbal or written congratulations.  Again, such employees have no reason to care or lift a finger above the bare minimum if this is all there is to their recognition.

Profit sharing provides an incentive that directly, justly rewards workers in proportion to how much their companies succeed while pragmatically encouraging productivity.  An employee's core compensation remains untouched and thus intact either way.  However, if they contribute to higher profits for their organization, they will also be given a fixed portion of that profit like all other workers or could even be given an amount that reflects their specific proportion of the contributions.  This would revolutionize employee morale and the financial security of general people if it was implemented all throughout the country.

Without profit sharing or incredibly high compensation apart from it, there is literally no reason to come close to taking a job any more seriously than whatever is enough to just keep the job.  Enriching an employer just to enrich an employer is a meaningless thing on its own.  It neither has any moral duty (on the Christian worldview) nor any personal reason for motivation beyond mere subjective preference.  The same is true of engaging in high levels of professional productivity for the supposed sake of productivity.

Profit sharing addresses all of these issues and corrects all of these objective deficiencies in many business models (not that it will automatically inspire subjective excitement or dedication in employees, but it is much more likely than its absence to do this).  Demanding or simply expecting incredible devotion and productivity apart from incredible compensation, one way or another, is exploitative.  Even moreso if it is proportionate to individual accomplishments, distributing a portion of the actual company profits among all who are responsible grants them livable compensation plus a surplus, legitimately rewards their work, and offers personal incentives for professional excellence.

Equal Access To Animal Sacrifices

I have found that some claim Biblical Judaism--which is vastly different from the irrationalism and legalism or rabbinic Judaism--disallows women from participating in the system of animal sacrifices as if they were secondary worshippers of Yahweh or to be kept out of public life.  Also, it is not unlikely that many complementarians default to imagining men as being the primary or exclusive ones to bring animals to be sacrificed to God under the Torah's commands, which they might also think is tied to the misandrist idea (as well as its misogynistic inverse) that moral responsibility for women and children falls on men, specifically fathers.  The Bible never says any of this or teaches anything from which this logically follows.  It also contradicts this entirely.

To start with, two passages detail sacrifices that are specifically to be given by women, one because of childbirth and one because of menstruation.  This means they could not be for sexist purposes because these actions are about being ceremonially clean as pertains to female anatomical and physiological characteristics, not mythical psychological traits women supposedly have because they are women.  Regarding the phrase sin offering in the following two passages, purification offering is a more fitting substitute that some translations offer in footnotes.  Giving birth to children, among other things, is not sinful.  God specifically invites humans to procreate in Genesis 1 and repeatedly promises children as a reward from him in the Torah (as in Deuteronomy 7:12-14).  Therefore, the woman who gives birth has not sinned.  She is still required to give a sacrifice for purposes of ceremonial cleansing rather than to make up for some wrongdoing.

Leviticus 12:6-8--"'"When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering.  He shall offer them before the Lord to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood.  These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl.  But if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering.  In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean."'"

Leviticus 15:28-30--"'"When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean.  On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting.  The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.  In this way he will make atonement for her before the Lord for the uncleanness of her discharge."'"

Two doves or two pigeons is the same sacrifice a man--a literal man, not a general person, though there a vitally relevant truths about Hebrew and English words for humanity that I will bring up later on in this post--is prescribed after discharges of his own earlier in Leviticus 15.  Note that, since the following passage about a man bringing sacrifices to the priest after a discharge comes chronologically prior to the portion of Leviticus 15 above, the reference to coming before the presence of God at the tent of meeting is not some declaration of a special relationship between God and male people.  Since it has already been said in this very chapter that the person who goes before the entrance to the tent of meeting goes before the Lord, it does not need to be reiterated again.

Leviticus 15:13-15--"'"When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean.  On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the entrance to the tent of meeting and give them to the priest.  The priest is to sacrifice them, the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.  In this way he will make atonement before the Lord for the man because of his discharge."'"

While these excerpts do not have the acknowledgement of men and women as equal within the very same verses as do the likes of Exodus 20:8-10, 21:28-32, Leviticus 13:29-39, Deuteronomy 15:12-17, 17:2-5, and many more passages, it is clear that men and women are allowed or required the same sacrifices for cleansing from uncleanness, brought by them to the priests and not, in the woman's case, by a spouse; it is just that men do not menstruate, and thus women have an additional source of discharge which is gender-specific.  This is not a stereotype or any sort of sexism, like the idea that women naturally gravitate towards a given sin or that they are not allowed to offer sacrifices because they are women, though they are metaphysically capable of bringing an animal and offering it just as men are.  Both men and women bring sacrifices of the same animals to the priests at the tent of meeting themselves.

There are also, indeed, multiple examples of the Torah mandating the same animal sacrifice for men and women who commit the same sin.  Because men and women are both equally human as logical consistency requires and the Bible plainly affirms (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2), the same actions that would be mistreatment against one are equivalent mistreatment against the other (Exodus 21:15, 17, 20-21, 26-32, etc.), and the same sins by men and women deserve the same punishment (besides Numbers 5 below, see passages like Leviticus 20:15-16, 27, Deuteronomy 13:6-10, and so on).  Just as these things are true, the animal sacrifice for sinners is the same for men and women guilty of the same offense.  This is directly taught in the Bible and not just necessitated by reason itself, which would be the case either way.

Numbers 5:5-8--"The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites: "Any man or woman who wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord is guilty and must confess the sin they have committed.  They must make full restitution for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it, and give it all to the person they have wronged.  But if that person has no close relative to whom restitution can be made for the wrong, the restitution belongs to the Lord and must be given to the priest, along with the ram for which atonement is made for the wrongdoer."'"

Numbers 6:1-3, 9-10--"The Lord said to Moses, 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: "If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of dedication to the Lord as a Nazarite, they must abstain from wine and any other fermented drink . . . If someone dies suddenly in the Nazarite's presence, thus defiling the hair that symbolizes their dedication, they must shave their head on the seventh day--the day of their cleansing.  Then on the eighth day they must bring two doves or two young pigeons to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting."'"

While the sacrifice in the above portion of Numbers 6 is specifically invoked if someone dies in the Nazarite man's or woman's presence, since they are not to go near a dead body even if it belongs to their father or mother or brother or sister (6:6-8), verses 13-20 detail what sacrifices were to be brought when the period of the vow ended for good (it would reset if the conditions of the vow were violated according to 6:12).  In these two cases, men and women, who are both explicitly emphasized in verse 2, are to bring sacrifices to the Levitical priests, with no difference in the requirements for either gender.  Even the animals are the same.  Again, men and women are equals in the plain teaching of the Bible so that neither is privileged in religious worship or penalties, including the animal offerings accompanying certain forms of restitution.

Also, the words for man/men or he/him, as is customary in some uses in English, really refer to all people unless clarified.   One can see how English translations of this look in versions of the Bible like the KJV, with the Torah repeatedly mentioning men and women in egalitarian ways (that is, without prescribing different obligations or rights) in the same verses only to suddenly speak of both using male words.  Generic passages that use male words, therefore, in no way prescribe burdensome duties for men as opposed to women or exclude women from activities like animal sacrifices outside of the ones tackled.  Compare Numbers 6:1-3 in the KJV, although many other verses exhibit this linguistic trend after plainly mentioning men and women, with Leviticus 4:27-28 in the KJV and the same verse in the 2011 NIV.  Since I already quoted Numbers 6 from the NIV, you can contrast the King James wording with the wording above.  Unless the context specifies otherwise, there is nothing about male words that means only actual male people are in view, and accordingly, the 2011 NIV used in this post was translated to reflect gender neutral meaning (still, it is not as if a statement about literal men or only women would mean the other gender is not to act or not act likewise, if the thing is good/evil and doable by all, unlike circumcision of the foreskin):

Numbers 6:1-3 (KJV)--"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord: He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink . . ."

Leviticus 4:27-28 (KJV)--"And if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty; Or if his sin, which he hath sinned, comes to his knowledge, then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned."

Leviticus 4:27-28 (NIV)--"'"If any member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord's commands, when they realize their guilt and the sin they have committed becomes known, they must bring as their offering for the sin they committed a female goat without defect."'"

Male nouns and pronouns absolutely, in the literal wording of Hebrew, can refer to men and women.  Aside from how Genesis 1:26-27 and 5:1-2 emphasize unflinching gender equality at the heart of Judeo-Christian metaphysics, which has obvious logically necessary ramifications for all sorts of moral issues, if the Bible is consistent, regarding what it would require or permit of men and women, this alone demonstrates that the male words in miscellaneous passages about bringing sacrifices in no way exclude women.  To truly prescribe gender-specific obligations to bring sacrifices, the text would have to say something like "Only men may bring animals before the Lord, but not women" or "A woman shall not bring an animal to the priest; her husband must do it for her".  Such statements are not present in the Torah, and the Torah also says not to add to its commands (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32), which is not the same as recognizing what would logically follow from the idea of a given command so that in prescribing or condemning one action, another is also prescribed or condemned.

Moreover, it would not be sexist against women alone if the Bible did teach that men have to be the ones to bring forth animals.  Far from being strictly a role of honor they must comply with due to the happenstance factor of their genitalia, this would be a great burden on them because they are men, as this would be a sexist expectation of them.  If men are the ones who "should" engage in warfare or protect women (as opposed to able-bodied people protecting people), then violence against them is expected, normalized, or trivialized; they are regarded as expendable or deserving of whatever violence befalls them at worst and as being more "fit" to receive violence at best.  If they are, then they are either treated as guilty of the sin others commit as long as the latter people are women of their family, which is itself unjust, or they are made to go beyond women for what would ultimately be irrationalistic reasons.

If the Bible did teach these things, it would be sexist against men as well as women, despite how utterly neglected this fact is among those who misunderstand the Bible and think it misogynistic, and it would have to be false on at least this matter since the same actions committed by men or women would have to be equally obligatory, permissible, or evil if morality exists.  There is nonetheless in truth no sexism in Biblical animal sacrifice laws, not that this would stop some people from making assumptions based upon scholarly writings or their own non sequitur misinterpretations rather than look to pure reason and the actual statements of the Bible.  What a fool someone is who believes that the sacrificial system was for men and not women (and that this would be solely sexist against women and not against both men and women in different ways)!  They can only have assumed this since the text never directly or indirectly teaches these things and quite blatantly gives examples refuting it.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

Coming Back From Assumptions

If someone who knows and embraces that no knowledge whatsoever can be found trough assumptions, they are in a better position to let go of any assumptions they allow themselves to hold regardless of knowing that they are inherently invalid.  A former or struggling rationalist, that is, would be in the best position of all the people who wander from the truth in belief, intent, or action to correct themselves by aligning with the supreme, omnipresent, intrinsic truths of logic.  Just as rationality is within everyone's reach, if only they decide to discover its necessary truths and absolute certainties, irrationality is within everyone's reach, if only they allow themselves to stoop to it.  Redemption is accessible for all in the latter category, something anyone could intellectually and morally pursue if needed.

A rationalist who stumbles--avoidably, as is the case for everyone when it comes to philosophical beliefs and moral actions--can always come back from their assumptions or negligence or apathy.  Fellow rationalists who are not likewise voluntarily sidetracked by emotionalism or assumptions of some kind would welcome him or her.  No matter how one might feel towards them personally, this wavering rationalist would have abandoned falsities and slavery to preferences in order to be aligned once more to the truth.  Had they remained in irrationalism, they would have deserved hostility (though never of an emotionalistic, hypocritical, or otherwise irrational and unjust form), but they have pushed submissions to illusions aside.

Redemption does not erase what has been believed or said or carried out.  No, this is why on any logically possible sort of moral theism, not just Christianity, turning back to reason, God, and morality could not itself atone for former blunders.  One would always have the metaphysical condition of that guilt, if morality exists, unless one is liberated from it by divine mercy.  On a human level, mercy is not required to understand how someone could turn to or back to reason, to appreciate their transformation, and to approve of the status they have led themselves to at that point.  Rationalists do not need other rationalists to discover and savor many truths, but they can support each other as the strongest of brothers or sisters, and Christian rationalists in particular.

Showing mercy for genuine errors and faults is one thing, but there is nothing rational about hostility towards someone who has initially renounced irrationality and other sin or who has returned from them.  How could it be rational or just to oppose someone for coming back to reason and justice, for repenting of their disregard, however temporary or comparatively small, for the truth?  One would not have to be merciful towards them for their errors (though even I, of all people, now would want this) to be accepting and outwardly thankful of their restoration.  For those who gravitate towards either mercy or intense but justified ire, the restoration of a person is nothing to dismiss.  Someone would have, in the best cases, chosen reason and the realities it grounds over self-deception, emotional persuasion, and every single kind of assumption.

The Localization Of Consciousness

It does not in any way seem as if my mind is thinking actively, as opposed to passively perceiving, where my fingers or thighs are.  I can feel physical sensations in those areas of my body, and I can focus on those anatomical locations, but it in no way seems like the perceptions of my consciousness are centralized in body parts (non-spatially, of course, as consciousness is immaterial even if created by the body's neural matter) like my shoulders or toes.  Without consciousness inhabiting those parts of my perceived body, I would not be able to experience anything at all connected with them, from the physical feeling of the body part bring present to the perception of pleasure or pain, when applicable.

The unresolvable epistemological issue of whether my body is exactly as it appears aside, is my consciousness thus bound only to my "head" area, since that is, even non-spatially speaking, where abstract thinking and visual perception occurs?  No, for any sort of perception can only occur within a consciousness, so me feeling anything at all regarding my body from my scalp down to my toes means my consciousness extends all the way through it.  It is logically possible for a consciousness to exist without a particular experience, like that of feeling a stubbed little toe or the emotion of happiness, yet it is impossible for me to experience something like the feeling of a ring on my finger without myself being conscious in a way that includes sensory perceptions and without something of my mental self permeating that part of my physical form.

My consciousness is local to my perceived head, since that is where I both generally perceive and also experience things like intentional thoughts, decisions of the will, and phenomena like the recollection of memories.  My body at large is still conscious as far as outward sensations go, though consciousness is intertwined with the body rather than a part of it; the interior of my body, on the contrary is shielded from my basic sensory experiences so that I would not feel anything inside except during circumstances like having a full stomach, feeling water descend in my throat, or experiencing a strained muscle.  As I have said before, senses require consciousness, but consciousness does not require senses.

In actuality, physical sensations, which includes these, are the only ones that logically necessitate (epistemologically) that I really do have a body (metaphysically).  Something like visual perceptions of my body utterly falls short of absolute certainty past the fact that the perceptions are being experienced in my mind.  I could also have a body without perceiving certain parts or even the whole of it, such as if when I am dreaming [1], but I cannot perceive any part of it without my mind existing and passively experiencing senses at the same time, even though some of the exact details of the sensory experiences could be totally illusory.  With physical sensations, this is not the case when it comes to the existence of my body as a physical residence for my mind, since a consciousness without a body could not experience physical sensations due to be immaterial.

My mind is nonetheless extended, though it does not occupy metaphysical space as a non-physical existent, throughout whatever parts of my body I perceive passively or otherwise.  One can reflect on the same truths as one fixates on particular parts of the body that might be far from the centralization of one's mind (which is not the brain regardless of the causal relationship).  One can will one's arm to lift, and it moves accordingly, but the arm is not thinking.  It is reacting in accordance to the will, which is experienced, as it were, in the head, though a unified consciousness is still present that has branches elsewhere.  My foot does not think, yet I can think and induce it to move.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/dreams-and-consciousness.html

Practical Autonomy

The greatest expression of autonomy is independent rationalistic awareness, secured either by discovering or revisiting knowable truths by looking to nothing but reason and, when applicable, introspection or mere outside perceptions.  All other forms of autonomy--from national self-rule to artistic expression to financial independence and beyond--are nothing by comparison to knowing the necessary truths of reason, which cannot have been any other way, without hoping to rely on other people in the way one relies on reason.  Others might prompt specific discoveries of specific logical truths, but one is ultimately looking to reason and could have discovered them beforehand or later on through reason alone.

There are more practical or less significant forms of autonomy all the same, still hinging knowingly or otherwise on the inherently true and always accessible nature of logic for their very possibility.  With or without doing anything more than passively gliding through it, someone who can repair their own home appliance, to give one example, is exercising autonomy of a kind despite how one cannot know purely from reason, unprompted by fallible sensory perceptions or hearsay, how to even perform such a repair.  Indeed, this could be done as an intentional expression of rationalistic autonomy, not that this is what many people would be thinking of as they strive to save money without paying outside professionals for a task.

Though it requires, given human limitations, either trial and error--to even then not know what will happen the next time one performs a task--or hearsay to point one in the supposedly right direction, doing everything from growing one's own food if possible to repairing one's own belongings can absolutely be motivated by recognition and awe of the fact that reason allows for autonomy.  Manifestations of this type are far more practical in nature than discovering or returning to abstract necessary truths, especially those strictly pertaining to reason, and yet they are still achievable.

Using what one has rather than buy a new, unneeded item from a business, without even hoping to store it as a reserve rather than just consume it to consume, would be one way to exercise this more practical autonomy.  Taking measures to not have to rely on a government, corporation, or stranger to meet basic survival or comfort needs as much as one's finances and health allow for is to pursue independence, though many people who seek to live with this sort of autonomy often forsake or never understand the far more significant ideological independence rationalism allows for, or how even more practical acts of independence can reflect the desire to know how reason is what allows for the fullest autonomy.

There are more ways to cling to independence than just discovering logical axioms or other strictly logical truths without external promoting or reasoning out what must follow from an idea that an experience had to bring to one's attention.  Lesser but numerous in the ways it can be applied, practical autonomy both is pragmatically useful and does not have to be grasped at the expense of rationalistic awareness.  One can avoid all assumptions, pursue autonomy of reflection on truths and possiblities, and still practice and enjoy independence in more practical ways, which are still only possible or knowable because of the abstract truths of reason.

Daniel 12:2 Teaches Annihilationism

Annihilationism is not only taught in the New Testament.  Subtle hints and explicit teachings alike are found in the Old Testament, among them Daniel 12:2.  In an eschatological segment, the chapter says that the multitudes will sleep in the dust of the world and be awoken.  This summary of soul sleep and the resurrection of dead humans is followed by what is supposed to happen to two categories of people.  Some, it says, are resurrected or "awoken" to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting contempt.

There could not be a contrast between everlasting life for the righteous and the fate of the wicked if both groups are to live forever.  It would be absolutely deceptive at worst and pathetically misleading at best for anyone to linguistically distinguish between eternal life and endless torture since eternal life is logically required for endless torture, as having everlasting life does not have to mean a person exists in bliss without end.  It just entails that a being does not cease to exist as a consciousness.

Alone, this is enough to disprove the idea that this is clear communication of a contrast between eternal bliss and eternal agony.  There would be no contrast but the kind of everlasting life if this was the case.  Just by saying that some awaken from the sleep of death to everlasting life, Daniel 12:2 already qualifies that only certain people among the resurrected dead receive this unending existence.  For it to say that the rest of humanity also receives eternal life would be an obvious contradiction and thus both ideas could not be true at once.

Now, does the rest of the verse say something about what happens to the wicked after resurrection that actually contradicts the fact that if all receive everlasting life, it cannot be true that only some people do?  It is a necessary truth that lacking everlasting life being the same as eventually ceasing to exist, to live.  The remainder of the verse does not say anything contradictory.  It says that those who do not rise to eternal life receive shame and everlasting contempt.  Nowhere does it say they will also live forever in torment.

First of all, it does not say that their shame is everlasting, only the contempt directed towards them.  Someone does not need to still be alive to be hated.  They do, however, need to be alive, even if only as a consciousnesses without a body, to experience shame (though the Bible teaches that everyone has both a mind and a body in their afterlife, and the afterlife of the wicked simply does not endure forever).  Daniel 12:2 very clearly teaches that not everyone lives forever in any capacity, that only the righteous or redeemed continue to exist without end, and that the rest of humanity will at some point truly perish following their resurrection.

The Expression Of Language

It takes at least a small degree of intelligence to perceive or understand anything at all, even if a person does not realize they are relying on logical axioms and their ramifications in all things, both metaphysically and epistemologically.  However, since non-rationalists are still inherently reliant on reason even in their ignorance and stupidity, they are not intelligent in any sort of intentional, developed, rationalistic sense.  They are still able to do things like use language, not that words are logical truths or that use of language is anywhere near the most significant expression of rationality.  Rationalists can of course also use language, but even if they personally have trouble articulating things, they are still the only thoroughly rational beings in existence.  In actuality, the ways rational and irrational people use language could easily be identical in many cases.

The difference lies in the worldview and motivations they are conveying.  A very rational person might know just how to use the words of a given culture to very precisely communicate all kinds of logical truths or concepts, having a mastery over the arbitrary construct of language even as they fully recognize the distinction between words and what words describe.  Their use of words might be genuinely helpful to others and could even emotionally captivate them.  Despite being skilled with words, they know reason is more fundamental than language and that words only express things deeper and more transcendent than themselves.  All of this would be an expression of language, but it is more foundationally an expression of that individual's rationality, their grasp of the intrinsically true laws of logic.

Another person could use language eloquently but in a hollow manner.  Ignorant of or apathetic towards the necessary truths of logical axioms, of the necessary truths that follow from them, and of introspection, moral ideas, and scientific perceptions, he or she might use words in a way that seems to spring from philosophical depth, yet they are doing nothing more than speaking of what they do not understand (or maybe what they do not care about to begin with) or just blindly parroting what someone else has told them.  There is no fixation on truth, no love of necessary truths and absolute certainty, no determination to avoid assumptions, no pursuit of justice, and no attempt to build interpersonal relationships as strong as human epistemological limitations allow for.  There is only a shallow egoism or a blind coasting on intellectual waters they could know if only they decided to.

How certain people use language can be an expression of genuine intelligence (the intentional comprehension of logical truths and the things logical truths govern) or an expression of stupidity even if it gives the illusion of rationality.  Whether through premeditated rhetorical manipulation or pure stupidity, it is entirely possible for someone to wield words as if they are rational and deep when they are not.  These truths are not contradictory, or else only one or neither of them could be true.  It is indeed the case that no one can know just from the coherence of someone's words which kind of person they are--for unless one could see into their minds, there are all manner of metaphysical and rhetorical illusions that other people could be intentionally or unintentionally brushing up against.

Are Microtransactions Predatory?

Small, sometimes repeatable payments have infiltrated the gaming industry in particular.  Called microtransactions, they have made appearances in everything from free mobile games like Dead by Daylight Mobile or Diablo Immortal to mainstream home console releases like Diablo IV.  As they remain an ordinary, potentiall intrusive part of gaming, they also allow for unprecedented money generation opportunities.  Some people might feel pressured to spend more money than they normally would if a title had a fixed price, but microtransactions cannot force anyone to buy them, and they are neutral on their own like so many other things.  This does not mean that asinine greed is not often behind their implementation all the same.

One can indeed play through some free-to-play games without every making a single payment to accelerate the process, obtain new skins, and so on.  That it takes more time and, for some, great self-control does not make it impossible, just less convenient.  The microtransactions usually either pertain to aesthetic or ability changes for characters (some perhaps being available for a limited time) or to bypassing an energy system, a mechanic where, especially in mobile games, you can only play--or just attempt--a certain number of levels before having to wait for the energy to fill back up.  Payment will replenish the energy or secure better weapons or equipment to make the most of each individual level.  Sometimes, money can buy several different in-game currencies that are in turn spent on these things.

Although they can be harmless, off to the side, and associated with genuinely free but strong games, microtransactions can still certainly be an extreme expression of avarice in the entertainment industry.  They can still supplement the otherwise nonexistent revenue generated by a quality free-to-play game, sometimes called "freemium" for its free access that comes with premium additions at a price, but they can also be placed out of sheer greed.  An executive who prioritizes receiving gratuitous amounts of money would of course not only be fine with needless microtransactions or with pressuring people to pay them, but also with adding them to a software in every digital crevice they expect to get away with.  In a sense, because enough consumers caved in, gaming has come to be dominated by more and more microtransactions.

It is not that microtransactions are inherently driven by greed or that there is no such thing as a legitimate microtransaction side to a free-to-play game.  With gaming, much more explicitly greed-fueled practices include locking online multiplayer behind a paywall through services like Nintendo Switch Online or Xbox Live.  You have already paid for the games, except in the case of the "freemium" types, and past consoles like the 3DS, Wii, and PS3 did not require paid subscriptions to access online multiplayer, so it was not even always an industry norm.  There is also the possibility of intentionally withholding core content to be released as DLC for an additional charge.  Furthermore, there is the habit of some companies releasing games that are far from technically finished or polished in order to vacuum up as many preorders as they can.

Microtransactions themselves are not predatory and are only perceived as inherently oppressive or the result of greed by people who have assumed they must be heinous on their own, or by those who have terrible self-control.  No, weakness with resolve or financial impulse control is not the moral responsibility of anyone but the individual consumer, though if greed is immoral, it is of course nonetheless immoral for companies to hope that consumers will squander money or be content to pay for more than they would have under a different business model.  The corporate decision-makers and the consumers can still err in their own ways, with microtransactions, as is true of many things, being a neutral thing that can be introduced with terrible motivations.

The Sluggard Of Proverbs

Several parts of Proverbs mention a sluggard of almost sarcastically extreme laziness.  Proverbs 6:6-11 contrasts the ant, which stores food and enjoys the rewards of its labor accordingly, with the sluggard, who has such an affinity for sleep that they allow poverty to "ambush" them.  For another reference, Proverbs 20:4 speaks of a sluggard who does not plow and thus receives no harvest later on, leaving them with nothing of this kind as others might be celebrating their bounty.  On the level of superficial assumptions, passages like that of 6:6-11 might seem to glorify constant productivity on the level of physical labor, even to the point of blaming the poor for their status or condemning moments of inactivity.  Beyond how the Bible separately prescribes specific ways to not mistreat the poor (like in Deuteronomy 24:10-15), Proverbs is only denouncing laziness rather than either poverty or rest.

Poverty and scarcity can spring upon someone suddenly if they are truly unwilling to pursue anything but physical relaxation and look past excuses to not put forth effort in their lives.  An industrious, sincere person might still fall into poverty due to factors beyond their control.  The inverse is also true.  A very wealthy person born into luxury they do not have to work for could be actively lazy and not automatically forfeit their comfort, their money, and their general belongings or connections.  Passages like Proverbs 6:6-11 are distinctively not a denial of these things or an encouragement to make one's life revolve around ceaseless toil.

The person being addressed is the sluggard, first of all.  The author is not saying that an exhausted or self-aware, rational working person taking a break is the same as being a sluggard and if they did, the claims would be false.  It is the fool who thoughtlessly avoids all labor--not even of a strictly professional kind, but even the labor needed to live outside of civilizational structures, like expending effort to find or prepare food--with little to no concern for the future that is in view.  Neither morality nor self-beneficial pragmatism rouses their attention.  Proverbs 6 describes a person who is already entrenched in sheer laziness.

This kind of person who sleeps away their time and folds their hands to rest might very well find themselves destitute.  The sluggard is not the overworked employee looking for reprieve or someone who simply does not orient their life around something as meaningless left to itself as labor.  In fact, the Bible makes it clear that rest is so vital that there is to be a day of rest for every six days of work, the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2).  This is to extend to even the animals a person has (Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:12-15).  No, Proverbs is neither saying poverty is deserved by everyone who falls into it (or was involuntarily born into it) nor saying that there is no place for rest amidst work.

The sluggard of Proverbs becomes poor because he or she refuses to do anything out of practical necessity.  They would truly be irresponsible or even parasitic.  In contrast, a poor worker is already poor.  Industry is very unlikely to actually help someone escape poverty anyway (not without luck, at least).  Doing nothing certainly does not help, but labor alone does not mean someone will become what we might today call middle or upper class.  If working hard guaranteed wealth, there would not be so many people in financially difficult situations.  The person who coasts along in philosophical apathy and does nothing at all to stop themselves from becoming poor, either by wasting their resources or by refusing to work towards their own wellbeing, is a fool indeed.

The Participants In Adultery

Marriage is not about documents, vows, or ceremonies.  These are all social constructs that have nothing to do with inherent logical truths being true and that the Bible absolutely does not prescribe.  There are truths about marriage and many other things that one might never think of or need to think of if it was not for the stupidity of someone else prompting one to focus on a specific ramification of something, and one of these for marriage involves adultery.  Some misconceptions about adultery are fairly mainstream, such as the idea that opposite gender friendships while married are "emotional affairs."  A less popular, fallacious concept which one might otherwise never think of, though, is the notion that in cases of adultery, only the cheating spouse has erred and the other party is by default not morally guilty.  

According to this idea, since only the already married person has broken vows, the other party could not have done anything wrong.  Yes, it is asinine for a betrayed spouse--and things like extramarital flirting are not adulterous and are even Biblically permissible (Deuteronomy 4:2)--to only think of the person besides his or her spouse as the offender when adultery requires two voluntary participants.  It is logically possible for adultery to be conducted by deceptive means.  A man or woman might pursue a romantic, non-polyamorous relationship with a separately married person who has not revealed that they are married or who has said they are not married.  The person the latter committed adultery with has not seen that their partner is already married to someone else and could of course not be in the wrong here in this way.  However, if adultery is immoral and if someone entices a married person to commit adultery or willingly chooses this action, "knowing" of the marriage as much as one can know given human limitations, he or she would absolutely be in the wrong as well.

The contrary concept is like the idea that men are morally free to be sexually promiscuous and women must remain virgins or all but virgins.  Aside from the logical contradiction of gender-specific moral obligation (if something is good or mandatory, it is good or mandatory in itself and not because of who does it), who the fuck would heterosexual men have sex with even if this was true other than women?  If the women were promiscuous, this would mean the promiscuous men are contributing to evil.  If the women were virgins, the promiscuous men would be taking from them what they believe the women are supposedly obligated to retain.  Thus, even if the morality of promiscuity was different for men and women--an impossibility--the men could not do what they are "free" to do without women simultaneously not doing what they should, which means that the obligation would ultimately be the same for everyone anyway since both sides would be immoral.  The same is true here with a married and unmarried offender: the obligation to not commit adultery would be there for both participants.

The adulterous spouse, except for cases of legitimate deception or omission of information, could not have betrayed their partner without the outside party intentionally or casually committing the adultery with them!  The one person breaking their vows is not even the real reason why adultery would be immoral.  It is not formal or informal vows before an audience of any sort, or even in private, that truly bind a couple in a potentially lifelong, committed relationship.  It is love, willingness to belong to the other person, and mutuality that would be the basis (along with rationalism) of any legitimate romantic or marital bond.  This fact about the true relevance of the vows still does not change that the obligation to not commit adultery cannot only be present for spouses and not for unmarried people outside the relationship.  It is not as if adultery can only occur when both participants are separately married!

Movie Review--Cube

"I mean, nobody wants to see the big picture.  Life's too complicated."
--David Worth, Cube


A conceptual predecessor of Saw, even if James Wan never watched, discussed, or heard of it, Cube features a starting premise comparable to that of the biggest horror franchise known for traps.  The sheer conceptual creativity of focusing on a handful of people inside a series of cubic rooms, some of them rigged with lethal mechanisms, disguises the budgetary restraints of the film and allows the philosophical approaches to the trial to take a place of great prominence.  Cube succeeds as an independent film that foreshadows the later development of a subgenre within the loosely overlapping horror and thriller genres and that makes the most of its limited production resources.


Production Values

Little to no CGI is present for much of the film, leaving the mystery, acting, and themes to hold Cube together.  Solid performances from cast members that are not necessarily familiar to mainstream viewers help push each scene along.  Cube is driven forward primarily by its character interactions and by the ambiguity of the setting, so consistently weak acting could have shot the film in the leg.  Thankfully, the cast showcases desperation, despair, aggression, and vulnerability well across the full runtime.  Characters that survive until the last fourth of the movie are genuinely developed in that viewers see new sides of them, and, although each one falls into their own category that might at times resemble a cliche, their distinct personalities, talents, and philosophical ideologies make them unique by comparison to each other.


Story

Some spoilers are below.

A man named Alderson wakes up inside a cube-shaped room numerous square panels on the walls and advances into a separate room only to trigger a grated device that slices him into pieces.  Seemingly not long after, a group of people in similar rooms shaped like cubes converge and begin an attempt to escape.  At first a set of numbers in the passages between rooms seems to suggest which rooms contain traps, but they turn out to serve as markers for certain positions within the larger cube.  Even while making progress in venturing through the trap network, the worldviews and personalities of those in the cube clash to the point of impending violence.


Intellectual Content

Cube doesn't focus on moralism to the same extent as Saw or Se7en, but the stress of the film's situation does bring out abusive tendencies and sexism towards both men and women in at least one abductee and nihilism in another, forcing the characters to examine themselves and each other in light of their values, desires, and goals.  Nihilism, the unverifiable and irrefutable idea that meaning does not exist is one of the film's grandest ideological focuses.  Never once do any characters specifically say that it is impossible to prove that objective meaning (the only kind of meaning, as a subjective sense of fulfillment or contentment is irrelevant) does not exist, as one can at most only refute fallacious ideas that conflict with nihilism, but they do argue about the nature of meaning without shying away from its importance.  In a culture where casual cynicism might be confused for nihilism, even that much is useful.


Conclusion

As an independent movie, Cube is a classic example of the thematic and storytelling creativity that competent filmmakers can produce with limited resources.  Enormous budgets and actors/actresses that most audiences would recognize are in no way requirements for a film to possess quality.  Its originality is by far its strongest, most overarching aspect, but most of its other elements are not weak.  They fit together in a way that merges simplicity and complexity: the simplicity of the premise and the lax need for effects other than the practical kind give the comparatively abstract themes and mystery the spotlight.  Even if the mystery is left almost wholly intact, there are major plot developments, and Cube is all the better for it.


Content:
 1.  Violence:  A man's body is cut apart and falls to the ground in pieces.  Another person's face dissolves onscreen when sprayed with acid, and several physical fights between characters spill blood.
 2.  Profanity:  Words like "fuck" are used multiple times.

So-Called Secrets To Obtaining Wealth

Habits of the rich, either of especially wealthy individuals or of a class of people financially secure enough to live very differently from ordinary people, might receive attention as so-called secrets to amassing great wealth.  Making their bed in the morning, waking up early, and more might be assumed to be the special reason why someone became wealthy, as if the easiest and only sure way to be rich is not to be born into wealth.  A rich person is not necessarily irrational or evil, as is also the case with the poor, but making their bed is of no relevance to accumulating money.  Some of these things, like waking up early, are not even viable options for some of the poor because they are too exhausted from worry or working multiple jobs to have the luxury of depriving themselves of additional sleep.

Ironically, another supposed "secret" of the rich might be that they sleep for seven to eight hours a night, or some other specific amount.  Not only can this conflict with the idea of waking up early, but it too is irrelevant on all levels but the most tangential.  You might have a better chance of making the most of work opportunities with plenty of sleep, but sleeping any particular amount will not secure someone a high-paying job or even one with livable compensation.  Money will not appear in one's savings and broader material wealth does not flood into one's life simply because of sleep!  In a very specific way, sleep can help with wealth acquisition and management: no being that needs sleep can work well or plan their future if they are too exhausted to stay awake.

Other things like meditating for five minutes a day or taking cold showers absolutely have no direct or even strong connection with increasing wealth.  Meditating daily or, again, sleeping for eight hours a night will not grant someone a deserved raise on the basis of merit, seniority, or increases in the cost of living if their employer is cruel or greedy.  These habits will not erase debts or suddenly put better employment opportunities in one's life in a job drought or exploitative industry.  If a rich person has these habits, they are a happenstance personal routine.  Habits do not make a person wealthier besides the habit of using money one already has to generate more income.  Luck or exploitation are the fastest ways to get to the point where one could engage in this particular habit.

Yes, for certain individuals, some of these activities might help them feel more emotionally stable, which does not hurt their attempts to build wealth or generally enjoy and appreciate what they already have, but no one will actually become rich by just doing these things.  Someone could wake up early or meditate and yet not have a job; someone could sleep for some arbitrary amount of time each night--which, again, might contradict waking up early, which would entail sleeping less, depending on when a person falls asleep--will not give someone better job prospects or remove any exploitation from their career.

Any rich person who believes otherwise is just making assumptions and believing in things that are demonstrably false (by logical necessity) in order to make themselves feel more responsible for their wealth than they really are.  If a poor or economically middle-positioned person believes this, they are by necessity only making assumptions, and false ones, they are just trying to hold to irrationalistic hope that an easier life is within their clutches.  There is nothing but assumptions and contradictions to stand on for them.  Emotionalistic or otherwise irrationalistic hope is by nature deviation from aligning with necessary truths, which govern finance, practicality, and class structure no less than they do everything else.

Pagan Entities Of The Bible

Unless a being is an uncaused cause [1] at least according to its own ideology, it is absolutely not a god, but a created, contingent mind, like the Olympians of Greek mythology.  The word has been exaggerated and conceptually misused by fools.  For instance, Athena springs out of the head of Zeus wearing her full armor, and Zeus himself is the child of Cronus (also spelled Kronos), who in turn has his own father and mother.  Neither is a true god or goddess despite the asinine traditional labeling.  Whether or not a given being is allegedly the uncaused cause or a contingent albeit superhuman creature according to its own related philosophies, the Bible mentions certain pagan pseudo-deities throughout multiple books.

In saying to not invoke the names of other gods, Exodus 23:13 does not at all say to not think about or mention the names of these pseudo-deities, and Deuteronomy 12:29-31 only condemns learning about various forms of paganism to imitate their beliefs and practices (one would not even be permitted to know examples of what to avoid otherwise!).  To invoke is to call upon something for aid, not the mere uttering of a word with some other intention.  Also, over and over, the Bible mentions pagan entities by name, so to read the Bible by default would expose one to such references, and to read certain passages aloud would require that one indeed says these names.  What are some of these pseudo-deities?

One can find mention of Molech in the Torah, the god associated with human sacrifice of children by burning them (reportedly inside a hollow bull-like statue), an act declared a capital sin in Leviticus 20:1-5.  Later, there is Dagon, the supposedly half-humanoid and half-fish Philistine god whose statue is found broken after it spends multiple nights next to the ark of the covenant in 1 Samuel 5:1-4.  There are also Asherah and Baal, each named more than once, the former tied to poles of worship Yahweh demanded the destruction of (Deuteronomy 7:5, 12:3) and the latter revered by priests that repeatedly interact with Yahweh's servants (1 Kings 18:16-40, 2 Kings 10:18-28).  Jeremiah 7:18 also speaks of an unspecified goddess called the Queen of Heaven among the false deities worshipped rather than Yahweh, and Isaiah calls the Babylonian deities Bel and Nebo mere idols carried by beasts (Isaiah 46:1).

The New Testament also mentions a handful of pagan beings by name.  Paul and Barnabas are confused for Hermes and Zeus respectively after Paul, through Yahweh's power, heals a lame man in Lystra (Acts 14:8-18).  Since Paul speaks to them, they assumed he is Hermes, the messenger of the Olympians, and a local priest of Zeus wanted to sacrifice animals to them because they thought their pseudo-deities had come down to them in human form.  In Acts 19:23-27, a silversmith named Demetrius objects to how Paul has preached against idolatry and thus "slandered" the divine nature (and profitable reputation) of Artemis, the goddess worshipped in Ephesus and the province of Asia.  Irate about the disrespect/disregard shown towards this pseudo-goddess, Demetrius cites his invalid concerns to workers in similar trades, his own occupation centering on making shrines of Artemis.

The Bible is very overt in specifying some of the pagan beings followed in the ancient world and the types of practices connected with them.  It neither neglects to mention them by name in many cases nor has little to say about the metaphysical errors like the assumption that a fashioned piece of wood or metal is sentient (Jeremiah 10:3-5, 14), not that literal idolatry is the only possible expression of paganism.  The likes of Isaiah 44:6, 45:18, 46:9 also make it as clear as language can that the Biblical stance on paganism is one of sheer condemnation because there is no deity besides Yahweh according to their words--something that contradicts conventional Trinitarianism as well as paganism.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html

Deception And Belief

Anyone could be lied to, that is, told something false in an intentionally inaccurate way.  To withhold information is not to lie, nor is to say something true that might be perceived in a misleading way.  One can manipulate or appease others with words in certain situations while never distorting the truth in communication.  Indeed, this can be both pragmatic and pleasurable, particularly when a rationalist toys with an unrepentant irrationalist, perhaps relishing their superiority.  Without the voluntary belief on the part of the deceived, though, there could be no successful deception even when this is the intention.  There could still be lies and liars, but no one would be deceived, for no one would believe that which the liar asserts.

A great number of ideas are philosophically unverifiable, no matter how persuasive or appealing they are to non-rationalists.  For instance, I cannot know if anyone is ever telling me the truth about what they feel in a given moment.  It is logically possible for them to be correct in whatever they tell me as long as nothing about the concept itself contradicts reason, and it is logically possible for anything they say about their mental states to also be false (as in, "I am exhausted" or "I enjoy talking with you") even if it is logically possible.  This means it is already irrational to believe such things, whether they come from one's best friend or spouse or a total stranger.  One can recognize that they might seem true and probably be true, yet this is different than outright belief.

Still, belief is a prerequisite to being deceived.  It is never the deceived's fault that they were lied to in the same way it could never be someone's fault for being murdered or assaulted, but it absolutely is their fault, short of literal mind control, if they believe what anyone tells them when it is not some strictly logical truth being communicated.  No one can force them to make assumptions if anything else is conveyed.  No one can make them believe anything, true or false or verifiable or unverifiable.  Since a strictly logical and therefore necessary truth like axioms or the fact that self-creation or infinite regress are impossible can be immediately discovered (if for the first time) or recalled in each moment, these can be known to be true with absolute certainty if someone speaks of them.

All else is epistemologically probabilistic at best or only believable on faith at worst no matter the source.  I mean faith in the asinine sense of assumptions here and not commitment based upon evidence that is not misinterpreted or treated as a basis for believing what mere evidence cannot prove.  Whatever is unknowable or unknown is something that one could be lied to about, yes.  Regardless of the content of the unverifiable claim, there is no deception that is completed without literal belief on the part of the one being lied to.  One does not have to assume others are lying in order to not assume they are telling the truth, as neutrality, or agnosticism, in these matters is the only valid position in light of human limitations.  People might wonder how to know if they can trust someone; the objective truth is that non-telepathic beings can never have a basis for this.

Scientific Paradigms

One would not just know from reason or introspection alone that the male climax during heterosexual intercourse could initiate pregnancy, that outer space does not have the same gravitational phenomena of Earth's surface, that material objects seemingly reduce to atoms at much smaller scales (and atoms to subatomic particles and some of these to still other units), that aluminum is a superconductor for electricity, that sea snakes must surface for air while eels have gills, that a banana will ripen faster in a bag, that human breathing release carbon dioxide, and so on.  These are neither necessarily true like logical axioms (such as that truth exists, which would still have to be true if it is false because then it would be true that nothing is true) nor self-evident in the way that one's own conscious existence is, something that is not even epistemologically true of one's own body.

One would have to directly observe various correlations or hear of them to, in many cases, have a reason to even think of these things to begin with, things which are logically possible since they do not contradict axioms and yet are neither true by default in themselves nor verifiable beyond the veil of subjective perception.  Some events or correlations, like various quantum activities that include the "orbit" [1] of an electron, might not be directly experienced, either because they would not be macroscopic to begin with, meaning no one could see them without hypothetical supernatural or technological aid, or because, in spite of being macroscopic, they are not occurring in front of a specific observer.  For an example of the latter, I do not witness hydrothermal vents in the bathypelagic or abyssopelagic zones of the ocean because I live on the surface and do not indirectly monitor such depths.  Whether by cumulative observational evidence or because of mere hearsay, certain scientific ideas/frameworks become dominant paradigms, broad or somewhat foundational ideologies that fit with all of most of the available perceptions.

Yet many people confuse hearing that something is scientifically true, whether it is a paradigm or something that falls within a paradigm, with it being proven to be true.  This is only epistemological hearsay, as with any claim of particular events in human civilization throughout history, and one can recognize testimony or other sensory-related evidences where they are genuinely relevant as fallible probabilistic factors without believing the irrationalistic fallacies of science, much less scientific hearsay, providing absolute certainty that a paradigm is true.  Moreover, most people are hypocrites regarding this anyway.  Do they believe that Earth is only spherical because people agree, or because there is some arbitrary level of consensus?  It is spherical if it is spherical, not because of reports or beliefs or preference.  They might say this when pressed, but they would likely never think about such admittedly trivial matters (trivial on their own) without social prompting anyway.  This part is only problematic if someone misunderstands things, thinking that hearsay is provable or that the most foundational/important truths are not true and accessible independent of such experiences (like axioms, one's own mental states, the existence of an uncaused cause, and so on).

For all the glorification of scientific hearsay and consensus today, the proponents of these idiotic epistemological positions likely do not consistently believe their own tenets.  If they truly went with popularity or appeals to authority rather than realizing that all scientific phenomena are humanly unverifiable no matter how much evidence they have, they would actually be the ones to oppose more evidentially robust scientific paradigms as they become proposed.  The chronological precursor to germ theory, miasma theory, entails that foul air emanating from carrion is what causes various illnesses.  If they were born when this was standard belief, since they believe things are scientifically true (as opposed to seemingly and perhaps true) based upon the ideological climate of the day, they would have opposed miasma theory's decline of popularity.  Small particles from rotting flesh were supposed to be carried into people's bodies by respiration, at which point they would become sick.  In the late 1800s, this paradigm was replaced as a dominant epidemiological framework by germ theory with its emphasis on pathogens and microorgamisms, which might eventually itself be set aside as a popular scientific commitment in favor of some newly conceived conceptual system that somehow better fits a wider range of empirical evidence (which is always probabilistic and potentially illusory anyway for non-omniscient beings).

The very nature of the scientific method, though scientific laws could remain constant in spite of which paradigm is embraced at a particular time or place, is that it cannot prove anything beyond revealing evidential probabilities.  For a truth about science much more abstract than almost anyone is willing to discover or accept, there is the fact that you can never know just from noticing that event B follows event A--such as that consuming caffeine stimulates the nervous system and can enable greater concentration or that plugging in a computer charger restores its battery life--if one event caused another.  All the senses access are perceived correlations.  It does not logically follow from one event appearing in sequence with another, not even every time one tries repeat the observation, that the prior event is the causal reason why the subsequent event happened.  This is even if the correlation occurred as one perceived it and thus there is no disparity between mental experiences and the activities of the real external world of matter.  No paradigm, from germ theory to quantum mechanics to evolution, can be verified as long as human limitations persist, in part because of the inability to empirically distinguish true causation from hyper-consistent correlation.

In 100 or 50 or even six years or less, there might be novel dominant paradigms because of newly discovered correlations, which does not mean that the natural laws and events were not already there long before, that we do not have direct sensory or indirect technological means to observe.  Fools of any era, however, might believe scientific phenomena are known in themselves instead of on the level of subjective perceptions and logical deduction from unverifiable premises.  Fools might believe that correlation proves causation or that hearsay and consensus mean something is scientifically true (while only selectively holding to this).  Fools might think a scientific paradigm of their sliver of recorded history could not possibly be exchanged whether based upon sensory evidence or otherwise.  Logic alone refutes their philosophy of science, but even lesser yet still relevant historical and scientific developments conflict with this.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/12/an-electrons-position-in-orbit.html