The Off Topic Topic

[DGuller]

Question for DGuller and any other poker players.

One of the maxims I grew up with is that a player is not obligated to show his hole cards unless he's called, in order to preserve his ability to bluff in the future.  The other players have to pay to seem them.

It strikes me that televised poker removes this advantage, since hole cards are shown on camera.  Would this/does this change the dynamics of bluffing?

Depends on the level of skill of the players.  At an amateur level, it may have an impact, because other players may have you pegged wrong as to how likely you are to bluff, or you may have tells and they can pick up on them that much easier if they know your cards every time. 

At higher levels of skill, your bluffing frequency should be predictable, as there is a theoretically optimal frequency.  Having your cards revealed only matters if you're playing a specific strategy against specific players (i.e. playing exploitatively rather than optimally).  If you're playing optimally, then the other players would already know that you're bluffing a certain percentage of the time depending on the spot, and if you're executing on the strategy correctly having the hole cards revealed later wouldn't impact your future strategy.

[Admiral Yi]

They make specialized shoes for pickle ball.

[Josquius]

The Reformation

Dunno if that can be blamed entirely. The Dutch and Scandinavians maintain local wackiness despite going a lot more full on with that.

[Sheilbh]

Dunno if that can be blamed entirely. The Dutch and Scandinavians maintain local wackiness despite going a lot more full on with that.

Although some are relatively recent inventions, we just don't realise from outside - speaking of which the Gavle Goat survived this year!

[Syt]

[Legbiter]

The Reformation

Tom Holland argues persuasively that Humanism as an ideology is a kind of weak, attenuated Christian heresy. 

https://unherd.com/2022/11/humanism-is-a-heresy/

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think it is important which god(s) one doesn't believe in. I'm a lapsed Anglican, ie wishy-washy 

[Tamas]

The Reformation

Tom Holland argues persuasively that Humanism as an ideology is a kind of weak, attenuated Christian heresy. 

https://unherd.com/2022/11/humanism-is-a-heresy/

If you listen to the Rest is History podcast it becomes very clear very quickly that according to Tom Holland everything happens due to religious motivations.

[Jacob]

Tom Holland argues persuasively that Humanism as an ideology is a kind of weak, attenuated Christian heresy. 

https://unherd.com/2022/11/humanism-is-a-heresy/

I don't think it's super controversial to say that Humanism has roots in Christianity, given its origins.

"Weak, attenuated Christian heresy" makes it sound like we're supposed to think those origins are a strike against Humanism? And that some version of non-heretical Christianity (maybe of whatever version Holland prefers) is superior? Is that so?

[Sheilbh]

If you listen to the Rest is History podcast it becomes very clear very quickly that according to Tom Holland everything happens due to religious motivations.

I don't entirely disagree with him. Although I think his view is more that for the religious, which includes most people prior to, say, 1900, religion was a genuine, deeply felt and important motivating factor not just cynical exploitation by the elites or nonsense for credulous fools. And for people in the West as we are moving to post-Christianity our understanding, our ideologies, our way of interpreting the world is profoundly shaped by that Christian heritage.

"Weak, attenuated Christian heresy" makes it sound like we're supposed to think those origins are a strike against Humanism? And that some version of non-heretical Christianity (maybe of whatever version Holland prefers) is superior? Is that so?

I don't know if he's a believer. I've not read his book Dominion which is on Christianity's impact on the West, I've only read his classical and medieval stuff - Rubicon, Persian Fire and Millenium. I also watched his series on the early history of Islam which was, obviously, controversial at the time. I think he likes the trappings probably - the churches and services etc but I always get the sense it's as a historian or at best a very wishy-washy liberal Anglican than any particular sense of faith.

I think his argument is basically that Humanism is, broadly speaking, very Western. He looks at the World Humanist Congress' declaration which talks about universal rights, religion as "dogmatic" attempts to "impose their world-view on all of humanity" and suggests basically a scientific method for understanding ethics "through a continuing process of observation, evaluation and revision." His point is all of those propositions are broadly culturally contingent and in the context of that meeting, Western. They are also leaps of faith of exactly the kind Christianity is and the sort of leaps of faith (universalism, humanity as distinct etc) that Christians would make.

For example he points to the very different set of ideas about individual human worth and the importance of the human in classical Rome and Greece. Universal rights are not ultimately derived from scientific observation but come from Medieval natural law theory (now being revived around the "common good"). And the last 300 years of somoe people reacting against Christianity but still operating within its moral framework (humans as the centre of how society should be structured, the last shall be first, each human is made in the image of its creator etc) - so Christianity's assumptions continue to flourish even without Christians.

His warning is less that we all need to convert. Instead it's basically Nietzsche's warning - that without the Christian faith it's not clear how long the Christian morals can survive. Nietzsche's quite keen on that, as he put it about the pre-Christian ancient world "the days before mankind grew ashamed of its cruelty, before pessimists existed, life on earth was more cheerful than it is now". Observation, evaluation and revision as a guide for morality will produce a mirror not truth. Morality is not, as the WHC argued "an intrinsic part of human nature based on understanding and a concern for others" - the source of those values is not reason but the cultural world of those humanists.

That's the case he makes and I think there is something to it. I always enjoy reading John Gray, for example, who makes a similar case - but also sometimes puts a more stridently post-Christian perspective. Particularly from an environmental perspective I think he argues that looking at humans as other animals on the planet it is our Christian (and later Humanist) view of humans as distinct from the natural world and central to our society that supports environmental degradation. He embraces that to an eextent. But I think the morality of a truly environmental movement that placed humans as just one other part of our world would be very different from what we have and, from our perspective, would possibly be quite scary.

[Sheilbh]

I think it is important which god(s) one doesn't believe in. I'm a lapsed Anglican, ie wishy-washy 

I just wish we had loads of local Saints day festivals popping off all over the country. It would be far more fun even if now the number of actual religious participants would be tiny.

I always feel really sorry for the Catholics who were trapped in the British Empire in Ireland and Quebec because my sense is they got the worst of both worlds. The strictest Catholic morality/guilt/sin and Puritan clampdowns on fun

[Legbiter]

I think it is important which god(s) one doesn't believe in. I'm a lapsed Anglican, ie wishy-washy 

Lutheranism here in Iceland is basically a kind of background Shinto for the majority, a set of rituals one performs through one's life because it has been handed down. Hatch, patch, dispatch, a spiritual utility company if you will. So it has ever been I think. I doubt many laymen could articulate the Lutheran/Catholic distinction between faith and works for instance. They'd need a sneak peek at a Wikipedia article or two.

But yes, a mere Christian faith should be enough to inoculate one against the worst of the modern priests of Bhaal. The Brain is the Lutheran expert here and can elaborate according to the Uppsala Synod of 1593.      

[Legbiter]

His warning is less that we all need to convert. Instead it's basically Nietzsche's warning - that without the Christian faith it's not clear how long the Christian morals can survive. Nietzsche's quite keen on that, as he put it about the pre-Christian ancient world "the days before mankind grew ashamed of its cruelty, before pessimists existed, life on earth was more cheerful than it is now".

Egil's Saga is full of the blond beast unleashed, Nietzsche-style, it's very well told and the poetry, mindset and cultural assumptions are very, very far from anything Paul wrote... I'd never hesitate to recommend it.

The Nazis were the closest to attempt a total non-Christian alternative apart from the Commies in the 20th century IMO. 

[Jacob]

His warning is less that we all need to convert. Instead it's basically Nietzsche's warning - that without the Christian faith it's not clear how long the Christian morals can survive. Nietzsche's quite keen on that, as he put it about the pre-Christian ancient world "the days before mankind grew ashamed of its cruelty, before pessimists existed, life on earth was more cheerful than it is now".
Observation, evaluation and revision as a guide for morality will produce a mirror not truth. Morality is not, as the WHC argued "an intrinsic part of human nature based on understanding and a concern for others" - the source of those values is not reason but the cultural world of those humanists.

Ah I see. Interesting.

I personally don't think Christianity acts as much of a guarantor of those values either - given the cruelties and inhumanities carried out by folks who self-identify as Christians - sometimes justifying their actions explicitly by their Christianity.

[Legbiter]

I personally don't think Christianity acts as much of a guarantor of those values either - given the cruelties and inhumanities carried out by folks who self-identify as Christians - sometimes justifying their actions explicitly by their Christianity.

Jacob encounters the problem of evil. Good luck.